Few directors can boast the level of success and acclaim that Gore Verbinski has managed across his career. His feature film directorial debut was the slapstick family classic “Mouse Hunt” (1997), which launched his career. Never content to be boxed in, Verbinski followed that up with the crime romance movie “The Mexican” (2001), starring both Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts at the height of their superstardom. Horror fans will remember his next directorial effort, “The Ring” (2002), his adaptation of the legendary Japanese movie that spawned an entire series of sequels and won him a slew of awards. Moving on to some of his best-known work, Verbinski helmed the first three “Pirates of the Caribbean” (2003–2007) movies, launching the swashbuckling franchise alongside producer Jerry Bruckheimer. Between those epic big-budget action movies, he somehow had time to sneak in a dark comedy collaboration with Nicolas Cage in “The Weather Man” (2005). Verbinski won Best Animated Feature at the Academy Awards for his movie “Rango” and went on to team up with Johnny Depp again in “The Lone Ranger” (2013). He returned to the horror genre with “A Cure for Wellness” (2016) before taking a long hiatus from directing that was broken by his time-traveling sci-fi adventure movie “Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die” (2025).