The circus surrounding Coppola and Megalopolis got me thinking, there’s plenty of filmmakers who have worsened as their careers have progressed (the Wachowskis, as another instance) but I’m hard-pressed to think of one who has definitively improved with theirs.
I suppose an arguable example could be David Fincher, who began by directing music videos and commercials he himself loathed doing, but even the first half of his filmography I would say I would choose to watch over his second.
Is there a director, living or dead, you can think of that clearly has a superior latter half to their filmography?