The best kind of Ron Howard movie, according to Ron Howard: “If I had to choose one thing”
The one thing everyone can agree on about Ron Howard is that for whatever he lacks in dynamism, innovation, and the other intangibles associated with almost every other A-list director, he more than makes up for it by trying to tick off as many genres as possible.
There’s no right answer on whether it’s better to helm highly specific movies that couldn’t have been made by anyone else, like a Wes Anderson, Tim Burton, or David Lynch, or whether it’s better to have an identifiable style and still make a constant killing at the box office by appealing to the mainstream, like a Christopher Nolan, James Cameron, or Steven Spielberg.
Cinephiles would say the former, studio executives would say the latter, and Howard is happy being part of the camp that allows him to direct whatever he wants to direct, safe in the knowledge that his two Academy Awards, a career tally of over $4billion in ticket sales, and status as the co-founder of a production company have given him the right to do it.
Throughout his five-decade career, the former child star has made fantasy comedies, family comedies, action-packed blockbusters, biopics, festive capers, newspaper dramas, literary adaptations, globe-trotting adventures, period pieces, Star Wars spinoffs, and even told JD Vance’s life story for Netflix, which probably seemed like a good idea at the time.
As much as he doesn’t want to be stuffed in a box, it comes at the expense of individuality. Since he’s been weaving between styles and genres for so long, there’s no such thing as ‘A Ron Howard Film’ because he hasn’t shown enough flourishes to develop his own aesthetic, not that he sees it as a bad thing.
“Well, I love actors, and I love making all kinds of films, and I never want to impose a style or a stamp on any movie,” he explained to Ain’t It Cool. “I want to always discover what I think the story needs in order to realise its possibilities for the audience.” That said, if he was pressured into making one kind of film for the rest of his career, he revealed what his favourite form of Ron Howard-made cinema has always been.
“If I had to choose one thing in my life, only one kind of movie you could make and one kind of theme you could direct, it would always be a powerhouse acting opportunity,” he shared. That makes perfect sense, considering which of his pictures fit that bill better than the rest, and what they’ve meant to him on a personal and professional level.
There’s A Beautiful Mind, which won him his two Oscars, won Jennifer Connelly a ‘Best Supporting Actress’ prize, and landed Russell Crowe on the shortlist for ‘Best Actor’. There’s Frost/Nixon, the only movie he immediately knew he had to make, with Howard trying to secure the rights as soon as he’d seen Peter Morgan’s play, which he turned into a ‘Best Picture’ nominee with Frank Langella on Oscar-nominated form.
Last, but by no means least, there’s Apollo 13. It’s Howard’s personal favourite out of anything he’s made, and while it didn’t earn any notable recognition for its performances, the entire thing lives and dies on the strength of Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon, and Bill Paxton’s central trio, and those are just the first three that come to mind.
