Tim Hunter

The teenagers in Hunter’s films talk, hang about and do not always know what to do next. We value his attention to that aimlessness, and his ear for dialogue that sounds as though it belongs to the young people speaking it. He co-wrote Over the Edge (1979), then made his feature directing debut with Tex (1982), adapted from S.E. Hinton’s novel. River’s Edge (1986) continued that close attention to teenage speech and behaviour. That early stretch gives us the clearest sense of what interests him as a filmmaker.

Television became his principal work from the late 1980s, with Twin Peaks (1990) and Mad Men (2007) among his credits. His directing credits also include Deadwood (2004), a Western we recommend for making the struggle to live together as absorbing as the violence. Ian McShane gives the series much of its force, though the elaborate speeches can test our patience. These are reasons to value the series, without assigning Hunter all the credit for what a large company of actors, writers and directors achieves.

We were frightened by Breaking Bad (2008), because its scrutiny of Walter White’s excuses makes his self-justification so difficult to ignore. Bryan Cranston makes the series funny too, without softening that scrutiny. Hunter directed the episode ‘A No-Rough-Stuff-Type Deal’, contributing to another programme whose achievement cannot fairly be claimed for an individual episode director. Its cleverness can become a nuisance, but the attention to Walter’s excuses gives us something more substantial to follow. We recommend it beyond the audience that habitually chooses crime dramas, while keeping that enthusiasm distinct from a judgement of Hunter’s contribution alone.

His feature career after the early successes has been less dependable, although he continued making films alongside television into the 2010s and 2020s. We would not choose an unfamiliar feature on his name alone. Start with Tex for the sympathetic handling of teenage life, and approach the later films individually.