Directors who peaked later and life and died at the top of their form?

[wilberfan]

I've long mused about why many film directors (who live long enough) have their later films turn out so weak or mediocre.   I guess I'm thinking of people like Chaplin, Billy Wilder...(I would add Woody Allen to this list).

I was discussing this with a friend who said, "Have there been any directors who didn't have success until midway thru their career and then sustained it until their death?  Any maybe whose last films were considered the finest of their career?"

(We also discussed someone like Orson Welles--whose career was almost upside down.  Some (well, me) consider his first two films the peak of his craft, which the others never lived up to.) 

Thoughts?

[jenkins]

Manoel de Oliveira did it



Kieslowski was mentioned

i live it when people are still awesome old

[SaunchSmilax]

Ang Lee isn't dead yet...but he was 46 when he made Crouching Tiger.

And I am one of *those* people who thinks Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk was a 21st century masterpiece.