What are some examples of a guest (or showrunner) director's name appearing the opening credits has instantly got you hyped for an episode?

The original post: /r/television by /u/MissingLink101 on 2025-12-01 12:16:07+00:00.

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This was prompted by ‘Stranger Things’ S5 recently where Frank Darabont’s name appearing before Episode 3 and The Duffer Brothers before episode 4 immediately got me excited for that episode/s.

I remember for ‘Hannibal’, you knew it was going to be a fucked up episode when you saw Vincenzo Natali’s (Cube, Splice etc) name appear and David Slade (Hard Candy, 30 Days of Night etc) did some great ones too.

Also whenever Greg Nicotero directed an episode of ‘The Walking Dead’ you knew there’d be some cool effects in it.

Rian Johnson also gave us a couple of great Breaking Bad episodes.

What other cases can you think of where you knew a guest director was about to bring you something cool or a showrunner taking over directing responsibilities would bring an big event/twist/story development?

(feel free to discuss any of the examples I gave or expand on them too)

Edit: 42 comments atm but the post has been downvoted?