Films that you personally think, genuinely hurt a director's career

[Todd Tomorrow]

John Carter killed off animation director Andrew Stanton's live action career. It wasn't just that the film was a failure, there also was a lot of bad publicity around how he mishandled the promotion of the film. He went back to Pixar to direct a sequel to his own Finding Nemo.

Southland Tales sank Richard "Donnie Darko" Kelly's career.

Frank Capra considered It's a Wonderful Life ruinous to his career. The film was both a financial and critical flop and it only became popular over subsequent decades via TV showings.