Brian De Palma
Francis Ford Coppola
Stevie Wonder
Robert DeNiro
Al Pacino
Joni Mitchell
Bruce Springsteen
Meryl Streep
KISS (just kidding, they were always shit.)
Wouldn't nearly everyone, if not everyone, who is considered a legend fall into that category? I can't think of any legend, nor anyone at all, who did better work when they were senior citizens than when they were young to middle-age. Aging deteriorates the mind and body, and the older someone gets, the less likely they are to be in touch with / appeal to the most lucrative (younger) audience.
shareMaybe Scorsese. There's also a debate that I've heard people say about Spielberg having a better second half of his career. I disagree with that one though. Judi Dench had a late career rise and Maggie Smith has been pretty consistent.
shareEgil Skallagrímsson
shareAlmost everyone's best work is toward the forefront of their career, there's some kind of explanation for why this is that is specific to creative types, but I can't remember what it is off hand.
In any case, most of the ones I thought of have already been mentioned, so I'll just add:
The Rolling Stones
James Cameron
Robert Rodriguez
EDIT: Charles Bukowski. His later books and writings were significantly different enough from his early work, it seemed like the work of a different writer, and a bad one at that.
I don't even think Robert Rodriguez even had a good era. There was a lot of mediocrity in the 90s and early 00s.
I know you’re a Rodrigues hater, but his first films were bangers:
El Mariachi (1992)
Desperado (1995)
From Dusk Till Dawn (1996)
The Faculty (1998)
He later had: Sin City (2005) and Planet Terror (2007), but I would say those were after his golden era.
Regardless, there was a noticeable drop in quality after he had kids and started with the Spy Kid stuff.
He's done some good ones early on, but I feel there was too much mediocrity sprinkled in between to be considered a "good" era.
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