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FAR AND AWAY (1992) This epic about Irish immigrants, starring Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise, met with far and away the roughest treatment Howard received as a filmmaker. A decade later, he still winces when he talks about it. ''It was an absolutely perfect filmmaking experience -- it was the movie I wanted to make, and I loved working with Tom and Nicole. At our preview screenings, people were applauding; I really thought we had it. The critical response blindsided me unlike anything I ever, ever experienced before. That was the only time I was really depressed by the response to a film. I was making a nostalgic romantic comedy set against an epic backdrop, but maybe because we made it in 70mm the critical community thought, 'He thinks he's being David Lean here....' That summer, I was licking my wounds, and then a great thing happened. I saw Unforgiven, and I loved the movie so much. Eastwood's work had felt inconsistent sometimes, and when I called him to congratulate him I was trying to get to 'Did you do anything different? Why was this one a great work of art?' And he said, 'I gave it the same 100%.' It reminded me of the lesson I thought I had taught myself in television -- he tried his hardest on every other movie, and on this one it just came together.''

THE PAPER (1994) Howard and Michael Keaton teamed up for the third time on this drama about life at a New York City tabloid, which was well received but only broke even. ''The Paper was a blast because I loved [doing research and] hanging around the people at the Daily News -- they're smart and they're funny -- and I loved working with Michael again. My movies aren't necessarily [made for] New York screenings, but I had the greatest screening in New York with the journalistic and literati community understanding the film. I told myself, 'This is so cool, I'm never seeing this movie again,' and I haven't.''

APOLLO 13 (1995) Hanks and Howard reconnected in the director's first Best Picture nominee, about NASA's ill-fated mission to the moon. ''Hanks had so much confidence in the truth of the story that at a certain point, I jotted down on my script [as a note to myself], 'Just show it.' It was the first time I really just showed an audience what happened, and didn't feel like I needed to underscore the moments. It was a difficult experience to top -- I was doing research by talking to people who had walked on the moon.''

EDTV (1999) After directing Mel Gibson in the abduction thriller Ransom (as in The Missing, notes Howard, ''abduction is the inciting incident''), Howard returned to comedy with a Matthew McConaughey film about a video clerk who allows his life to be filmed and shown on TV. Audiences didn't want to see it on any screen. ''I think its biggest problem was that it followed The Truman Show. It went over really well with preview audiences, but we had a hard time getting test audiences -- it felt like, 'We just saw it.' I knew Truman was happening and when I saw it, I breathed a big sigh of relief, because it was a fable and ours was a romantic comedy with a lot of laughs, and I felt fine. Boy, was I wrong.''

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