Sam Mendes’s first day directing a film, on American Beauty in 1998, left him deeply dissatisfied with the footage. The episode matters because it illustrates the high standards and decisiveness he brought from theatre to his first feature, despite the risks of challenging a studio.

The scenes were set in a fast-food restaurant and involved Kevin Spacey, Annette Bening and Peter Gallagher. Mendes disliked the performances, costumes, location and lighting, and asked the studio to reshoot; it agreed, and the replacement sequence was filmed three weeks later and used in the finished 1999 film.