Cinematographers, writers and composers
list of cinematographers and writers, and crew
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- Cinematographer
- Producer
- Director
Lubezki began his career in Mexican film and television productions in the late 1980s. His first international production was the 1993 independent film Twenty Bucks (1993), which followed the journey of a single twenty-dollar bill.
Lubezki is a frequent collaborator with fellow Mexican filmmaker Alfonso Cuarón. The two have been friends since they were teenagers and attended the same film school at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. Together they have worked on six motion pictures: Love in the Time of Hysteria (1991), A Little Princess (1995), Great Expectations (1998), And Your Mother Too (2001), Children of Men (2006), and Gravity (2013). His work with Cuarón on Children of Men (2006), has received universal acclaim. The film utilized a number of new technologies and distinctive techniques. The "roadside ambush" scene was shot in one extended take utilizing a special camera rig invented by Doggicam systems, developed from the company's Power Slide system. For the scene, a vehicle was modified to enable seats to tilt and lower actors out of the way of the camera. The windshield of the car was designed to tilt out of the way to allow camera movement in and out through the front windscreen. A crew of four, including Lubezki, rode on the roof. Children of Men (2006) also features a seven-and-a-half-minute battle sequence composed of roughly five seamless edits.
Lubezki has been nominated for eight Academy Awards for Best Cinematography, winning three, for Gravity (2013), Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (2014), and The Revenant (2015). He is the first cinematographer in history to win three consecutive Academy Awards.- Writer
- Producer
- Actor
Aaron Sorkin grew up in Scarsdale, a suburb of New York City where he was very involved in his high school drama and theater club. After graduating from Syracuse University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Theater, Sorkin intended to pursue a career in acting. It took him only a short time to realize that his true love, and his true talent, lay in writing. His first play, "Removing All Doubt", was not an immediate success, but his second play, "Hidden in This Picture", debuted in 1988 at the West Bank Cafe Downstairs Theater Bar. A longer version of "Hidden in This Picture", called "Making Movies", opened at the Promenade Theater in 1990. Despite his youth and relative inexperience, Sorkin was about to break into the spotlight. In 1989, he received the prestigious Outer Critics Circle award as Outstanding American Playwright for the stage version of A Few Good Men (1992), which was later nominated for a Golden Globe. The idea for the plot of "A Few Good Men" came from a conversation with his older sister, Deborah. Deborah was a Navy Judge Advocate General lawyer sent to Guantanamo Bay on a case involving Marines accused of killing a fellow Marine. Deborah told Aaron of the case and he spent the next year and a half writing a Broadway play, which later led to the movie. Sorkin has gone on to write for many movies and TV shows. Besides A Few Good Men (1992), he has written The American President (1995) and Malice (1993), as well as cooperating on Enemy of the State (1998), The Rock (1996) and Excess Baggage (1997). In addition, he was invited by Steven Spielberg to "polish" the script of Schindler's List (1993). Sorkin's TV credits include the Golden Globe-nominated The West Wing (1999) and Sports Night (1998).- Writer
- Producer
- Director
William Monahan was born on 3 November 1960 in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. He is a writer and producer, known for The Departed (2006), London Boulevard (2010) and Edge of Darkness (2010).- Producer
- Writer
- Director
Mark Boal was born on 23 January 1973 in New York, USA. He is a producer and writer, known for Zero Dark Thirty (2012), The Hurt Locker (2008) and Detroit (2017).- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
- Director
Wally Pfister is an American cinematographer and film director, who is best known for his work with Christopher Nolan. He is also known for his work on director F. Gary Gray's The Italian Job (2003) and Bennett Miller's Moneyball (2011).
He made his directorial debut with the film Transcendence (2014), starring Johnny Depp.
His first collaboration with Nolan was on the neo-noir thriller Memento (2000). The success of this collaboration resulted in Pfister taking over as director of photography for Nolan's subsequent films: Insomnia (2002), Batman Begins (2005), The Prestige (2006), The Dark Knight (2008), which he partially shot with IMAX cameras, and Inception, which was shot partially in 5-perf 65 mm. He is the only cinematographer that has worked with director Christopher Nolan between Memento and Dark Knight Rises.
Pfister won an Academy Award for Best Cinematography for Inception (2010).- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
- Producer
Matthew Libatique is an American cinematographer. He is best known for his work with director Darren Aronofsky on the films Pi (1998), Requiem for a Dream (2000), The Fountain (2006), Black Swan (2010), Noah (2014) and Mother! (2017). He also shot Bradley Cooper's directorial debut film, A Star Is Born (2018).
Libatique also work as an cinematographer in the films Tigerland (2000), Phone Booth (2002), Iron Man (2008), Iron Man 2 (2010) and Venom (2018).
He has received two Academy Awards nominations for Best Achievement in Cinematography, one for Black Swan and the other for A Star Is Born.- Producer
- Writer
- Actor
Terence Winter was born on 2 October 1960 in Brooklyn, New York, USA. He is a producer and writer, known for The Sopranos (1999), The Wolf of Wall Street (2013) and Boardwalk Empire (2010). He is married to Rachel Winter. They have two children.- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
- Composer
Hoyte Van Hoytema was born in Horgen, Switzerland. Van Hoytema is a Dutch-Swedish director of photography known for his work on The Fighter (2010), Her (2013), Interstellar (2014), and Dunkirk (2017). Van Hoytema always wanted to be a filmmaker, therefore he wished to attend a film school in The Netherlands, but was rejected twice. After the rejection, Van Hoytema worked in a soap factory, carpentry factory and even played in a band. Hoyte and his brother decided to go to Poland to visit their roots, considering their grandpa was Polish. He eventually went on to attend the Polish film school in Lodz, which has been attended by other notable film makers, with the most notable being Andrzej Wajda, Roman Polanski, and Krzysztof Kieslowski. At the later stages of Hoyte's education at the Lodz film school, Kieslowski was a professor there, who even supervised one of Hoyte's last projects. Hoyte left the Lodz film school early without having received a degree, but with many credentials. He started out with making documentaries. He later met someone who asked him to shoot a very low-budget film in Norway, which he accepted to do. This let Hoyte to film another film in Norway which was led by a a producer who was very active in Sweden. The producer offered Hoyte to work on a television show and another feature film. This started off Hoyte's career. He started to become a notable film maker in Sweden. His film 'Let the right one in' made him more known internationally.- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
- Location Management
Anthony Dod Mantle was born on 14 April 1955 in Oxford, Oxfordshire, England, UK. He is a cinematographer, known for Slumdog Millionaire (2008), Antichrist (2009) and The Last King of Scotland (2006).- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
- Producer
Chediak was born in Quito, Ecuador. He studied communication science in Santiago de Chile and photography in Madrid before studying film at New York University from 1992 to 1996. He participated in the production of American Southern-released in 1995 and directed by John Joshua Clayton-as a Cameraman. Another film he worked on in 2010, the drama 127 Hours, was based on a true story. Chediak collaborated with the British cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle and was subsequently nominated for several awards, including the 2011 British Academy Film Award for the Best Cinematography.- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
- Director
Jeff Cronenweth was born on 14 January 1962 in Los Angeles County, California, USA. He is a cinematographer and director, known for Gone Girl (2014), The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011) and The Social Network (2010).- Cinematographer
- Visual Effects
- Camera and Electrical Department
Robert Elswit is an American cinematographer. He is best known for Boogie Nights (1997), Magnolia (1999), Good Night, and Good Luck (2005), There Will Be Blood (2007), Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011), Inherent Vice (2014), and Nightcrawler (2014).
Elswit frequently works with director Paul Thomas Anderson and has worked with George Clooney several times. He shot Clooney's black and white, multiple-Oscar nominated film Good Night, and Good Luck. Notably, Elswit shot the film in color, then converted the film into black and white in post production.
He received his first Academy Award nomination for Best Cinematography in 2006 for his work on the movie Good Night, and Good Luck. Two years later, he would again be nominated and this time win the Oscar for Best Cinematography, for his work on There Will Be Blood.- Composer
- Music Department
- Actor
Jonny Greenwood was born on 5 November 1971 in Oxford, Oxfordshire, England, UK. He is a composer and actor, known for The Master (2012), There Will Be Blood (2007) and Phantom Thread (2017). He has been married to Sharona Katan since 1995. They have three children.- Music Department
- Composer
- Actor
German-born composer Hans Zimmer is recognized as one of Hollywood's most innovative musical talents. He featured in the music video for The Buggles' single "Video Killed the Radio Star", which became a worldwide hit and helped usher in a new era of global entertainment as the first music video to be aired on MTV (August 1, 1981).
Hans Florian Zimmer was born in Frankfurt am Main, then in West Germany, the son of Brigitte (Weil) and Hans Joachim Zimmer. He entered the world of film music in London during a long collaboration with famed composer and mentor Stanley Myers, which included the film My Beautiful Laundrette (1985). He soon began work on several successful solo projects, including the critically acclaimed A World Apart, and during these years Zimmer pioneered the use of combining old and new musical technologies. Today, this work has earned him the reputation of being the father of integrating the electronic musical world with traditional orchestral arrangements.
A turning point in Zimmer's career came in 1988 when he was asked to score Rain Man for director Barry Levinson. The film went on to win the Oscar for Best Picture of the Year and earned Zimmer his first Academy Award Nomination for Best Original Score. The next year, Zimmer composed the score for another Best Picture Oscar recipient, Driving Miss Daisy (1989), starring Jessica Tandy, and Morgan Freeman.
Having already scored two Best Picture winners, in the early 1990s, Zimmer cemented his position as a preeminent talent with the award-winning score for The Lion King (1994). The soundtrack has sold over 15 million copies to date and earned him an Academy Award for Best Original Score, a Golden Globe, an American Music Award, a Tony, and two Grammy Awards. In total, Zimmer's work has been nominated for 7 Golden Globes, 7 Grammys and seven Oscars for Rain Man (1988), Gladiator (2000), The Lion King (1994), As Good as It Gets (1997), The The Preacher's Wife (1996), The Thin Red Line (1998), The Prince of Egypt (1998), and The Last Samurai (2003).
With his career in full swing, Zimmer was anxious to replicate the mentoring experience he had benefited from under Stanley Myers' guidance. With state-of-the-art technology and a supportive creative environment, Zimmer was able to offer film-scoring opportunities to young composers at his Santa Monica-based musical "think tank." This approach helped launch the careers of such notable composers as Mark Mancina, John Powell, Harry Gregson-Williams, Nick Glennie-Smith, and Klaus Badelt.
In 2000, Zimmer scored the music for Gladiator (2000), for which he received an Oscar nomination, in addition to Golden Globe and Broadcast Film Critics Awards for his epic score. It sold more than three million copies worldwide and spawned a second album Gladiator: More Music From The Motion Picture, released on the Universal Classics/Decca label. Zimmer's other scores that year included Mission: Impossible II (2000), The Road to El Dorado (2000), and An Everlasting Piece (2000), directed by Barry Levinson.
Some of his other impressive scores include Pearl Harbor (2001), The Ring (2002), four films directed by Ridley Scott; Matchstick Men (2003), Hannibal (2001), Black Hawk Down (2001), and Thelma & Louise (1991), Penny Marshall's Riding in Cars with Boys (2001), and A League of Their Own (1992), Tony Scott's True Romance (1993), Tears of the Sun (2003), Ron Howard's Backdraft (1991), Days of Thunder (1990), Smilla's Sense of Snow (1997), and the animated Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron (2002) for which he also co-wrote four of the songs with Bryan Adams, including the Golden Globe nominated Here I Am.
At the 27th annual Flanders International Film Festival, Zimmer performed live for the first time in concert with a 100-piece orchestra and a 100-voice choir. Choosing selections from his impressive body of work, Zimmer performed newly orchestrated concert versions of Gladiator, Mission: Impossible II (2000), Rain Man (1988), The Lion King (1994), and The Thin Red Line (1998). The concert was recorded by Decca and released as a concert album entitled "The Wings Of A Film: The Music Of Hans Zimmer."
In 2003, Zimmer completed his 100th film score for the film The Last Samurai, starring Tom Cruise, for which he received both a Golden Globe and a Broadcast Film Critics nomination. Zimmer then scored Nancy Meyers' comedy Something's Gotta Give (2003), the animated Dreamworks film, Shark Tale (2004) (featuring voices of Will Smith, Renée Zellweger, Robert De Niro, Jack Black, and Martin Scorsese), and Jim Brooks' Spanglish (2004) starring Adam Sandler and Téa Leoni (for which he also received a Golden Globe nomination). His 2005 projects include Paramount's The Weather Man (2005) starring Nicolas Cage, Dreamworks' Madagascar (2005), and the Warner Bros. summer release, Batman Begins (2005).
Zimmer's additional honors and awards include the prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award in Film Composition from the National Board of Review, and the Frederick Loewe Award in 2003 at the Palm Springs International Film Festival. He has also received ASCAP's Henry Mancini Award for Lifetime Achievement. Hans and his wife live in Los Angeles and he is the father of four children.- Writer
- Producer
- Director
A producer, writer, director and award-winning novelist. He is the author of the collection 'Between Here and the Yellow Sea' and the novel 'Galveston.' He is originally from Southwest Louisiana, and taught literature at several universities, including the University of Chicago, before going into screenwriting in 2010. His fiction has been translated into French, German, Spanish, Japanese, Italian, and 26 other languages. He is best known as the creator of HBO's "True Detective", for which he was showrunner, producer, sometime director and almost entirely sole writer for its first three seasons. As of December 2023, he is attached to direct his first feature, "Easy's Waltz", starring Vince Vaughn and Al Pacino, and as showrunner for the Amazon original series "The Magnificent Seven" among other projects. He is married to the singer/songwriter Suzanne Santo (Suzanne Pizzolatto).- Writer
- Producer
- Actress
Gillian Flynn was born on 24 February 1971 in Kansas City, Missouri, USA. She is a writer and producer, known for Gone Girl (2014), Widows (2018) and Sharp Objects (2018). She has been married to Brett Nolan since 2007. They have two children.- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
- Director
Benoit was born in Nanterre in the west suburb of Paris in 1961 and spent his childhood in Cherbourg, in Normandy. He started to study cinema in 1980 at the Paris Sorbonne University and at the Ecole Louis Lumiere where he specialized in cinematography mentored by Robert Bresson's favorite camera operator.
Benoit's early breakthrough as a director of photography came with the movie he shot for the Vietnamese director Tran Anh Hung « The Scent of Green Papaya », a poetic recreation of the 1950's Saigon entirely shot on stage in Paris. The film won the Camera d'Or Award in Cannes Film Festival and an Academy Award nomination for best foreign film. Following that success, Benoit re-teamed with the same director for «Cyclo »,a violent tale of contemporary Vietnam all shot in the busy streets of Ho Chi Minh City and was awarded a Golden Lion in Venice Film Festival by president of the jury Abbas Kiorastami.
Since then Benoit established himself as a very international cinematographer. He loves nothing more than jumping from one universe to another.
« The Loss of Sexual Innocence », a fearless collage of bold images shot in three weeks in three different countries on Ektachrome for Academy Award winning director Mike Figgis was Benoit's first English speaking movie quickly followed by « The Winslow Boy », a very painterly adaptation of an Edwardian play directed by David Mamet. Then a biopic of the scandalous Marquis de Sade during the french Revolution directed by Benoit Jacquot ( « Sade » ) followed by a ghost story in the streets of Tapei with revered Taiwanese director Tsai Ming Liang ( « What Time is it There » ). An adaption of Shakespeare's « Merchant of Venice » starring Al Pacino and Jeremy Irons shot in a dilapidated Venice back lot in Luxembourg followed by a brutal and extremely stylish western shot in the Australian Outback, written by Nick Cave and directed by John Hillcoat ( « The Proposition » ) A love story between Jude Law and Juliette Binoche directed by Academy award winner Anthony Minghella and set in London's Kings Cross new development ( « Breaking and Entering » ) followed by a tragic love story between the son of a concentration camp's commander and a Jewish boy ( « The Boy in Striped Pyjamas » ) A very experimental film adapted from Oscar Wilde's « Salome » directed by Al Pacino. Al directs and acts with Jessica Chastain and Benoit helps him to mix abruptly the play and real life in a small stage in Los Angeles followed by a post 9-11 spy story adapted from a John Le Carré's novel and shot in the warehouses of Hamburg's harbor and directed by the legendary dutch photographer Anton Corbijn and starring Philipp Seymour Hoffman ( « A Most Wanted Man » ) A biopic of the cosmologist Stephen Hawking fighting with motor neuron disease shot on the campus of Cambridge University and directed by Academy Award winning director James Marsh and starring Eddie Redmayne who won an Oscar for best actor for this performance ( « The Theory of Everything » ) followed by the last two years of the life of Vincent Van Gogh shot entirely handheld by Benoit in Provence under the direction of the « painter director » Julian Schnabel. Willem Dafoe plays Vincent and gets and academy award nomination for best actor ( At Eternity's Gate ). Benoit is also developing a parallel career as a painter. His first show « My Hollywood » opened in New York in march 2017.- Writer
- Producer
- Director
Alex Garland is an English novelist, screenwriter, film producer and director. He is best known for the films Ex Machina (2015) and Annihilation (2018).
Garland's others works as a writer includes The Beach (2000), 28 Days Later (2002), Sunshine (2007), Never Let Me Go (2011) and Dredd (2012).
He is also the co-writer on the video game Enslaved: Odyssey to the West.
In 2015, Garland made his directorial debut with Ex Machina and was nominated for an Oscar in the Best Writing, Original Screenplay category.- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
Yves Bélanger was born on 7 July 1960 in Montréal, Québec, Canada. He is a cinematographer, known for Brooklyn (2015), Dallas Buyers Club (2013) and Wild (2014).- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
- Additional Crew
Roger Deakins is an English cinematographer best known for his work on the films of the Coen brothers, Sam Mendes, and Denis Villeneuve.
He is a member of both the American and British Society of Cinematographers.
Deakins' first feature film in America as cinematographer was Mountains of the Moon (1990). He began his collaboration with the Coen brothers in 1991 on the film Barton Fink. He received his first major award from the American Society of Cinematographers for his outstanding achievement in cinematography for the internationally praised major motion picture The Shawshank Redemption (1994).
He is also known for his work in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007), No Country for Old Men (2007), True Grit (2010), Skyfall (2012), Sicario (2015), and Blade Runner 2049 (2017).
Deakins also worked as one of the visual consultants for Pixar's animated feature WALL-E.
In 2018 he won an Oscar for best cinematographer for his work in Blade Runner 2049.- Actress
- Writer
- Director
Elaine May (born under the name Elaine Iva Berlin) is an American actress, comedian, film director, playwright, and screenwriter from Philadelphia. Her professional career started in the 1950s and is still ongoing. She has twice been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. She is best remembered for directing the Cold War-themed action comedy "Ishtar" (1987). She won the Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Director, but the film has had a vocal minority of critics who defend its quality.
In 1932, May was born to a Jewish-American family. Both her parents were theatrical actors. Her father Jack Berlin was also a theater director and led his own traveling Yiddish theater company. Her mother was actress Ida Aaron. May made her stage debut c. 1935, at the age of 3. Her father had decided to include her in his performances. As a a child actress, she was reportedly cast in the roles of boys.
The theater company toured extensively, and May was part of their tours. She kept changing schools, enrolling for a few weeks and then moving to another city. May reputedly hated school, but loved reading books on her own. Her favorite topics were fairy tales and mythology.
Jack Berlin died c. 1942, and May's career as a child actress consequently ended. She was left in the custody of her mother. The duo settled in Los Angeles, and May eventually enrolled in Hollywood High School. In 1946, May dropped out of school. In 1948, she married her her first husband, the toy inventor Marvin May. She was only 16-years-old at the time of her marriage. She would later keep her husband's surname as her professional name.
In 1949, May had her only child, Jeannie Brette May. Jeannie would later become a professional actress in her own right, under the name Jeannie Berlin. May and her husband separated c. 1950, and she received a divorce in 1960. She started supporting herself through a series of odd jobs.
In 1950, May was interested in attending college, but most colleges in California required applicants to have high school diplomas. As a high school dropout, she did not have the necessary diploma. Learning that the University of Chicago did not use this requirement, she hitch-hiked her way to Chicago, At the time her personal fortune consisted of 7 dollars.
Once she arrived in Chicago, May started informally taking classes at the university by auditing, sitting in without enrolling. She habitually engaged in discussions with her instructors. She once had a fight with a philosophy instructor because of their different interpretations of the motives behind Socrates' apology. May was introduced to aspiring actor Mike Nichols (1931-2014),who was also attending the University. They bonded over their shared passion for the theater.
In 1955, May became one of the charter members of the Compass Players, a Chicago-based improvisational theater group. Nichols joined the group shortly after. The two of them formed a working partnership, jointly developing improvised comedy sketches. May helped the Compass Players to become a highly popular comedy troupe, due to her talent for satire. She helped in the training of novice members of the group.
In 1957, Nichols was asked to leave the Compass Players. His popularity had outshone most members of the group, and had caused internal conflicts. May left the group with him. They then decided to form their own stand-up comedy team, "Nichols and May". Their improvisational skills, and ability to come up with fresh material allowed them to impress their audience.
In 1960, the comedy duo made their Broadway debut, with the show "An Evening with Mike Nichols and Elaine May". A recording of the show won the 1962 "Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album". "Nichols and May" became very popular in New York City, performing in sold-out shows. They also started making appearances in radio and television, and even recorded commercials.
May was reportedly surprised with her own success. She had spend much of her adult life in near-poverty, but she was now earning a regular income from show business. She joked in an interview that she was practically barefoot when she arrived in New York, and now had to get used to wearing high heels.
In 1961, the duo was at the height of their fame. But they decided to dissolve their partnership in order to pursue solo careers. Nichols started working as a Broadway stage director, while May started her new career as a playwright. Her most successful play was "Adaptation" (1969), which she also directed. For her work as a theatrical director, she won the 1969 "Outer Critics Circle Award, Best Director".
May made her debut as a film director with the black comedy "A New Leaf" (1971). It was an adaptation of a short story by Jack Ritchie (1922-1983), depicting the story of an impoverished patrician who marries a wealthy heiress for her money. The main character initially considers murdering his wife to inherit her wealth, but first he has to protect her from other predators who were after her money.
Her first film found little success at the box office, but was praised by critics and was nominated for the "Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy". It later earned a reputation as a cult classic, and in 2019 it was selected for preservation by the National Film Registry.
Her second film was the romantic comedy "The Heartbreak Kid" (1972). It concerns a newlywed man who falls madly in love with a younger woman while on his honeymoon. He pursues his romantic interest obsessively despite all signs that his love is unrequited, and despite the disapproval of the woman's protective father. The film was critically acclaimed, and has at times been listed in retrospectives concerning the funniest American films.
In an unusual career move, her third film was not a comedy. It was the rather bleak gangster film "Mikey and Nicky" (1976). It depicts a small-time mobster whose life is in danger, resorting to asking for help from his childhood friend. While creating this film, May got involved in a legal dispute with the film studio Paramount Pictures. The studio eventually decided to only allow a limited release for the film. The film found a niche audience in the home video market, but May's career as a director suffered from this dispute. She was effectively blacklisted.
May decided to focus on her screenwriting career. She found success with the script to the fantasy-comedy "Heaven Can Wait" (1978), about the afterlife of a man who died prematurely. The film was based on a 1938 play by Harry Segall (1892-1975), and also served as a remake to the classic film "Here Comes Mr. Jordan" (1941) which was based on the same play. The film earned about 99 million dollars at the worldwide box office, and was a critical hit. May was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, but the award was instead won by rival screenwriter Oliver Stone (1946-).
During the early 1980s, May mainly worked as an uncredited script doctor. She "polished" scripts by other screenwriters. Her greatest success in this role was the romantic comedy "Tootsie" (1982), for which she wrote several additional scenes. She attempted her comeback as a director with the action comedy "Ishtar" (1987), which became a box office flop for the film studio Columbia Pictures. The film's failure reportedly convinced Columbia's parent company Coca-Cola to sell the under-performing studio to Sony.
"Ishtar" was derided at the time as the worst film of its era by many critics, but was also defended by a vocal minority of critics. It has since attracted a cult audience, who consider this to be a great film. However the film's failure ended May's career as a film director and damaged her reputation. She also ceased working as a screenwriter for several years, reduced to working as an actress again.
May made her comeback as a screenwriter with the comedy film "The Birdcage" (1996), a remake of the European comedy "La Cage aux Folles" (The Cage of Madwomen, 1978). In the film, the openly gay parents to a young man have to pretend to be straight in an attempt to impress their son's prospective in-laws. The film earned about 185 million dollars at the worldwide box office, the greatest hit in May's career up to that point. She was nominated for the "Writers Guild of America Award for Best Adapted Screenplay", but the award was instead won by rival screenwriter Billy Bob Thornton (1955-).
May found more critical success with her next screenplay, for the political film "Primary Colors" (1998). It was an adaptation of the roman à clef novel "Primary Colors: A Novel of Politics" (1996) by Joe Klein (1946-). The novel itself was a fictionalized version of Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign, and depicts an idealistic campaign worker's disillusionment with the politician. The film's cast were nominated for several awards. May herself received her second nomination for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, but the award was instead won by rival screenwriter Bill Condon (1955-).
May largely retired from screenwriting since the end of the 1990s. As an actress, she had a supporting role in the crime-comedy "Small Time Crooks" (2000). The film concerned nouveau riche criminals, who attempt to socialize with the American upper class. For this role, she won the "Best Supporting Actress Award" at the National Society of Film Critics Awards.
May lived in retirement until joining the cast of the television mini-series "Crisis in Six Scenes" (2016), her first television role in several decades. The series was created by Woody Allen (1935-), who happened to be an old friend of May.
In 2018, May made a theatrical comeback in Broadway. She played the elderly gallery owner Gladys Green in a revival of the play "The Waverly Gallery" (2000) by Kenneth Lonergan (1962-). In the play, Gladys shows early signs of Alzheimer's disease, and her family has to deal with her mental decline. May received critical acclaim for this role. For this role, she won the 2019 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play. At age 87, she was the second-oldest winner of a Tony Award for acting.
As of 2021, May is 89-years-old. She is no longer very active, but she reportedly has plans to direct another film. She remains a popular actress.- Producer
- Writer
- Director
Drew Goddard was raised in Los Alamos, New Mexico. He attended Los Alamos High School in Los Alamos, New Mexico and graduated in 1993. He then attended the University of Colorado, and worked as a production assistant in L.A. after graduation. A spec script Drew wrote based on Six Feet Under (2001) came to the attention of both Marti Noxon at Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997) and David Greenwalt at Angel (1999). Both wanted him but because Marti found him first, Joss Whedon determined Drew would go to "Buffy". He became a staff writer for Season 7 (2002-2003), writing five episodes. Once "Buffy" was over, Drew moved over to "Angel" and became the executive story editor for Season 5 (2003-2004), writing four episodes. Drew also found time to write the introduction for a book of essays about Buffy, "Seven Seasons of Buffy", and to contribute two stories to the "Tales of the Vampires" comic series. In the summer of 2003, Drew received his first screenwriting award, along with co-writer Jane Espenson, when the Hugos honored "Conversations with Dead People" from "Buffy" with an award for Best Dramatic Presentation/Short Form. That episode was also honored with a SyFy Portal Genre Award for Best Episode/Television; another of Drew's "Buffy" episodes, "Lies My Parents Told Me" (co-written with David Fury), was nominated for the same award.- Producer
- Writer
- Director
David Benioff was born on 25 September 1970 in New York City, New York, USA. He is a producer and writer, known for Game of Thrones (2011), The Kite Runner (2007) and 25th Hour (2002). He has been married to Amanda Peet since 30 September 2006. They have three children.- Composer
- Music Department
- Actor
Graduate of Woodridge High School in Peninsula, Ohio.
Attended Kent State University (1970-73) in Kent, Ohio, to focus on attaining an art degree. While at Kent State Mothersbaugh met Jerry Casale and Bob Lewis, who ultimately joined him in forming the 1970-80s avant-garde band Devo.
Awarded an honorary doctorate degree (2008) from Kent State in humane letters. Dr. Mothersbaugh has reciprocated KSU in diverse fashion as is his style-- gifting it with music & art, as well as time-- which is spent touting the Kent State experience through public promotions & media spots.- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
Danny Cohen was born in London in 1963. He took a social sciences degree at Sheffield Polytechnic and had a long time interest in photography, particularly stills work. He became a photographic technician at Middlesex Polytechnic and then a camera assistant on documentaries, commercials and films for eight years. His first credit as a Director of Photography was for Dead Babies directed by Bill Marsh. He has collaborated with Shane Meadows on the films 'Dead Man's Shoes' and 'This is England' and the latter's television spin-off. With Tom Hooper he worked on Longford, the HBO TV series John Adams and Les Miserables, gaining an Academy Award nomination for 'The King's Speech'.- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
- Director
Janusz Kaminski is a Polish cinematographer and film director. He has established a partnership with Steven Spielberg, working as a cinematographer on his movies since 1993. He won the Academy Award for Best Cinematography for his work on Schindler's List (1993) and Saving Private Ryan (1998).
His other film's as an cinematographer includes Amistad (1997), A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001), Catch Me If You Can (2002), The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007), War Horse (2011), Lincoln (2012), Bridge of Spies (2015), The BFG (2016), and Ready Player One (2018).- Cinematographer
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Robert D. Yeoman was born on 10 March 1951 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. He is a cinematographer and actor, known for The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014), Asteroid City (2023) and Moonrise Kingdom (2012).- Cinematographer
- Producer
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Greig Fraser was born on 3 October 1975 in Melbourne, Australia. He is a cinematographer and producer, known for Dune (2021), Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016) and Zero Dark Thirty (2012). He is married to Jodie Fried. They have three children.- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
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Robert Richardson has won three Academy Awards and earned seven Academy Award nominations for his cinematography. His work on director Oliver Stone's JFK earned him his first Oscar. His second and third came with The Aviator and Hugo directed by Martin Scorsese. These two films also garnered him BAFTA nominations for Best Cinematographer.
Prior to regularly collaborating with well-known directors like Oliver Stone and Quentin Tarantino, Richardson served an apprenticeship shooting second unit on Repo Man while filming television documentaries for PBS and the BBC. His work in television led Stone to hire Richardson to shoot both Salvador and Platoon. From there, he worked almost exclusively with Stone, filming Wall Street, Born on the Fourth of July and The Doors, while occasionally branching out to shoot films like John Sayles' Eight Men Out and City of Hope.
Richardson also shot Stone's Natural Born Killers, Nixon and U-Turn. He then began collaborating with Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino. Scorsese chose him as DP on 1999's Bringing Out the Dead, while Tarantino snapped him up for Kill Bill, Vol. 1 and Kill Bill, Vol. 2.
Richardson continued to make his mark as Tarantino's DP on 2012's Django Unchained and 2015's The Hateful Eight, as well as on Ben Affleck's 2016 film Live By Night. He shot Director Andy Serkis's 2017 Breathe starring Andrew Garfield and Claire Foy; 2018's Adrift for Director Balthasar Kormakur starring Shailene Woodley and Sam Claflin for STX, and 2018's A Private War for Director Matthew Heineman starring Rosamund Pike. Richardson then shot Tarantino's 2020 hit Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, which starred Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt, and 2021's Venom 2 for Sony/Director Andy Serkis.
Recent credits include 2022's Emancipation again with Fuqua for Apple Studios, 2023's Air directed by Ben Affleck for Amazon Studios, and The Equalizer 3 for Director Antoine Fuqua and for Columbia Pictures.- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
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Adam Arkapaw is known for his work on films such as Macbeth (2015 - ASC spotlight award) Animal Kingdom (2010 - Camerimage Cinematographer Debuts Competition winner) The Snowtown Murders (2011) Light Between the Oceans (2016) Lore (2011) and Assassin's Creed (2016). He is also the Emmy Award-winning cinematographer of Top of the Lake (2013) and True Detective Season 1 (2014). Born in Bowral, a small town south of Sydney, Australia. Arkapaw studied at Melbourne's Victorian College of the Arts, getting his start making shorts and commercials.- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
- Actor
Jarin Blaschke was born on 28 September 1978 in Westminster, California, USA. He is a cinematographer and actor, known for The Northman (2022), The Lighthouse (2019) and The Witch (2015).- Cinematographer
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Bradford Young is an American cinematographer. His feature films as director of photography include White Lies, Black Sheep (2007), Pariah (2011), Restless City (2011), Middle of Nowhere (2012), Ain't Them Bodies Saints (2013), Mother of George (2013), and Arrival (2016).
In January 2017, Young became the first African-American cinematographer to be nominated for an Academy Award, for his work on Arrival. He is also the first person of color to be nominated in the Academy Award cinematography category since 1998 when Remi Adefarasin was nominated for Elizabeth.- Cinematographer
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Rob Hardy ASC BSC is a British Cinematographer known for his ground breaking work on Mission Impossible: Fallout, and his ongoing collaboration with Alex Garland: Ex-Machina, Annihilation, Devs, Men and most recently, the visceral epic Civil War.
He also won the BAFTA for cinematography on the beautiful and controversial drama Boy A which was swiftly followed by the influential & hallucinatory Red Riding 1974.
Other credits include James Marsh's atmospheric Shadow-Dancer and the beautiful period piece Invisible Woman for Ralph Fiennes.- Cinematographer
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- Actor
Rodrigo Prieto is a Mexican cinematographer. He is best known for Brokeback Mountain (2005), Babel (2006), Argo (2012), The Wolf of Wall Street (2013), and Silence (2016).
He also worked with Alejandro González Iñárritu on the acclaimed Amores perros (2000), 21 Grams (2003), and Biutiful (2010).
Pietro was nominated for two Academy Award for Best Cinematography, first in Brokeback Mountain and later in Silence.- Composer
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- Writer
Jóhann Jóhannsson was born on 19 September 1969 in Reykjavík, Iceland. He was a composer and writer, known for Last and First Men (2020), The Theory of Everything (2014) and Sicario (2015). He died on 9 February 2018 in Berlin, Germany.- Cinematographer
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Robbie Ryan is an Irish cinematographer. He is best known for his work in Fish Tank (2009), Slow West (2015), American Honey (2016) and The Favourite (2018) for which he was nominated for an Oscar for Best Achievement in Cinematography.
Ryan has already work in more than 90 projects as an Cinematographer, including feature length, short films, commercials, and music videos.- Composer
- Actor
Jerskin Fendrix is known for Poor Things (2023), Kinds of Kindness (2024) and Silver Screen Social (2021).