Jewish American Directors and Producers

1. J.J. Abrams

Producer | Lost

Jeffrey Jacob Abrams was born in New York City and raised in Los Angeles, the son of TV producer parents. At 15, he wrote the music for Don Dohler's Nightbeast (1982). In his senior year of college, he and Jill Mazursky teamed up to write a feature film, which became Taking Care of Business (1990)....

2. Woody Allen

Writer | Annie Hall

Woody Allen was born on November 30, 1935, as Allen Konigsberg, in The Bronx, NY, the son of Martin Konigsberg and Nettie Konigsberg. He has one younger sister, Letty Aronson. As a young boy, he became intrigued with magic tricks and playing the clarinet, two hobbies that he continues today.

Allen ...

3. Eleanor Antin

Director | The Man Without a World

Eleanor Antin was born on February 27, 1935 in The Bronx, New York City, New York, USA. She is a director and producer, known for The Man Without a World (1992), Fragments of a Revolution (2013) and Amboy (2015). She was previously married to David Antin.

4. Judd Apatow

Producer | Girls

Judd Apatow is an American film director, screenwriter, producer and comedian. He directed The 40-Year Old Virgin, Knocked Up, This is 40, Funny People, Trainwreck and The King of Staten Island. He also developed the television shows Freaks and Geeks, Undeclared, Girls, Love and Crashing. He is ...

5. Alan Arkin

Actor | Argo

Alan Arkin was an Academy Award-winning American actor who was also an acclaimed director, producer, author, singer and composer.

He was born Alan Wolf Arkin on March 26, 1934, in Brooklyn, New York. His family were Jewish emigrants from Russia and Germany. In 1946, the Arkins moved from Brooklyn to...

6. Danny Arnold

Writer | Barney Miller

Danny Arnold was born on January 23, 1925 in New York City, New York, USA. He was a writer and producer, known for Barney Miller (1975), My World and Welcome to It (1969) and That Girl (1966). He was married to Donna Cooke and Joanne Gilbert. He died on August 19, 1995 in Los Angeles, California, ...

7. Darren Aronofsky

Writer | Pi

Darren Aronofsky was born February 12, 1969, in Brooklyn, New York. Growing up, Darren was always artistic: he loved classic movies and, as a teenager, he even spent time doing graffiti art. After high school, Darren went to Harvard University to study film (both live-action and animation). He won ...

8. Ralph Bakshi

Director | Wizards

Ralph Bakshi worked his way up from Brooklyn and became an animation legend. He was born on October 29, 1938, in Haifa, Israel, the son of Mina (Zlotin) and Eliezar Bakshi, and is of Krymchak Jewish descent. He was raised in Brownsville, after his family came to New York to escape World War II. ...

9. Noah Baumbach

Writer | The Squid and the Whale

Born in Brooklyn in 1969 Noah Baumbach is the son of two film critics, Georgia Brown and Jonathan Baumbach (also a writer). His studies at Vassar College were the subject of his first film (made as he was 26 years old), Kicking and Screaming (1995). His second major picture, made ten years later, ...

10. Henry Bean

Writer | The Believer

Henry Bean was born on August 3, 1945 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. He is a writer and producer, known for The Believer (2001), Basic Instinct 2 (2006) and Noise (2007).

11. Richard Benjamin

Actor | Westworld

Although his actress wife Paula Prentiss became a star by the early 1960s, it took Richard Benjamin almost fifteen years to establish his screen persona, but the wait was rewarding. After extensive work in theatre as actor and director, and his participation in the cult TV series He & She (1967)...

12. Curtis Bernhardt

Director | Kisses for My President

If Curtis Bernhardt is a relative unknown, it's because he didn't direct his first Hollywood feature until 1940 at the age of 41. Bernhardt worked for years in Germany until his Jewish heritage made living there impossible by 1933-- he was arrested by the Gestapo and made a harrowing underground ...

13. Mike Binder

Writer | The Comedy Store

Mike Binder was born in 1958 in Detroit, Michigan, USA. He is a writer and actor, known for The Comedy Store (2020), Reign Over Me (2007) and The Upside of Anger (2005). He is married to Diane Murphy. They have two children.

14. Peter Bogdanovich

Director | The Last Picture Show

Peter Bogdanovich was conceived in Europe but born in Kingston, New York. He is the son of immigrants fleeing the Nazis, Herma (Robinson) and Borislav Bogdanovich, a painter and pianist. His father was a Serbian Orthodox Christian, and his mother was from a wealthy Austrian Jewish family. Peter ...

15. Zach Braff

Actor | Garden State

Zach Braff was born and raised in South Orange, New Jersey, to Anne Hutchinson (Maynard), a clinical psychologist, and Harold Irwin Braff, a trial attorney. His father is from Russia and Austria, while Zach's mother is from a family with deep roots in New England. Zach attended Columbia High School...

16. John Brahm

Director | The Twilight Zone

The son of comedian and theatre director Ludwig Brahm, Hans followed in his father's footsteps and began his career on the stages of Vienna, Berlin and Paris. Again, like his father, he graduated to directing and had his first fling with the film business as a dialogue director for a Franco/German ...

17. Albert Brooks

Actor | Drive

Albert Brooks was born on July 22, 1947 in Beverly Hills, California, USA. He is an actor and writer, known for Drive (2011), Broadcast News (1987) and Defending Your Life (1991). He has been married to Kimberly Shlain since March 15, 1997. They have two children.

18. James L. Brooks

Writer | Broadcast News

James L. Brooks was born on May 9, 1940 in Brooklyn, New York, USA. He is a writer and producer, known for Broadcast News (1987), As Good as It Gets (1997) and Terms of Endearment (1983). He was previously married to Holly Holmberg Brooks and Marianne Catherine Morrissey.

19. Mel Brooks

Actor | Spaceballs

Mel Brooks was born Melvin Kaminsky on June 28, 1926 in Brooklyn, New York. He served in WWII, and afterwards got a job playing the drums at nightclubs in the Catskills. Brooks eventually started a comedy act and also worked in radio and as Master Entertainer at Grossinger's Resort before going to ...

20. Richard Brooks

Director | Anticipation

Commanding actor Richard Brooks was born in Cleveland, Ohio. He is an actor, director and singer. Raised in Cleveland, Ohio, Brooks studied acting, dance, and voice work at Interlochen Academy of Arts in Michigan. Later, he moved to New York City and was a student of the Circle in the Square ...

21. William Castle

Director | Homicidal

William Castle was born on April 24, 1914 in New York City, New York, USA. He was a director and producer, known for Homicidal (1961), House on Haunted Hill (1959) and The Lady from Shanghai (1947). He was married to Ellen. He died on May 31, 1977 in Los Angeles, California, USA.

22. Joel Coen

Producer | The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

Joel Daniel Coen is an American filmmaker who regularly collaborates with his younger brother Ethan. They made Raising Arizona, Barton Fink, Fargo, The Big Lebowski, True Grit, O Brother Where Art Thou?, Burn After Reading, A Serious Man, Inside Llewyn Davis, Hail Caesar and other projects. Joel ...

23. George Cukor

Director | My Fair Lady

George Cukor was an American film director of Hungarian-Jewish descent, better known for directing comedies and literary adaptations. He once won the Academy Award for Best Director, and was nominated other four times for the same Award.

In 1899, George Dewey Cukor was born on the Lower East Side of...

24. Michael Curtiz

Director | Casablanca

Curtiz began acting in and then directing films in his native Hungary in 1912. After WWI, he continued his filmmaking career in Austria and Germany and into the early 1920s when he directed films in other countries in Europe. Moving to the US in 1926, he started making films in Hollywood for Warner...

25. Jules Dassin

Director | Du rififi chez les hommes

Jules Dassin was an Academy Award-nominated director, screenwriter and actor best known for his films Rififi (1955), Never on Sunday (1960), and Topkapi (1964).

He was born Julius Samuel Dassin on 18 December 1911, in Middletown, Connecticut, USA. He was one of eight children of Russian-Jewish ...

26. Maya Deren

Director | Meshes of the Afternoon

Maya Deren came to the USA in 1922 as Eleanora Derenkowsky. Together with her father Solomon Derenkowsky, a psychiatrist, and her mother Maria Fidler, an artist, she fled the pogroms organized by the Bolsheviks against the Jews. She studied journalism and political science at the Syracuse ...

27. Cecil B. DeMille

Producer | The Ten Commandments

His parents Henry C. DeMille and Beatrice DeMille were playwrights. His father died when he was 12, and his mother supported the family by opening a school for girls and a theatrical company. Too young to enlist in the Spanish-American War, Cecil followed his brother William C. de Mille to the New ...

28. Stanley Donen

Director | Charade

Inspired by Fred Astaire's dancing in Flying Down to Rio (1933), Stanley Donen (pronounced 'Dawn-en') attended dance classes from the age of ten. He later recalled that the only thing he wanted to be was a tap dancer.

He was born in Columbia, South Carolina, to Helen Pauline (Cohen) and Mordecai ...

29. Richard Donner

Director | Superman

Richard Donner was born on April 24, 1930 in The Bronx, New York City, New York, USA. He was a director and producer, known for Superman (1978), Ladyhawke (1985) and Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut (1980). He was married to Lauren Shuler Donner. He died on July 5, 2021 in Los Angeles, ...

30. Robert Downey Sr.

Actor | To Live and Die in L.A.

Robert Downey Sr. served in the army, played minor-league baseball, was a Golden Gloves champion and off-off Broadway playwright, all before he was 22 years old.

Downey was born in New York City, New York, the son of Elizabeth (McLoughlin), a model, and Robert Elias, who worked in hotel/restaurant ...

31. Samuel Fuller

Writer | Shock Corridor

At age 17, Samuel Fuller was the youngest reporter ever to be in charge of the events section of the New York Journal. After having participated in the European battle theater in World War II, he directed some minor action productions for which he mostly wrote the scripts himself and which he also ...

32. Keith Gordon

Director | A Midnight Clear

Keith Gordon was born on February 3, 1961 in New York City, New York, USA. He is a director and actor, known for A Midnight Clear (1992), Waking the Dead (2000) and Mother Night (1996). He has been married to Rachel Griffin since 1998.

33. Lee Grant

Actress | In the Heat of the Night

Academy Award-winner Lee Grant was born Lyova Haskell Rosenthal on October 31, 1925 in Manhattan, New York City, to Witia (Haskell), a teacher and model, and Abraham Rosenthal, an educator and realtor. Her father was of Romanian Jewish descent, and her mother was a Russian Jewish immigrant. Lee ...

34. James Gray

Director | The Immigrant

Writer/director James Gray made his first film Little Odessa (1994) at the age of twenty-five. The film, which starred Tim Roth, Edward Furlong, Vanessa Redgrave and Maximilian Schell, received critical acclaim and was the winner of the Venice Film Festival's prestigious Silver Lion Award in 1994.

...

35. Bud Greenspan

Director | 16 Days of Glory

Bud Greenspan was born on September 18, 1926 in New York City, New York, USA. He was a director and producer, known for 16 Days of Glory (1985), Bud Greenspan's Summer Olympic Greats (1988) and Lillehammer '94: 16 Days of Glory (1994). He was married to Cappy Petrash Greenspan. He died on December ...

36. Christopher Guest

Actor | This Is Spinal Tap

U.S.-born actor, director, writer, musician, and composer best known for his mockumentaries, poking fun at heavy metal music, small town theatre, dog shows, folk music and film-making itself, Christopher Haden-Guest was born February fifth, 1948, in New York City. His mother, Jean Pauline (Hindes),...

37. Todd Haynes

Director | Far from Heaven

Todd Haynes was always interested in art, and made amateur movies and painted while he was still a child. He attended Brown university and majored in art and semiotics. After he graduated he moved to New York City and made the controversial short film Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story (1987). ...

38. Amy Heckerling

Writer | Clueless

Amy Heckerling studied Film and TV at New York University and got a Masters Degree in Film from The American Film Institute. Despite this education she couldn't get a break in Hollywood. However, in 1982, she made Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982), and people started to take notice. In 1985, ...

39. Marshall Herskovitz

Producer | Thirtysomething

Marshall Herskovitz is a writer, producer, and director in Los Angeles who has won many awards for his work in television and film. Born in Philadelphia, he attended Brandeis University, then moved to Los Angeles in 1975, where he attended the American Film Institute and met his longtime creative ...

40. Arthur Hiller

Director | Love Story

Arthur Hiller was born on November 22, 1923 in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. He was a director and producer, known for Love Story (1970), The Hospital (1971) and See No Evil, Hear No Evil (1989). He was married to Gwen Hiller. He died on August 17, 2016 in Los Angeles, California, USA.

41. Agnieszka Holland

Director | Pokot

Having graduated from FAMU in Prague film (1971), Agnieszka Holland returned to Poland and began her film career working with Krzysztof Zanussi as assistant director, and Andrzej Wajda as her mentor. Her first feature film was PROVINCIAL ACTORS (1978), one of the flagship pictures of the "cinema of...

42. Nicole Holofcener

Director | Enough Said

Nicole Holofcener was born on March 22, 1960 in New York City, New York, USA. She is a director and writer, known for Enough Said (2013), Friends with Money (2006) and Can You Ever Forgive Me? (2018). She was previously married to Benjamin Allanoff.

43. Henry Jaglom

Writer | New Year's Day

Henry Jaglom trained with Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio in New York, where he acted, wrote and directed off-Broadway theater and cabaret before settling in Hollywood in the late 1960s. Under contract to Columbia Pictures, Jaglom guest-starred in such TV shows as Gidget (1965) and The Flying Nun...

44. Andrew Jarecki

Producer | Capturing the Friedmans

Andrew Jarecki is an American filmmaker, musician, and entrepreneur. He is best known for the Emmy-winning 2015 HBO documentary series "The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst" that led to the arrest and imprisonment of Mr. Durst. He is also known for documentary film "Capturing the Friedmans...

45. Eugene Jarecki

Director | Why We Fight

Eugene Jarecki is an Emmy and Peabody award-winning director of dramatic and documentary subjects who has twice won the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, first in 2005 for Why We Fight (2005) and again in 2012 for The House I Live In (2012)

A public intellectual on domestic and ...

46. Miranda July

Writer | Me and You and Everyone We Know

Filmmaker Magazine rated her #1 in their "25 New Faces of Indie Film" in 2004!

She is a performance artist and published short story writer. Since becoming a filmmaker, her debut feature, Me and You and Everyone We Know (2005) has won several film awards.

Daughter of Lindy Hough and Richard ...

47. Jeremy Kagan

Director | The Chosen

Jeremy Kagan is a director/writer/producer of feature films and television. His credits include the box-office hits Heroes (1977), The Big Fix (1978) and The Chosen (1981). His The Journey of Natty Gann (1985) was the first US film to win a Gold Prize at the Moscow Film Festival. Other directing ...

48. Jake Kasdan

Producer | Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story

Jake Kasdan was born on October 28, 1974 in Detroit, Michigan, USA. He is a producer and director, known for Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story (2007), Jumanji: The Next Level (2019) and Zero Effect (1998).

49. Lawrence Kasdan

Writer | The Big Chill

Lawrence Kasdan is an American filmmaker, producer and screenwriter. He directed Body Heat, Grand Canyon, The Big Chill, Silverado and Dreamcatcher. He wrote Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Bodyguard, The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi, The Force Awakens and Solo: A Star Wars Story. He is ...

50. Jeffrey Katzenberg

Producer | Shrek

Jeffrey Katzenberg was born on December 21, 1950 in New York City, New York, USA. He is a producer and production manager, known for Shrek (2001), Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron (2002) and Just Like Heaven (2005). He has been married to Marilyn Katzenberg since 1975. They have two children.

51. Philip Kaufman

Writer | The Right Stuff

Director and screenwriter Philip Kaufman was born in Chicago, Illinois. He attended the University of Chicago and later Harvard Law School. He won the Prix de la Nouvelle Critique at Cannes in 1965 for his film Goldstein (1964). He was the screenwriter for The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976) and was to ...

52. Henry Koster

Director | Harvey

Henry Koster was born Herman Kosterlitz in Berlin, Germany, on May 1, 1905. His maternal grandfather was a famous operatic tenor Julius Salomon (who died of tuberculosis in the 1880s). His father was a salesman of ladies unmentionables who left the family while Henry was at a young age, leaving him...

53. Stanley Kramer

Producer | Judgment at Nuremberg

Stanley Kramer was born on September 29, 1913 in Hell's Kitchen [now Clinton], Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA. He was a producer and director, known for Judgment at Nuremberg (1961), Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967) and Inherit the Wind (1960). He was married to Karen Sharpe, Anne P. ...

54. Stanley Kubrick

Director | 2001: A Space Odyssey

Stanley Kubrick was born in Manhattan, New York City, to Sadie Gertrude (Perveler) and Jacob Leonard Kubrick, a physician. His family were Jewish immigrants (from Austria, Romania, and Russia). Stanley was considered intelligent, despite poor grades at school. Hoping that a change of scenery would ...

55. John Landis

Director | The Blues Brothers

John Landis began his career in the mail room of 20th Century-Fox. A high-school dropout, 18-year-old Landis made his way to Yugoslavia to work as a production assistant on Kelly's Heroes (1970). Remaining in Europe, Landis found work as an actor, extra and stuntman in many of the Spanish/Italian "...

56. Fritz Lang

Actor | Le mépris

Fritz Lang was born in Vienna, Austria, in 1890. His father managed a construction company. His mother, Pauline Schlesinger, was Jewish but converted to Catholicism when Lang was ten. After high school, he enrolled briefly at the Technische Hochschule Wien and then started to train as a painter. ...

57. Andy Lassner

Producer | The Rosie O'Donnell Show

Andy Lassner was born on December 30, 1966 in Bogota, Colombia. He is a producer and writer, known for The Rosie O'Donnell Show (1996), The Ellen DeGeneres Show (2003) and Family Game Fight (2021). He is married to Lorie Lassner. They have three children.

58. Norman Lear

Producer | All in the Family

Norman Lear enjoyed a long career in television and film, political and social activism, and philanthropy.

Born in 1922 in New Haven, Connecticut, Lear flew 52 combat missions over Europe in World War II before beginning his television career. His classic shows of the 1970s and '80s - All in the ...

59. Mervyn LeRoy

Director | Gypsy

The great San Francisco earthquake and fire of 1906 was a tragedy for Mervyn LeRoy. While he and his father managed to survive, they lost everything they had. To make money, LeRoy sold newspapers and entered talent contests as a singer. When he entered vaudeville, his act was "LeRoy and Cooper--Two...

60. Barry Levinson

Director | Rain Man

Barry Lee Levinson was born in Baltimore, Maryland, to Violet (Krichinsky) and Irvin Levinson, who worked in furniture and appliance. He is of Russian Jewish descent. Levinson graduated from high school in 1960, attended college at American University in Washington, DC. He did well, but decided he ...

61. Shawn Levy

Producer | Free Guy

Shawn Levy was born on July 23, 1968 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. He is a producer and director, known for Stranger Things (2016), Real Steel (2011), and the Night at the Museum franchise. He is the founder and principal of 21 Laps Entertainment. He is married to Serena Levy and they have four ...

62. Albert Lewin

Writer | The Picture of Dorian Gray

Albert Lewin was born on September 23, 1894 in Brooklyn, New York, USA. He was a writer and producer, known for The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945), Pandora and the Flying Dutchman (1951) and The Living Idol (1957). He was married to Mildred Mindlin Jacobs. He died on May 9, 1968 in New York City, ...

63. Jerry Lewis

Actor | The Nutty Professor

Jerry Lewis (born March 16, 1926 - August 20, 2017) was an American comedian, actor, singer, film producer, screenwriter and film director. He is known for his slapstick humor in film, television, stage and radio. He was originally paired up with Dean Martin in 1946, forming the famed comedy team ...

64. Doug Liman

Producer | Edge of Tomorrow

Douglas Eric Liman is a Jewish-American filmmaker and producer who directed Swingers, The Bourne Identity, Chaos Walking, Jumper, Go, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Fair Game, Locked Down, Edge of Tomorrow, The Wall and American Made. He executive produced the Bourne sequels except The Bourne Legacy, The ...

65. Jonathan Littman

Producer | The Amazing Race

Jonathan Littman is known for The Amazing Race (2001), CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (2000) and Lucifer (2016).

66. Lynne Littman

Director | Testament

Lynne Littman was born on June 26, 1941 in New York City, New York, USA. She is a director and producer, known for Testament (1983), Number Our Days (1976) and In Her Own Time (1985). She was previously married to Taylor Hackford.

67. Ernst Lubitsch

Director | To Be or Not to Be

From Ernst Lubitsch's experiences in Sophien Gymnasium (high school) theater, he decided to leave school at the age of 16 and pursue a career on the stage. He had to compromise with his father and keep the account books for the family tailor business while he acted in cabarets and music halls at ...

68. Michael Lucas

Producer | The Newsreader

Michael Lucas is known for The Newsreader (2021), Five Bedrooms (2019) and Offspring (2010).

69. Sidney Lumet

Director | 12 Angry Men

Sidney Lumet was a master of cinema, best known for his technical knowledge and his skill at getting first-rate performances from his actors -- and for shooting most of his films in his beloved New York. He made over 40 movies, often complex and emotional, but seldom overly sentimental. Although ...

70. David Mamet

Writer | House of Games

Born in 1947 in Chicago, he was educated at Goddard College, in Vermont, and studied drama at New York's Neighborhood Playhouse, before returning to Chicago and establishing the St Nicholas Theatre Company in 1972. He remained their resident writer for four years. The first of his plays to secure ...

71. Michael Mann

Producer | The Insider

As a director, screenwriter, and producer, four-time Academy Award nominee Michael Mann has established himself as one of the most innovative and influential filmmakers in American cinema. After writing and directing the Primetime Emmy Award-winning television movie The Jericho Mile (1979), Mann ...

72. Elaine May

Actress | Small Time Crooks

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 ...

73. Paul Mazursky

Actor | An Unmarried Woman

Paul Mazursky was born on April 25, 1930 in Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA. He was an actor and writer, known for An Unmarried Woman (1978), Harry and Tonto (1974) and Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969). He was married to Betsy Mazursky. He died on June 30, 2014 in Beverly Grove, ...

74. Lewis Milestone

Director | All Quiet on the Western Front

Lewis Milestone, a clothing manufacturer's son, was born in Bessarabia (now Moldova), raised in Odessa (Ukraine) and educated in Belgium and Berlin (where he studied engineering). He was fluent in both German and Russian and an avid reader. Milestone had an affinity for the theatre from an early ...

75. John Milius

Writer | Conan the Barbarian

John Milius is a screenwriter and director who came to prominence in the 1970s, when he was associated with Francis Ford Coppola and the pre-Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977) George Lucas. Born on April 11, 1944 in St. Louis, Missouri, Milius was one of the first movie industry ...

76. Meredith Monk

Soundtrack | The Big Lebowski

Meredith Monk was born on November 20, 1942 in New York City, New York, USA. She is a composer and writer, known for The Big Lebowski (1998), Book of Days (1989) and Quarry (1978).

77. Errol Morris

Director | The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara

His documentaries helped spur a rebirth of non-fiction film in the 80s & garnered wide critical success. But until 2003's "The Fog of War," Morris was shunned by the Academy Awards.

Morris' first two films won much acclaim (Gates of Heaven (1978) and Vernon, Florida (1981)). In the second movie, ...

78. Mike Nichols

Director | The Graduate

He, along with the other members of the "Compass Players" including Elaine May, Paul Sills, Byrne Piven, Joyce Hiller Piven and Edward Asner helped start the famed "Second City Improv" company. They used the games taught to them by fellow cast mate, Paul Sills 's mother, Viola Spolin. He later ...

79. Leonard Nimoy

Actor | Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

Leonard Simon Nimoy was born in Boston, Massachusetts, to Dora (Spinner) and Max Nimoy, who owned a barbershop. His parents were Ukrainian Jewish immigrants. Raised in a tenement and acting in community theaters since age eight, Nimoy did not make his Hollywood debut until he was 20, with a bit ...

80. Ken Olin

Producer | This Is Us

Actor Ken Olin's dark, sincere, extreme good looks were steadily put to use on the small screen during the 80s, but, in retrospect, the actor will probably now be considered more of a major force behind the camera as a producer and director when all is said and done.

Born Kenneth Edward Olin in ...

81. Marcel Ophüls

Director | Hôtel Terminus

Marcel Ophuls (actually Marcel Oppenheimer) is the son of the famous German film maker Max Ophüls. He spent his formative years in Hollywood, briefly served with a U.S. Army theatrical unit in Japan in 1946 and then attended the University of California, Berkely. In 1950, already a naturalized ...

82. Max Ophüls

Director | La ronde

Director Max Ophüls was born Max Oppenheimer in Saarbrücken, Germany. He began his career as a stage actor and director in the golden twenties. He worked in cities such as Stuttgart, Dortmund, Wuppertal, Vienna, Frankfurt, Breslau and Berlin. In 1929 his son Marcel Ophüls was born in Frankfurt, ...

83. Frank Oz

Actor | The Muppet Show

Frank Richard Oznowicz was born in Hereford, England to puppeteers Frances and Isidore Oznowicz. His family moved to Montana in 1951, eventually settling in Oakland, California. As a teenager, he worked as an apprentice puppeteer at Children's Fairyland amusement park. He is one of the primary ...

84. Alan J. Pakula

Producer | Sophie's Choice

Alan J. Pakula was an American film director, writer and producer. He was nominated for three Academy Awards: Best Picture for To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), Best Director for All the President's Men (1976) and Best Adapted Screenplay for Sophie's Choice (1982).

He also directed Presumed Innocent (...

85. Jerry Paris

Director | The Dick Van Dyke Show

Glimpsed here and there throughout the 1950s, usually in amiable supporting roles on film, it was as in television that Jerry Paris found his true calling. In front of the camera, however, most fans will remember him as Jerry Helper, the next-door neighbor of Rob and Laura Petrie (Dick Van Dyke and ...

86. Larry Peerce

Director | The Incident

Larry Peerce was born in 1930 in Bronx, New York, to the later Metropolitan Opera tenor Jan Peerce and his wife, Alice. Peerce's directorial career stretched from 1964 to 2001, embraced different genres and generated different results.

In the 1960s it seemed as if Peerce would become a major ...

87. Arthur Penn

Director | Bonnie and Clyde

Arthur Penn was born on September 27, 1922 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. He was a director and producer, known for Bonnie and Clyde (1967), Little Big Man (1970) and The Miracle Worker (1962). He was married to Peggy Maurer. He died on September 28, 2010 in Manhattan, New York City, New York,...

88. Sydney Pollack

Director | Tootsie

Sydney Pollack was an Academy Award-winning director, producer, actor, writer and public figure, who directed and produced over 40 films.

Sydney Irwin Pollack was born July 1, 1934 in Lafayette, Indiana, USA, to Rebecca (Miller), a homemaker, and David Pollack, a professional boxer turned pharmacist...

89. Abraham Polonsky

Writer | Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here

Writer-director Abraham Lincoln Polonsky, one of the most prominent victims of the Hollywood blacklisting of communists and social progressives in the post-World War II period, was born on December 5, 1910, in New York, New York. An unreconstructed Marxist, Polonsky never hid his membership in the ...

90. Otto Preminger

Actor | Stalag 17

Otto Ludwig Preminger was born in Wiznitz, Bukovina, Austria-Hungary. His father was a prosecutor, and Otto originally intended to follow his father into a law career; however, he fell in love with the theater in his 20's and became one of the most imaginative stage producers and directors. He was ...

91. Bob Rafelson

Producer | Five Easy Pieces

Bob Rafelson was an American film director, writer and producer. He is regarded as one of the founders of the New Hollywood movement in the 1970s. Among his best-known films are Five Easy Pieces (1970), The King of Marvin Gardens (1972), and The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981). He was also one of...

92. Brett Ratner

Director | Red Dragon

Brett Ratner is one of Hollywood's most successful filmmakers. His diverse films resonate with audiences worldwide and, as director, his films have grossed over $2 billion at the global box office. Brett began his career directing music videos before making his feature directorial debut at 26 years...

93. Ron Rifkin

Actor | Alias

Ron Rifkin was born on October 31, 1939 in New York City, New York, USA. He is an actor, known for Alias (2001), L.A. Confidential (1997) and Dragonfly (2002). He has been married to Iva Rifkin since August 28, 1966.

94. Jay Roach

Director | Trumbo

Jay Roach was born on June 14, 1957 in Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA. He is a producer and director, known for Trumbo (2015), Bombshell (2019) and Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997). He has been married to Susanna Hoffs since April 17, 1993. They have two children.

95. Eli Roth

Producer | Thanksgiving

Eli Raphael Roth was born in Newton, Massachusetts, to Cora (Bialis), a painter, and Sheldon H. Roth, a psychoanalyst, psychiatrist, and clinical professor. His family is Jewish (from Austria, Hungary, Russia, and Poland). He began shooting Super 8 films at the age of eight; after watching Ridley ...

96. Julian Schnabel

Director | Before Night Falls

Julian Schnabel was born on October 26, 1951 in Brooklyn, New York, USA. He is a director and writer, known for Before Night Falls (2000), The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007) and At Eternity's Gate (2018). He was previously married to Olatz López Garmendia and Jacqueline Schnabel.

97. Steve Sekely

Director | A Noszty fiú esete Tóth Marival

Steve Sekely was born on February 25, 1899 in Budapest, Austria-Hungary [now Hungary]. He was a director and writer, known for Boy, the Noszty (1938), Die große Sehnsucht (1930) and The Fabulous Suzanne (1946). He was married to Klára Makoldy and Irén Ágay. He died on March 9, 1979 in Palm ...

98. George Sidney

Director | Scaramouche

The son of Louis K. Sidney the vice president of M.G.M. and Hazel Mooney of The Mooney Sisters. In his teens he worked as studio messenger going through every department learning the techniques and secrets of the trade. In 1933 he was assigned to direct screen tests of Judy Garland, Robert Taylor ...

99. Joan Micklin Silver

Director | Hester Street

As a successful director working both inside and outside the Hollywood studio system, Joan Micklin Silver was a true lamplighter. Garnering a steady stream of awards and box office successes, she proved herself time and again as one of the most important woman directors to come out of the United ...

100. Bryan Singer

Director | X-Men

Bryan Singer is an American film director and producer who got his start writing and co-directing the short film Lions Den with his classmates while he attended USC. He was hired by 20th Century Fox to direct X-Men, which helped kick-start the superhero renaissance. He later directed three sequels....