Among the most innovative and influential filmmakers of the twentieth century, Alain Resnais (1922–2014) did not originally set out to become a director. He trained as an actor and film editor and, ...

From his early horror movies, including Scanners, Videodrome, Rabid, and The Fly—with their exploding heads, mutating sex organs, rampaging parasites, and scientists turning into insects—to his inventive ...

Peter Weir: Interviews is the first volume of interviews to be published on the esteemed Australian director. Although Weir (b. 1944) has acquired a reputation of being guarded about his life and work, ...

Beginning with her critically acclaimed independent feature film Eve’s Bayou (1997), writer-director Kasi Lemmons’s mission has been to push the boundaries that exist in Hollywood. With Eve’s Bayou ...

In the late 1950s, Mike Nichols (1931–2014) and Elaine May (b. 1932) soared to superstar status as a sketch comedy duo in live shows and television. After their 1962 breakup, both went on to long and ...

A refugee from post–World War II Europe who immigrated to the US in 1949, Jonas Mekas (1922–2019) became one of America's foremost champions of independent cinema and one of its most innovative filmmakers. ...

Spanning five decades and twenty-four films, director Michael Haneke’s career is one of the most significant in the history of European art cinema. However, critical reception has long lagged behind ...

Academy Award–winning director William Friedkin (b. 1935) is best known for his critically and commercially successful films The French Connection and The Exorcist. Unlike other film school–educated ...

Margarethe von Trotta (b. 1942) entered the film industry in the only way she could in the 1960s—as an actress. Throughout her career, von Trotta added thirty-two acting credits to her name; however, ...

Claude Chabrol (1930–2010) was a founding member of the French New Wave, the group of filmmakers that revolutionized French filmmaking in the late 1950s and early 1960s. One of the most prolific directors ...