Famous Filmmakers a to z

Director, producer and playwright George Abbott lived to be 107 and participated in such Broadway productions as Boy Meets Girl, The Fall Guy and Our Town.

J.J. Abrams is a screenwriter, director and producer known for TV shows like Felicity and Alias and films like Star Trek and Super 8.

Woody Allen is an American comedian, filmmaker and writer who directed and starred in two of his most famous films, Annie Hall and Manhattan.

Filmmaker Robert Altman is best known for his highly individualistic films and use of simultaneous layers of dialogue.

Wes Anderson is known for the quirky and humorous films The Royal Tenenbaums, The Darjeeling Limited and Fantastic Mr. Fox.

Judd Apatow is an Emmy-winning screenwriter, producer and director known for films like The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Knocked Up and This Is 40.

Actor and director Alan Arkin is a three-time Academy Award nominee, whose notable films include Catch-22 and Wait Until Dark.

Dorothy Arzner was a pioneer in the film industry, becoming one of the first women directors of feature films and the first woman to join the Directors Guild of America.

Spanish actor Antonio Banderas starred in several of Pedro Almodóvar’s films. In America, he has played Zorro, and Puss in Boots in the Shrek film series.

Writer and filmmaker Clive Barker is largely considered a master of the horror genre. His Books of Blood and Hellraiser films are among his best-known works.

Jean-Louis Barrault was a French actor director, and mime. He is best known for his role in the film The Children of Paradise (1945).

Actress Adriana Barraza played Amelia in the award-winning film Babel. Her performance earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress.

Actress Drew Barrymore gained early fame as a child star. She later struggled with substance abuse and notoriety, before re-emerging as a talented actress and producer.

Warren Beatty is an Oscar-winning director and actor known for such films as Bonnie and Clyde, Reds and Heaven Can Wait.

Roberto Benigni is an Italian actor, director and producer best known for his 1997 Oscar winning film La Vita e Bella (Life is Beautiful).

Ingmar Bergman was a Swedish director and producer best known for films such as The Seventh Sea (1956), Cries and Whispers (1971) and Autumn Sonata (1978).

Mexican actor and director Gael García Bernal starred as Che Guevera in The Motorcycle Diaries (2004) and as Stéphane Miroux in The Science of Sleep (2006).

Filmmaker Kathryn Bigelow has directed films like Point Break and Zero Dark Thirty. In 2009, she became the first woman to win an Academy Award for best director for The Hurt Locker (2008).

Chadwick Boseman is an American actor known for his roles on the TV show Lincoln Heights and as baseball great Jackie Robinson in the biopic 42.

Danny Boyle is a British film director whose films include Trainspotting, Slumdog Millionaire, and 127 Hours.

Matthew Broderick is an American actor who became a star with his role in Ferris Bueller's Day Off. He's also known for Broadway role in The Producers.

For 40 years, Actor and comedian Albert Brooks has worked steadily in Hollywood, appearing both in other people's movies and in his own self-directed projects.

James L. Brooks is an American director, producer and screenwriter, best-known for The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Rhoda and Taxi.

Mel Brooks is an iconic filmmaker known for comedies like The Producers, Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein, among other works.

Irish actor Pierce Brosnan is best known for his recurring role as British spy James Bond in the popular James Bond film series.

Jerry Bruckheimer is an American film and television producer who brought audiences the film Top Gun and the television series CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.

Director, producer and screenwriter Tim Burton is known for such films as Beetlejuice and Edward Scissorhands, which blend themes of fantasy and horror.

Steve Buscemi is a popular character actor, director and screenwriter. He's known for his role on the critically acclaimed series Boardwalk Empire.

Oscar-winning director James Cameron is best known for the highly acclaimed, box-office hits Aliens (1986), Titanic (1997) and Avatar (2009).

Jane Campion is a New Zealand film director and writer who won an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay for The Piano in 1993. She also directed Bright Star.

A master of horror, John Carpenter created the 1978 thriller hit Halloween, which has inspired and influenced countless other filmmakers.

Nick Carter from the pop group the Backstreet Boys is also known for once dating Paris Hilton, starring in a reality TV show and overcoming drug and alcohol addiction.

Henri Cartier-Bresson was a French photographer whose humane, spontaneous photographs helped establish photojournalism as an art form.

Dave Chappelle is a comedian whose Comedy Central show Chappelle's Show became a smash hit in the mid-2000s.

Oscar-winning Scottish actor Sean Connery played "007" in the first James Bond spy movies. He also played the Indiane Jones's father in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

Director, producer and screenwriter Francis Ford Coppola is best known for creating The Godfather film series starring Marlon Brando and Al Pacino.

Sofia Coppola is a film director, screenwriter, producer and actor. She directed The Virgin Suicides and Lost in Translation, winning an Oscar for the latter.

Roger Corman is a film director and producer who helmed B-Movie classics and helped launch the careers of James Cameron, John Sayles, Ron Howard and others.

Film actor and director Kevin Costner directed and starred in the epic film Dances With Wolves (1990), which won seven Oscars.

Jacques Cousteau was a French undersea explorer, researcher, photographer and documentary host who invented diving and scuba devices, including the Aqua-Lung. He also conducted underwater expeditions and produced films and television series, including the Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau. 

Wes Craven is a horror film director, screenwriter and producer known for projects like Swamp Thing, Nightmare on Elm Street and the Scream series.

Michael Crichton was an American author best known for his sci-fi and medical thrillers. The movie based on his book, Jurassic Park, was one of the highest-grossing films in history.

A-list actor and Scientologist Tom Cruise is the star of many box office hits, including Risky Business, A Few Good Men, The Firm, and Jerry Maguire.

Jon Cryer is known for his Emmy-winning role as a single dad on TV's Two and a Half Men as well as his films, especially the '80s teen flick Pretty in Pink.

Alan Cumming is a Scottish actor known for a range of work, from Shakespeare to Cabaret to X-Men, to the television series The Good Wife.

Stephen Daldry is a three-time Oscar nominated director known for the films Billy Elliot, The Hours and The Reader.

Salvador Dali is best known for his long surrealist painting career.

Roger Daltrey is a rock musician and singer who’s the former lead vocalist of The Who. He’s also a film and TV actor.

Ossie Davis was an American actor, writer, social activist and humanitarian. He often performed with wife Ruby Dee in plays, in film and on television.

Philippe de Broca was a French filmmaker, best known for his light-hearted comedies. He was awarded the Legion of Honor for his contributions to French culture.

Legendary award-winning actor Robert De Niro has starred in such films as Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, The Godfather: Part II and Silver Linings Playbook.

Brian De Palma is a writer-director whose career has been marked by both hits and misses, with such films as Carrie and Bonfire of the Vanities.

Cecil B. DeMille was an actor, director and producer who became a giant of the 20th century film industry, known for epics like The Ten Commandments.

Director and producer Ted Demme created Yo! MTV Raps, and worked on the films Beautiful Girls, Life and Blow.

Johnny Depp is an award-nominated actor known for his portrayal of odd-ball characters including Captain Jack Sparrow in the Pirates of the Caribbean.

Actor, director and writer Laura Dern, daughter of actors Bruce Dern and Diane Ladd, has played everything from willowy ingénues to drug-addicted washouts. She's known for starring in Jurassic Park, and for co-producing and starring on the series Enlightened.

American actor Danny DeVito began his rise to fame on the TV show Taxi. Since then, he's starred in feature films such as Twins and Ruthless People, and on the popular show It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

Actor Kirk Douglas brought his formidable chin and talent to movies like Spartacus and The Bad and the Beautiful. You may also know him as the father of Michael Douglas.

Michael Douglas is an American actor best known for his roles on TV's Streets of San Francisco and in the films Wall Street, Fatal Attraction and Wonder Boys.

Golden Globe winner Lena Dunham is best known for writing, directing, producing and acting in Girls, the original series she created for HBO.

Controversial musician Fred Durst came to fame in the mid-1990s as the front man for the "nu metal" band Limp Bizkit.

Eadweard Muybridge's photography of moving animals captured movement in a way that had never been done before. His work was used by both scientists and artists.

Clint Eastwood has made his name as a popular TV and film actor. He went on to become a famed director, working on several Academy Award-winning films.

Blake Edwards was an American film director, producer and screenwriter who was perhaps best known for The Pink Panther and its sequels.

Filipino actor and politician Joseph Estrada served as the 13th president of the Philippines from 1998 to 2001.

Silent movie star Douglas Fairbanks Sr. (1883–39) teamed up with Charlie Chaplin, D.W. Griffith and his wife Mary Pickford to launch United Artists in 1919.

Jon Favreau is a Hollywood actor, screenwriter, director and producer known for film projects like Swingers, Elf and Iron Man.

Dodi Fayed was an Egyptian heir and film producer who dated and was dled with Princess Diana of Wales in a Paris car crash.

Italian film director Federico Fellini was one of the most celebrated and distinctive filmmakers of the period after World War II.