Movie, TV & Stage Directors
Although directors are often invisible to the audience in plays, shows, and movies (Alfred Hitchcock and his film cameos being one notable exception), they play an important role by controlling the evolution of the theatrical or dramatic performance. When there are actors involved, the director often oversees and shapes their performances as well. Although the auteur theory holds that the director is the major creative force in a performance, the role of the director actually varies a great deal, not only according to the medium in question but also according to the extent to which he works with actors.
Movie, TV & Stage Directors Encyclopedia Articles
Featured Articles
Kathryn Bigelow
Kathryn Bigelow American film director and screenwriter, noted for action films that often featured protagonists struggling with inner conflict. She was the first woman to win an Academy Award for best...
Sarah Polley
Sarah Polley Canadian actor, director, writer, and producer who first won acclaim as a child actor, noted for her natural and unaffected performances in Atom Egoyan’s Exotica (1994) and The Sweet Hereafter...
Lina Wertmüller
Lina Wertmüller Italian film director and screenwriter noted for her comedies focusing on the eternal battle of the sexes and on contemporary political and social issues. In 1977 she became the first woman...
Norman Taurog
Norman Taurog American director of some 80 feature films, many of which were comedies, including a number with Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, and musicals, nine of which starred Elvis Presley. However, arguably...
Michael Curtiz
Michael Curtiz was a Hungarian-born American motion-picture director whose prolific output as a contract director for Warner Brothers was composed of many solid but run-of-the-mill genre films along with...
Nancy Meyers
Nancy Meyers American writer, director, and producer who was best known for her romantic comedies, several of which centre on middle-aged women. Meyers grew up in the Philadelphia area. After studying...
John Huston
John Huston American motion-picture director, writer, and actor whose taut dramas were among the most popular Hollywood films from the early 1940s to the mid-1980s. Many of his films were literary adaptations...
Steven Spielberg
Steven Spielberg American motion-picture director and producer whose diverse films—which ranged from science-fiction fare, including such classics as Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) and E.T.:...
Frank Capra
Frank Capra was an American motion-picture director who was the most prominent filmmaker of the 1930s, during which he won three Academy Awards as best director. His most-beloved films, many of which were...
William Wyler
William Wyler German-born American director of motion pictures that combined a high degree of technical polish with a clear narrative style and sensitive handling of human relationships. Most of his feature...
Alfred Hitchcock
Alfred Hitchcock English-born American motion-picture director whose suspenseful films and television programs won immense popularity and critical acclaim over a long and tremendously productive career....
Robert Altman
Robert Altman was an unconventional and independent American motion-picture director, whose works emphasize character and atmosphere over plot in exploring themes of innocence, corruption, and survival....
Penny Marshall
Penny Marshall American actress, comedian, and director, one of the first women to achieve consistent commercial success as a motion picture director. Marshall was the daughter of a dance teacher and an...
Mervyn LeRoy
Mervyn LeRoy American motion-picture director whose wide variety of films included dramas, romances, epics, comedies, and musicals. He also produced films, including the classic The Wizard of Oz (1939)....
Taviani brothers
Taviani brothers, were Italian filmmakers who combined the social concerns and documentary effects of Neorealism with modernist concerns for outstanding, often poetic, visual and aural effects. The notable...
Fleischer brothers
Fleischer brothers, American brothers, producers of animated cartoons featuring such characters as Betty Boop and Popeye. Producer Max Fleischer (b. July 19, 1883, Vienna, Austria—d. Sept. 11, 1972, Woodland...
Sofia Coppola
Sofia Coppola American film director, producer, screenwriter, and fashion designer known best for her films The Virgin Suicides (1999) and Lost in Translation (2003). In 2004 she was the first American...
Coen brothers
Coen brothers, American filmmakers known for their stylish neo-noir films that combine elements of comedy and drama and often centre on eccentric characters and convoluted plots. Though both brothers contributed...
Albert and David Maysles
Albert and David Maysles American documentary filmmakers who worked in a cinema verité style that was sensitive and compassionate as well as revelatory. The Maysles brothers grew up in Dorchester and later...
Woody Allen
Woody Allen is an American motion-picture director, screenwriter, actor, comedian, playwright, and author who is best known for his bittersweet comic films containing elements of parody, slapstick, and...
Merchant and Ivory
Merchant and Ivory, producer-director team known for their richly textured cinematography and ability to evoke brilliant performances from some of the world’s finest actors. Producer Ismail (Noormohamed)...
Billy Wilder
Billy Wilder Austrian-born American motion-picture scenarist, director, and producer known for films that humorously treat subjects of controversy and offer biting indictments of hypocrisy in American...
Vincente Minnelli
Vincente Minnelli American motion-picture director who infused a new sophistication and vitality into filmed musicals in the 1940s and ’50s. (Read Martin Scorsese’s Britannica essay on film preservation.)...
Hanna and Barbera
Hanna and Barbera, American motion-picture animators and partners in Hanna-Barbera Productions, founded in 1957. William Hanna (in full William Denby Hanna; b. July 14, 1910, Melrose, New Mexico, U.S.—d....
Orson Welles
Orson Welles American motion-picture actor, director, producer, and writer. His innovative narrative techniques and use of photography, dramatic lighting, and music to further the dramatic line and to...
Francis Ford Coppola
Francis Ford Coppola is an American motion-picture director, writer, and producer whose films range from sweeping epics to small-scale character studies. As the director of films such as The Godfather...
Howard Hawks
Howard Hawks was an American motion-picture director who maintained a consistent personal style within the framework of traditional film genres in work that ranged from the 1920s to the ’70s. Although...
Raoul Walsh
Raoul Walsh American motion-picture director popular in the 1930s and 1940s for his tough, masculine films. (Read Martin Scorsese’s Britannica essay on film preservation.) As a young man, Walsh worked...
Jane Campion
Jane Campion New Zealand director and screenwriter whose films often focus on women who are outsiders in society. Although both her parents were involved in New Zealand theatre, Campion initially chose...
Martin Scorsese
Martin Scorsese is an American filmmaker known for his harsh, often violent depictions of American culture. From the 1970s Scorsese created a body of work that was ambitious, bold, and brilliant. But even...