PEOPLE KNOWN FOR: screenwriting
American actor and director
Woody Allen, American motion-picture director, screenwriter, actor, comedian, playwright, and author, best known for his bittersweet comic films containing elements of parody, slapstick, and the absurd...
American actor, director, and writer
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...
American director, writer, and actor
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...
American director
Martin Scorsese, 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 his...
American director and producer
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...
American author
William Faulkner, American novelist and short-story writer who was awarded the 1949 Nobel Prize for Literature. As the eldest of the four sons of Murry Cuthbert and Maud Butler Falkner, William Faulkner...
British actor, director, writer, and composer
Charlie Chaplin, British comedian, producer, writer, director, and composer who is widely regarded as the greatest comic artist of the screen and one of the most important figures in motion-picture history....
American director
Stanley Kubrick, American motion-picture director and writer whose films are characterized by his dramatic visual style, meticulous attention to detail, and a detached, often ironic or pessimistic perspective....
American director and screenwriter
Francis Ford Coppola, 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 (1972),...
American director and author
Elia Kazan, Turkish-born American film director and author noted for his successes on the stage—especially with plays by Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller—as well as for his critically acclaimed films...
Swedish film director
Ingmar Bergman, Swedish film writer and director who achieved world fame with such films as Det sjunde inseglet (1957; The Seventh Seal); Smultronstället (1957; Wild Strawberries); the trilogy Såsom i...
Italian filmmaker
Federico Fellini, Italian film director who was one of the most celebrated and singular filmmakers of the period after World War II. Influenced early in his career by the Neorealist movement, he developed...
American director
William Wellman, American film director whose more than 80 movies included Hollywood classics of documentary-like realism and who was ranked as an action director alongside Howard Hawks and John Ford....
American author and director
Nicholas Ray, American motion-picture writer and director whose reputation as one of the most expressive and distinctive filmmakers of the late 1940s and the ’50s is grounded on a clutch of stylish heartfelt...
American filmmaker
Joseph L. Mankiewicz, American producer, director, and screenwriter known for his witty, literary, urbane dialogue and memorable characters. He worked with many of Hollywood’s major stars and earned the...
American film director, producer, and screenwriter
Blake Edwards, American film director, producer, and screenwriter who was best known for the classic romantic comedy Breakfast at Tiffiany’s (1961) as well as the comedy The Pink Panther (1963) and its...
American director
Leo McCarey, American director and writer who was perhaps best known for his light comedies, notably the classics Duck Soup (1933) and The Awful Truth (1937), but who also made several popular romances...
American director
Samuel Fuller, American director known for his gritty action movies. Fuller left school at age 13 and became a copyboy for The New York Journal under editor Arthur Brisbane. While still in his teens, Fuller...
American director
John Frankenheimer, American television and film director who was considered one of the most important and creatively gifted directors of the 1950s and ’60. He was especially noted for such classic movies...
American director and screenwriter
Brian De Palma, American motion-picture director and screenwriter best noted for his usually stylish, often graphic horror-suspense films that draw heavily on the work of director Alfred Hitchcock. De...
American director, producer, and screenwriter
George Lucas, American motion-picture director, producer, and screenwriter who created several of the most popular films in history. The son of a small-town stationer and a mother who was often hospitalized...
American director
Sam Peckinpah, American motion-picture director and screenwriter who was known for ultraviolent but often lyrical films that explored issues of morality and identity. During World War II, Peckinpah enlisted...
American actor
Jack Nicholson, one of the most prominent American motion-picture actors of his generation, especially noted for his versatile portrayals of unconventional, alienated outsiders. Nicholson, whose father...
American director, producer, screenwriter, and actor
Mel Brooks, American film and television director, producer, writer, and actor whose motion pictures elevated outrageousness and vulgarity to high comic art. (Read Martin Scorsese’s Britannica essay on...
American director
Preston Sturges, American motion-picture director, screenwriter, and playwright best known for a series of hugely popular satirical comedies that he made in the early 1940s. Sturges made his mark at a...
American director, producer, and writer
Alan J. Pakula, American motion-picture director, producer, and screenwriter who evoked exceptional performances from actors and actresses in the 16 films he directed, most notably in three dark, foreboding...
American film director
Peter Bogdanovich, American director, critic, and actor noted for his attempts to revitalize film genres of the 1930s and ’40s. (Read Martin Scorsese’s Britannica essay on film preservation.) As a teenager,...
American actor
W.C. Fields, actor whose flawless timing and humorous cantankerousness made him one of America’s greatest comedians. His real-life and screen personalities were often indistinguishable, and he is remembered...
American comedian
Jerry Lewis, American comedian, actor, and director whose unrestrained comic style made him one of the most popular performers of the 1950s and ’60s. Lewis was born into a vaudeville family, and at age...
American director and screenwriter
Edmund Goulding , British-born American director and screenwriter who first gained notice for films aimed at a female audience but proved adept at a wide range of genres. Goulding began acting onstage...
French poet and artist
Jean Cocteau, French poet, librettist, novelist, actor, film director, and painter. Some of his most important works include the poem L’Ange Heurtebise (1925; “The Angel Heurtebise”); the play Orphée (1926;...
American writer
Ray Bradbury, American author best known for his highly imaginative short stories and novels that blend a poetic style, nostalgia for childhood, social criticism, and an awareness of the hazards of runaway...
American writer and director
Richard Brooks, American screenwriter and director whose best-known movies were adaptations of literary works, notably Blackboard Jungle (1955), Elmer Gantry (1960), and In Cold Blood (1967). (Read Martin...
vice president of United States
Al Gore, 45th vice president of the United States (1993–2001) in the Democratic administration of President Bill Clinton. In the 2000 presidential election, one of the most controversial elections in American...
American director
Budd Boetticher, American film director who was best known for a series of classic westerns that starred Randolph Scott. (Read Martin Scorsese’s Britannica essay on film preservation.) Boetticher attended...
American writer and director
Roger Corman, American motion picture director, producer, and distributor known for his highly successful low-budget exploitation films and for launching the careers of several prominent directors and...
American director, producer, and screenwriter
Oliver Stone, American film director, screenwriter, and producer known for his ambitious and often controversial movies. Stone, the son of a wealthy stockbroker, was raised in New York City. He briefly...
American actor, screenwriter, and producer
Matt Damon, American actor, screenwriter, and producer who was noted for his clean-cut good looks and intelligent performances. He won an Academy Award for best original screenplay for Good Will Hunting...
American director and screenwriter
Philip Kaufman, American film director and screenwriter who is especially known for his adaptations of literary works, notably The Right Stuff (1983) and The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1988). After...
American filmmaker
Robert Benton, American filmmaker who directed and wrote a number of acclaimed movies, including Kramer vs. Kramer (1979). Benton served in the U.S. Army in the 1950s, and during this time he painted dioramas....
American director
George Roy Hill, American director of stage and screen who was perhaps best known for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) and The Sting (1973). Hill studied music at Yale University, earning a degree...
American director and producer
Joshua Logan, American stage and motion-picture director, producer, and writer. Best known as the stage director who brought to Broadway such classics as Charley’s Aunt (1940), Annie Get Your Gun (1946),...
American screenwriter and director
Delmer Daves, American writer and director of motion pictures who worked in a number of genres but was best known for his westerns, which include Broken Arrow (1950), The Last Wagon (1956), and 3:10 to...
American actor and writer
Steve Martin, American comedian, writer, and producer who began his career as a stand-up comic and eventually achieved success in motion pictures, on television, on Broadway, and in literature. Martin...
American musician
Paul Simon, American singer-songwriter who brought a highbrow sensibility to rock music. One of the most paradoxical figures in rock-and-roll history, Simon exemplified many of the principles against which...
American writer and director
Garson Kanin, American writer and director who was perhaps best known for several classic comedies written with his wife, the actress-writer Ruth Gordon, and for the play Born Yesterday (1946). Kanin left...
American actor, writer, and director
Ben Affleck, American actor and filmmaker who played leading roles in action, drama, and comedy films but who was perhaps more renowned for his work as a screenwriter, director, and producer. Affleck grew...
British director
John Boorman, British movie director who was one of the most distinctive stylists of his generation. Boorman began writing film reviews while a teenager. After a stint in the British military, he moved...
American writer and director
Robert Rossen , American writer and director whose career—although highlighted by a number of notable films, especially All the King’s Men (1949) and The Hustler (1961)—was damaged after he was blacklisted...
American actress, singer, director, producer
Barbra Streisand, American singer, composer, actress, director, and producer who was considered by many to be the greatest popular singer of her generation. The first major female star to command roles...