James Gray

Born in New York, James Gray grew up in Queens and stud­ied film at the Uni­ver­si­ty of South­ern Cal­i­for­nia (USC). He made his direc­to­r­i­al debut in 1994 at the age of 25 with Lit­tle Odessa, wide­ly acclaimed by crit­ics and the pro­fes­sion. Nom­i­nat­ed among oth­ers at the Inde­pen­dent Spir­it Awards for Best First Fea­ture and Best First Screen­play, the film received the Inter­na­tion­al Crit­ics’ Prize at the Deauville Amer­i­can Film Fes­ti­val as well as the Sil­ver Lion at the Venice Film Festival. 

In 2000, James Gray wrote and direct­ed The Yards, his sec­ond fea­ture and his first with actor Joaquin Phoenix, who would become a fre­quent col­lab­o­ra­tor, going on to star in his next three films. Pre­sent­ed the same year in com­pe­ti­tion at the Cannes Film Fes­ti­val, the fea­ture film also brought togeth­er Mark Wahlberg, Char­l­ize Theron, Faye Dun­away, Ellen Burstyn and James Caan. In his next New York crime dra­ma, We Own the Night, screened in com­pe­ti­tion at the 2007 Cannes Film Fes­ti­val and nom­i­nat­ed for a César in 2008 for Best For­eign Film, the direc­tor reunit­ed with Mark Wahlberg and Joaquin Phoenix along­side Eva Mendes and Robert Duvall. In 2008, he direct­ed the roman­tic dra­ma Two Lovers, star­ring Joaquin Phoenix, Gwyneth Pal­trow, Vines­sa Shaw and Isabel­la Rosselli­ni. The film also pre­miered in com­pe­ti­tion at the 2008 Cannes Film Fes­ti­val and received a nom­i­na­tion for the César for Best For­eign Film in 2009.

Four years lat­er, James Gray turned to a his­tor­i­cal sub­ject with The Immi­grant, which fol­lows the jour­ney of a Pol­ish immi­grant who arrives in the Unit­ed States and played by Mar­i­on Cotil­lard. Pre­miered in com­pe­ti­tion at the Cannes Film Fes­ti­val, the fea­ture film received numer­ous awards includ­ing the New York Film Crit­ics Cir­cle Awards for Best Actress for its lead per­former and for Best Cin­e­matog­ra­phy. The film­mak­er then moved away from New York and in 2017 brought togeth­er Char­lie Hun­nam, Sien­na Miller, Robert Pat­tin­son and Tom Hol­land for The Lost City of Z, based on the best-sell­ing nov­el by David Grann, which relates the expe­di­tion of Per­ci­val Har­ri­son Faw­cett, British colonel sent to the Ama­zon at the begin­ning of the 20th cen­tu­ry to map the bor­ders between Brazil and Bolivia. 

In 2019, James Gray wrote, pro­duced and direct­ed Ad Astra, a sci­ence fic­tion dra­ma pre­sent­ed at the Venice Film Fes­ti­val and star­ring Brad Pitt and Tom­my Lee Jones. His lat­est project with auto­bi­o­graph­i­cal res­o­nance, Armaged­don Time, which he again wrote, pro­duced and direct­ed, brought togeth­er Antho­ny Hop­kins, Anne Hath­away and Jere­my Strong in Queens in the 1980s. The film was pre­sent­ed in 2022 at the Cannes and Deauville film festivals.