Yorgos Lanthimos

The script for this film won the ARTE International Award as Best CineMart Project at the 42nd International Film Festival Rotterdam.

Georgios "Yorgos" Lanthimos (Γιώργος Λάνθιμος ; born 23 September 1973) is a Greek filmmaker.

He has received multiple accolades, including a British Academy Film Award and a Golden Globe Award as well as nominations for six Academy Awards.

Lanthimos was born in the Pagrati neighbourhood of Athens on 23 September 1973, the son of shop owner Eirini and basketball player Antonis Lanthimos.

His father played for Pagrati BC and the Greek national basketball team, later serving as a basketball instructor at the Moraitis School.

Lanthimos was primarily raised by his mother.

After completing his education at the Moraitis School, he studied business administration.

He also followed his father into playing basketball for Pagrati BC. His basketball career was short as he decided to study film and television directing at the Hellenic Cinema and Television School Stavrakos in Athens.

The latter also won the Golden Lion at the 80th Venice International Film Festival.

The film marked another collaboration between Lanthimos and Stone, and premiered at the 80th Venice International Film Festival where it won the Golden Lion.

During the 1990s, Lanthimos directed a series of videos for Greek dance-theater companies.

The film tied with Roma for the most nominations at 91st Academy Awards, with ten, including Best Picture and Best Director for Lanthimos.

Since 1995 he has directed TV commercials, music videos, short films and experimental theater plays.

It has also received eleven nominations at the 96th Academy Awards, winning four (including the Academy Award for Best Actress for Emma Stone) as well as seven nominations at the 81st Golden Globes Awards, where it won Best Motion Picture — Musical or Comedy.

Kyle Smith of The Wall Street Journal described the film as "Sumptuous, dazzling and glorious".

His next film, Kinds of Kindness, will see Lanthimos reunite with many actors he previously worked with such as Emma Stone, Willem Defoe, Margaret Qualley, and Joe Alwyn.

In 2024 it was reported that Lanthimos was working on an adaptation of My Year of Rest and Relaxation together with author Ottessa Moshfegh.

Lanthimos's early films include My Best Friend (2001), Kinetta (2005), and Dogtooth (2009), the last of which won the Un Certain Regard prize at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival.

Lanthimos's feature film career started with the 2001 mainstream film My Best Friend, which he co-directed with Lakis Lazopoulos, and the experimental film Kinetta, which premiered at the 2005 Toronto Film Festival.

He was also attached to direct a remake of the 2003 Korean sci-fi comedy Save the Green Planet! with Ari Aster producing.

He was also a member of the creative team that designed the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens.

His third feature film, a Greek psychological drama Dogtooth, won the Un Certain Regard prize at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the 83rd Academy Awards.

Critic Roger Ebert praised Lanthimos for "his command of visuals and performances".

The Associated Press described the film as "Disturbing and at times startlingly brutal, the film will alienate those who seek genteel fare at the art house. But its edgy integrity and distinctive atmosphere should win fans in some corners, particularly among those who admire the less tongue-in-cheek work of Lars von Trier."

In 2010, he acted in and co-produced Attenberg, a Greek drama film directed by Athina Rachel Tsangari.

His fourth feature film, Alps (2011), won the Osella Award for Best Screenplay at the 68th Venice International Film Festival.

A. O. Scott of The New York Times described the film as "systematically unsettling our sense of what is normal and habitual in human interactions."

In 2015, he began to transition from Greek-language to English-language films.

He received nominations for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for The Lobster (2015) and nominations for the Academy Award for Best Director and Best Picture for both The Favourite (2018) and Poor Things (2023).

Lanthimos's fifth film was the absurdist black comedy The Lobster (2015) starring Colin Farrell, Rachel Weisz, and John C. Reilly.

The film was selected to compete for the Palme d'Or at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival and won the Jury Prize.

Chris Nashawatay of Entertainment Weekly praised the film, saying that "Lanthimos' films aren't for everyone. They're deadpan and almost clinically detached. At times they feel like dispatches from a distant alien planet."

In 2017, Lanthimos directed the psychological horror film The Killing of a Sacred Deer starring Colin Farrell, Nicole Kidman and Barry Keoghan.

It premiered at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival where it competed for the Palme d'Or.

Mark Kermode of The Guardian wrote: "As black comedy gives way to grand guignol, we are reminded of the tortured games that Michael Haneke once played upon his bourgeois protagonists and audiences."

He also compared the film to The Exorcist, We Need to Talk About Kevin, and Rosemary's Baby.

At the 75th Venice Film Festival, he presented the period black comedy, The Favourite (2018), where it won the Grand Jury Prize.

The film starred Olivia Colman, Emma Stone and Rachel Weisz.

Between 2018 and 2021 it was reported that Lanthimos was considered to direct the adaptation of The Hawkline Monster: A Gothic Western as well as Pop. 1280.

In 2023, he directed and produced Poor Things, which is based on the 1992 novel of the same name.