James Gray

• American director, born in New York in 1969

  James Gray was attracted to cinema at a really young age and used to skip school to go to the movies. At first, he aspired to be a painter, but turned to the art of filmmaking that he studied at the University of Southern California. He made his first filmat the age of twenty-five. Little Odessa won the Venice Film Festival's Silver Lion Award in 1994.His second feature, The Yards, selected for official competition at the 2000 Cannes International Film Festival, was a box-office failure in United States which led to a career hiatus. After a seven-year-gap, he released We own the Night, nominated for the Best Foreign Film César Award in 2008. He made Two Lovers in 2008 (nominated for Best Director at the Independent Spirit Awards) and in 2013 The Immigrant. All of those four films were selected for official competition at the Cannes Film Festival. Joaquin Phoenix starred in all of his films except the first. In 2019, his film Ad Astra earned him a selection at the Venice Film Festival and an Oscar nomination. 

• Little Odessa (1994) – The Yards (2000) – We Own the Night (2007) – Two Lovers (2008) – The Immigrant (2013) – The Lost City of Z (2017) – Ad Astra (2019) – Armageddon Time (2022)