Curated playlist
Screenwriters from New York (state)
- Martin ScorseseMartin Scorsese had asthma as a boy and could not play sports or join in games with the other children. So his parents and his older brother took him to the movies instead. That is where his passion for cinema began, in a child who could…
- Woody AllenWoody Allen has made 50 feature films. That single fact sits at the center of a career so long and so productive it resists easy summary. Born Allan Stewart Konigsberg in the Bronx on the 30th of November 1935, he has written for film,…
- Orson WellesOrson Welles was born on the 6th of May 1915, in Kenosha, Wisconsin, and died on the 10th of October 1985. In between those dates, he directed what is consistently ranked as one of the greatest films ever made, terrified radio listeners…
- Steven SpielbergSteven Spielberg was born on the 18th of December 1946, in Cincinnati, Ohio, and by the time he was twelve years old, he had already staged and filmed a train wreck with his Lionel set. That eight-millimeter camera, borrowed from his…
- Kevin SmithKevin Smith walked out of a cinema on his 21st birthday with a decision made. The film was Richard Linklater's Slacker, shot in Austin, Texas without a studio or a name cast. Smith had grown up in Highlands, New Jersey, the son of a postal…
- Elia KazanElia Kazan was born Elias Kazantzoglou in Constantinople on the 7th of September, 1909, to Cappadocian Greek parents whose surname derived from the Turkish word for "pot maker". His family arrived in the United States on the 8th of July,…
- Irving ThalbergIrving Thalberg was twenty years old when Carl Laemmle, the founder of Universal Pictures, told him to take charge of the entire Los Angeles studio. In shock, Thalberg replied, "I'm what?" The young man already carried a death sentence. As…
- Ralph BakshiRalph Bakshi was born on the 29th of October 1938 in Haifa, Mandatory Palestine, into a Krymchak Jewish family, and by the time he was a teenager in Brooklyn he was digging through trash cans for comic books. That detail matters. It tells…
- Francis Ford CoppolaFrancis Ford Coppola illegally hired a grave robber to supply real human corpses as props, and oversaw the ritualistic killing of a water buffalo. This was the production of Apocalypse Now, a film so plagued by delays it earned the mocking…
- Dean DevlinDean Devlin grew up with Hollywood in his blood and an unusual family story behind him. His father, Don Devlin, was an actor turned writer-producer who became notable for one particular act: discovering Steven Spielberg. His mother, Pilar…
- Charlie KaufmanCharlie Kaufman spent his first weeks on a professional writing staff too anxious to speak. Hired in the early 1990s to write for the sitcom Get a Life alongside star Chris Elliott, he sat through story meetings in silence. Only after…
- Michael CrichtonMichael Crichton stood 6 feet 9 inches tall, and he spent much of his life feeling out of place because of it. That restlessness never left him. It pushed him through Harvard's English department and into biological anthropology, through…
- Joss WhedonJoss Whedon grew up on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in a household where Shakespeare was vacation reading and silence was a punishment for children who failed to be entertaining. Born on the 23rd of June 1964, he was Joseph Hill Whedon…
- David X. CohenDavid Samuel Cohen was born on the 13th of July 1966 in New York City. Both of his parents were biologists, and he grew up planning to be a scientist himself. He also enjoyed drawing cartoons and writing stories during those early years.…
- James MangoldJames Mangold grew up in Washingtonville, New York, a small Hudson Valley town, but his ambitions pointed far beyond it. He was born on the 16th of December 1963 in New York City, the son of two artists: Robert Mangold and Sylvia Plimack…