Rian Johnson

• 1. Introduction

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  Rian Craig Johnson was born on the 17th of December 1973, in Silver Spring, Maryland, and grew up to make one of the most divisive films in modern blockbuster history. He is the filmmaker who took charge of a billion-dollar franchise episode and walked away with a new Star Wars trilogy deal, two Academy Award nominations, and a Netflix pact worth around $450 million for just two sequels to a murder mystery. But none of that was the plan. Johnson started with a crime film shot at his old high school on a budget of roughly $450,000, watched it gross nearly $4 million, and never really looked back. How did a director who made his name on a shoestring neo-noir become one of Hollywood's most sought-after writers and directors? And what does his unusual creative path reveal about what draws audiences to his work?

• 2. A High School Noir

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  Woody Allen's Annie Hall, released in 1977, is the film Johnson has credited with making him want to become a director. He attended the University of Southern California and graduated from the USC School of Cinematic Arts in 1996, but the seeds of his debut feature were planted much earlier, at San Clemente High School in California, where he graduated in 1992. Brick, released in 2005, was filmed predominantly at that same high school. Johnson looked to Dashiell Hammett's novels as the source for the film's distinctive, stylised use of language. He was deliberate about keeping references to film noir out of the production, not wanting the cast and crew to simply recreate a genre exercise. The film won the Special Jury Prize for Originality of Vision at Sundance. It was released on DVD by Focus Features, and Johnson slipped a short film he made in high school, Ninja Ko, onto the disc as an easter egg. His second short, Evil Demon Golfball from Hell!!!, loosely adapted from Edgar Allan Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart, ended up hidden on the Looper Blu-ray years later.

• 3. The Mountain Goats and Early Television

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  In 2006, Johnson directed the music video for the Mountain Goats' song "Woke Up New". The commission came about because bandleader John Darnielle spotted a reference to the group buried in the credits for Brick, listed under the name "The Hospital Bombers Experience", which is itself a nod to the Mountain Goats song "The Best Ever Death Metal Band in Denton". Johnson went on to direct a live performance film for the band's 2009 album The Life of the World to Come, shot in a single continuous take showing Darnielle performing the entire record on guitar and piano with minimal accompaniment. That film screened in New York City, Chicago, Seattle, and Portland, Oregon, and came out as a limited edition DVD on Record Store Day, the 17th of April 2010. His entry into television came through Breaking Bad. In March 2010, Johnson announced he would direct an episode of the show's third season; "Fly" aired on the 23rd of May 2010. His second episode, "Fifty-One", aired on the 5th of August 2012, and earned him the Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directing in a Drama Series in 2013. His third episode, "Ozymandias", drew wide praise and is frequently cited as one of the best individual television episodes ever broadcast.

• 4. Looper and Mainstream Arrival

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  Filming on Looper began in Louisiana on the 24th of January 2011. The science-fiction thriller, set in a near future where hitmen dispatch victims sent back in time, was released on the 28th of September 2012, by TriStar Pictures and FilmDistrict. It opened both the Toronto International Film Festival and the Palo Alto International Film Festival that year. The film proved a surprise commercial success and won Johnson the Writers Guild of America Award for Best Original Screenplay, among a string of other critics' prizes. His second feature, The Brothers Bloom, a con-man story released in May 2009, had landed more modestly, earning a weighted average of 55 out of 100 from 26 critics on Metacritic. Looper moved Johnson into a different tier. On the 20th of June 2014, news emerged that he would write and direct the eighth episode in the Star Wars series.

• 5. The Last Jedi and a Billion-Dollar Conversation

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  Star Wars: The Last Jedi was released on the 15th of December 2017, to positive critical and audience reviews, ultimately grossing over $1 billion. On the 9th of November 2017, weeks before the film opened, Lucasfilm announced that Johnson would write and direct a new trilogy of Star Wars films separate from the main saga. By 2025 that project had not moved past the conceptual stage, though Johnson did not close the door on future collaboration with Lucasfilm. Multiple reports suggested he was offered the chance to direct Episode IX as well; Johnson denied ever being in discussions for or turning down that role. During production of The Last Jedi, Johnson had a cameo on set as Luke Skywalker's hand double.

• 6. Knives Out and the Netflix Deal

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  Knives Out opened on the 27th of November 2019, starring Daniel Craig, Ana de Armas, and Christopher Plummer, and earned over $300 million at the worldwide box office. Johnson wrote the script and co-produced with Ram Bergman, his longtime producing partner. The film earned Johnson his first Academy Award nomination, for Best Original Screenplay. In September 2019, Johnson and Bergman launched T-Street, a production company fully capitalised by Valence Media, with Valence holding a substantial minority equity stake. In February 2020, Lionsgate confirmed a sequel was in development; that same month Netflix acquired the rights to two Knives Out sequels for around $450 million. Filming on the first sequel, Glass Onion, started on the 28th of June 2021. After its premiere at the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival, Glass Onion received a brief theatrical window from November 23 to 29, 2022, then began streaming on Netflix on December 23. Glass Onion earned Johnson a second Academy Award nomination, this time for Best Adapted Screenplay. A third film in the series, Wake Up Dead Man, was released on Netflix in November 2025.

• 7. Poker Face and Expanding Television

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  In March 2021, Johnson announced he was creating Poker Face, a ten-episode mystery drama for Peacock starring Natasha Lyonne. The show premiered on the 26th of January 2023. A second season followed in May 2025. Johnson directed four episodes of the series and wrote two of them. In March 2024, he signed a deal with Warner Bros. to produce two films under T-Street. The collaboration with Nathan Johnson, his cousin, has been a consistent thread across his career; Nathan composed the scores for Brick, The Brothers Bloom, Looper, Knives Out, Glass Onion, and Wake Up Dead Man. The two also perform together as a folk duo called the Preserves. Johnson has been married to film writer, historian, and podcaster Karina Longworth since 2018, and has said that his actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt has appeared in all of his feature films to date. Time magazine named Johnson one of the hundred most influential people in the world in 2023.