Creators & Directors

A deck by Lia Iyer · 12 cards

The minds behind the galaxy.

Ron Howard

Ronald William Howard (born March 1, 1954) is an American filmmaker and actor. Howard started his career as a child actor before transitioning to directing films. Over his six-decade career, he has received multiple accolades, including two Academy Awards, seven Emmy Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, and two Grammy Awards as well as nominations for seven British Academy Film Awards. He was also awarded the National Medal of Arts in 2003 and was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame in 2013.

Irvin Kershner

Irvin Kershner was an American director for film and television. Early in his career as a filmmaker he directed quirky, independent drama films, while working as a lecturer at the University of Southern California. Later, he began making high-budget blockbusters such as Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, the James Bond adaptation Never Say Never Again and RoboCop 2. Through the course of his career, he received numerous accolades, including being nominated for both a Primetime Emmy Award and a Palme d'Or.

Gary Kurtz

Gary Douglas Kurtz (July 27, 1940 – September 23, 2018) was an American film producer whose list of credits includes American Graffiti (1973), Star Wars (1977), The Empire Strikes Back (1980), The Dark Crystal (1982) and Return to Oz (1985). Kurtz also co-produced the 1989 science fiction adventure film Slipstream, which reunited him with Star Wars star Mark Hamill.

J. J. Abrams

Jeffrey Jacob Abrams is an American filmmaker. He is best known for his work in the genres of action, drama, and science fiction. Abrams wrote and produced films such as Regarding Henry (1991), Forever Young (1992), Armageddon (1998), Cloverfield (2008), Star Trek (2009), Super 8 (2011), and the Star Wars sequels The Force Awakens (2015) and The Rise of Skywalker (2019). Abrams's films have grossed more than $4 billion, making him the tenth highest-grossing film director of all-time, not adjusted for inflation.

Lawrence Kasdan

Lawrence Edward Kasdan (born January 14, 1949) is an American filmmaker. He wrote and directed Body Heat (1981), The Big Chill (1983), Silverado (1985), The Accidental Tourist (1988), and Dreamcatcher (2003). Kasdan also wrote Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) and The Bodyguard (1992). Kasdan co-wrote four Star Wars films: The Empire Strikes Back (1980), Return of the Jedi (1983), The Force Awakens (2015), and Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018).

Dave Filoni

David Filoni is an American filmmaker currently serving as the president and chief creative officer (CCO) of Lucasfilm. Widely considered the creative protégé of George Lucas, Filoni was personally hired and mentored by Lucas for nearly a decade. He is viewed as the "torchbearer" for Lucas's original vision of the Star Wars franchise, with Lucas having intended for Filoni to remain a central creative pillar following the studio's sale to The Walt Disney Company.

Jon Favreau

Jonathan Kolia Favreau is an American actor and filmmaker. He has received numerous accolades including an Emmy Award and two Saturn Awards. As an actor, Favreau has appeared in many films such as Rudy (1993), PCU (1994), Swingers (1996), Very Bad Things (1998), Deep Impact (1998), The Replacements (2000), Daredevil (2003), Wimbledon (2004), The Break-Up (2006), Four Christmases (2008), Couples Retreat (2009), I Love You, Man (2009), People Like Us (2012), The Wolf of Wall Street (2013), and Chef (2014).

Leigh Brackett

Leigh Douglass Brackett was an American author and screenwriter. Nicknamed "the Queen of Space Opera", she was one of the most prominent female writers during the Golden Age of Science Fiction. As a screenwriter, she was best known for her collaborations with director Howard Hawks, mainly writing Westerns and crime films. She also worked on an early draft of The Empire Strikes Back (1980), elements of which remained in the film; she died before it went into production.

Tony Gilroy

Anthony Joseph Gilroy is an American screenwriter, director, and producer. He wrote the screenplays of The Bourne Identity (2002), The Bourne Supremacy (2004), and The Bourne Ultimatum (2007), the first three films in the Bourne film franchise, and wrote and directed the fourth film of the franchise, The Bourne Legacy (2012), as well as Michael Clayton (2007) and Duplicity (2009).

George Lucas

George Walton Lucas Jr. (born May 14, 1944) is an American filmmaker and philanthropist. He created the Star Wars franchise and its fictional universe, the Indiana Jones franchise, and founded Lucasfilm, LucasArts, Industrial Light & Magic and THX. Lucas also served as chairman of Lucasfilm before selling it to The Walt Disney Company in 2012. The recipient of two Emmy Awards and nominations for four Academy Awards and two Golden Globe Awards, he is considered to be one of the most significant figures of the 20th-century New Hollywood movement, and a pioneer of the modern blockbuster.

Richard Marquand

Richard Alfred Marquand was a Welsh film and television director active in both American and British film productions, best known for directing the 1983 space opera Return of the Jedi, the final film in the original Star Wars trilogy. He also directed the 1981 drama film Eye of the Needle, the critically panned romance film Until September, and the 1985 thriller Jagged Edge.

Rian Johnson

Rian Craig Johnson is an American filmmaker. He made his directorial debut with the neo-noir mystery film Brick (2005), which received positive reviews and grossed nearly $4 million on a $450,000 budget. Going on to make higher-profile films, Johnson achieved mainstream recognition for writing and directing the science-fiction thriller Looper (2012) to critical and commercial success. Johnson landed his largest project when he wrote and directed the space opera Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017), which grossed over $1 billion. He returned to the mystery genre with the Knives Out film series (2019–present), which earned him Academy Award nominations for Best Original Screenplay and Best Adapted Screenplay.