Bennett Miller

BENNETT MILLER

Date of Birth: December 30, 1966

Born and raised in New York, Bennett Miller studied film as an undergraduate at New York University, but dropped out in 1990. He says he was a "bad student" who "just never liked school." He took on different jobs, including working as a filmmaker's assistant and making fundraising videos.

Then he found the inspiration to make his first documentary. Bennett first met Timothy "Speed" Levitch when they were teenagers in Westchester County-Levitch had been a friend of Miller's younger brother. Now a flamboyant tour guide for Manhattan's Gray Line double-decker buses, Levitch seemed to Bennett to be the perfect subject of a documentary. The Cruise (1998) won the Audience Award and the Special Jury Award at the Newport Film Festival, as well as two awards at the Berlin Film Festival.

Doors began to open for Bennett. He landed an agent who began sending him scripts to read. In the meantime, he was offered television commercials and began doing dozens of them while searching for his next film. In the meantime, Dan Futterman, a longtime friend from high school who'd gone on to success in Hollywood as an actor, came to Bennett with a script he'd written about Truman Capote. Bennett agreed to direct, and Capote (2005) went on to win awards around the world, with Bennett receiving a 2006 Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Most Promising Filmmaker; Best Film and Breakthrough Director Award at the 2005 Gotham Awards; Best First Film Awards from the New York Film Critics Circle and the Toronto Film Critics; and Best Director nominations from the BAFTAs and the Academy Awards.

For his third feature film, Moneyball (2011) starring Brad Pitt, Bennett won a Hollywood Film Award for Director of the Year. It was his fourth feature, however, that earned him much more attention. He won Best Director at the Cannes Film Festival for his work on Foxcatcher (2014) starring Steve Carell, Mark Ruffalo and Channing Tatum, as well as an Academy Award nomination for Best Achievement in Directing.

Filmography:

Foxcatcher (2014)
Moneyball (2011)
Capote (2005)
The Cruise (1998)