Steven Soderbergh

Biography

Steven Andrew Soderbergh (born January 14, 1963) is an American film director, producer, screenwriter, cinematographer, and editor. A pioneer of modern independent cinema, Soderbergh later drew acclaim for formally inventive films made within the studio system.

Soderbergh's directorial breakthrough, the indie drama Sex, Lies, and Videotape (1989), lifted him into the public spotlight as a notable presence in the film industry. At 26, Soderbergh became the youngest solo director to win the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, and the film garnered worldwide commercial success, as well as numerous accolades.

His next five films, which included King of the Hill (1993), were commercially unsuccessful. He pivoted into more mainstream fare with the crime comedy Out of Sight (1998), the biopic Erin Brockovich (2000), and the crime drama Traffic (2000). For Traffic, he won the Academy Award for Best Director.

He found further popular and critical success with the Ocean's trilogy and film franchise (2001–18); Che (2008); The Informant! (2009); Contagion (2011); Haywire (2011); Magic Mike (2012); Side Effects (2013); Logan Lucky (2017); Unsane (2018); Let Them All Talk (2020); No Sudden Move (2021); and Kimi (2022).

His film career spans a multitude of genres, but his specialties are psychological, crime, and heist films. His films have grossed over US$2.2 billion worldwide and garnered fourteen Academy Award nominations, winning five.

Also in July 2023, Soderbergh debuted his science fiction web series Command Z, which is inspired by Kurt Andersen's 2020 book, Evil Geniuses: The Unmaking of America

Soderbergh filmed the upcoming spy thriller Black Bag, written by Kimi and Presence screenwriter David Koepp and starring Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender, from May to June 2024 in London.