Actors Who Became Respected Directors

Vittorio De Sica was a matinee idol of 1930s Italian comedies before he turned to directing in the early 1940s. Shoeshine (1946), Bicycle Thieves (1948) and Umberto D. (1952) made him a central figure of neorealism, and he kept taking acting work for the rest of his life partly to fund the films he wanted to make.

Laurence Olivier was already Britain's leading stage actor when he directed and starred in Henry V (1944), a wartime Shakespeare in bold Technicolor. Hamlet (1948) won the Oscar for Best Picture and Richard III (1955) completed a trilogy that set the template for Shakespeare on film.

Ida Lupino, a Warner Bros. leading lady of the 1940s, took over Not Wanted (1949) when its director fell ill and then set up an independent company, The Filmakers, to make low-budget films on difficult subjects. The Hitch-Hiker (1953) is often cited as the first American film noir directed by a woman, and she went on to direct dozens of television episodes.

John Cassavetes made Shadows (1959) with his acting students on borrowed money, and spent the next two decades using fees from studio roles such as The Dirty Dozen and Rosemary's Baby to fund his own films. Faces (1968) and A Woman Under the Influence (1974) made him a founding figure of American independent cinema.

Richard Attenborough spent more than twenty years as a screen actor, from Brighton Rock (1947) to The Great Escape (1963), before directing Oh! What a Lovely War (1969). He worked for two decades to get Gandhi made, and its Oscars for Best Picture and Best Director in 1983 crowned a directing career that also included A Bridge Too Far and Shadowlands.

Elaine May came to fame in the comedy double act Nichols and May, then wrote, directed and starred in A New Leaf (1971) and directed The Heartbreak Kid (1972) and Mikey and Nicky (1976). The costly failure of Ishtar (1987) stalled her directing career, but her films have since been reassessed as some of the sharpest American comedies of their era.

Clint Eastwood moved from television westerns and Sergio Leone's films to directing with Play Misty for Me (1971), and has directed around forty features since. Unforgiven (1992) and Million Dollar Baby (2004) won him Best Director Oscars, and his lean, unfussy style has stayed recognisable into his nineties, with Juror #2 in 2024.

Sidney Poitier, the first Black man to win the Oscar for Best Actor, began directing with the western Buck and the Preacher (1972) after its original director left. His comedies with Bill Cosby, including Uptown Saturday Night, and Stir Crazy (1980) with Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder made him one of the first Black directors to have major commercial hits in Hollywood.

Ron Howard grew up on screen as Opie in The Andy Griffith Show and Richie in Happy Days, and made his directing debut with the low-budget Grand Theft Auto (1977) for Roger Corman. Splash, Apollo 13 and A Beautiful Mind, which won him the Best Director Oscar, made him one of Hollywood's most dependable craftsmen, and he still turns up as an actor only occasionally.

Warren Beatty used the leverage of producing and starring in Bonnie and Clyde to move behind the camera, co-directing Heaven Can Wait (1978) with Buck Henry. Reds (1981), his long-planned epic about the journalist John Reed, won him the Oscar for Best Director, and Dick Tracy (1990) and Bulworth (1998) showed a director willing to take big swings.

Robert Redford won the Best Director Oscar with his first film, Ordinary People (1980), a quiet family drama far from his star image. A River Runs Through It (1992) and Quiz Show (1994) confirmed a careful, literate directing style, and the Sundance Institute he founded in 1981 did as much for other directors as his own films.

Rob Reiner was best known as Meathead in All in the Family when he directed This Is Spinal Tap (1984). An extraordinary run followed across genres: Stand by Me, The Princess Bride, When Harry Met Sally..., Misery and A Few Good Men, each a different kind of film made with the same warmth and craft.

Penny Marshall starred in Laverne & Shirley before directing Jumpin' Jack Flash (1986) as a late replacement. Big (1988) became the first film directed by a woman to take more than $100 million in the United States, and Awakenings and A League of Their Own followed, showing a gift for warm, character-led storytelling.

Kenneth Branagh was a rising Royal Shakespeare Company actor when he directed and starred in Henry V (1989) at twenty-eight, earning Oscar nominations for both. His career since has ranged from a full-text Hamlet to Thor and the Poirot films, and the semi-autobiographical Belfast (2021) won him the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay.

Takeshi Kitano was one of Japan's best-known television comedians, Beat Takeshi, when he stepped in to direct Violent Cop (1989) after the original director withdrew. His deadpan, violent and unexpectedly tender films, including Sonatine and Hana-bi, which won the Golden Lion at Venice in 1997, made him one of the most distinctive directors of the decade.

Kevin Costner's directing debut, Dances with Wolves (1990), won Best Picture and Best Director despite industry predictions of a costly folly. The expensive failure of The Postman (1997) slowed him down, but Open Range (2003) and his partly self-financed western saga Horizon (2024) show a director devoted to the genre on his own terms.

Jodie Foster, an actor since early childhood, directed Little Man Tate (1991), about a gifted child, and followed it with Home for the Holidays, The Beaver and Money Monster. She has also directed prestige television, including episodes of Orange Is the New Black, House of Cards and Black Mirror, building a steady second career alongside her acting.

Mel Gibson followed his debut The Man Without a Face (1993) with Braveheart (1995), which won Best Picture and Best Director, then made The Passion of the Christ and Apocalypto through his own company, Icon. After his 2006 drink-driving arrest and antisemitic remarks his Hollywood career stalled for a decade, and Hacksaw Ridge (2016) marked his return as a director with six Oscar nominations.

Ben Stiller directed Reality Bites (1994) while still building his acting career, then the cult comedies The Cable Guy, Zoolander and Tropic Thunder. In his fifties he reinvented himself as a serious television director with Escape at Dannemora (2018) and Severance (from 2022), whose precise, unsettling look won him wide acclaim.

Jon Favreau wrote and starred in Swingers (1996), then directed Made (2001) and the Christmas hit Elf (2003). Iron Man (2008) launched the Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Jungle Book (2016) pushed virtual production forward, and as creator of The Mandalorian he has shaped blockbuster storytelling on both film and television.

Sarah Polley, a child star of Road to Avonlea and later an indie actor, directed Away from Her (2006), a study of a marriage and dementia that earned Oscar nominations. Take This Waltz and the personal documentary Stories We Tell followed, and Women Talking (2022) won her the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay.

Ben Affleck's acting career had hit a low after a string of flops when he directed Gone Baby Gone (2007), set in his native Boston. The Town and Argo, which won Best Picture in 2013, rebuilt his reputation; Live by Night (2016) was a setback, but Air (2023) showed the same assured, unshowy touch.

Xavier Dolan acted in Quebec films and adverts from childhood and was just twenty when his debut I Killed My Mother premiered at Cannes in 2009. Mommy (2014) shared the Cannes Jury Prize and It's Only the End of the World (2016) won the Grand Prix, building a body of intense, stylised family dramas before he turned thirty.

Richard Ayoade was best known as Moss in The IT Crowd when he made his feature debut with Submarine (2010), a funny, melancholy Welsh coming-of-age film. The Dostoevsky adaptation The Double (2013) and his music videos for Arctic Monkeys and Vampire Weekend confirmed a precise, deadpan visual voice.