Michael Mann (director)

Michael Kenneth Mann (born February 5, 1943) is an American film director, screenwriter, and producer.

For his work, he has received nominations from international organizations and juries, including those at the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, Cannes and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. His major films include the period epic The Last of the Mohicans (1992), the drama The Insider (1999), the biopic Ali (2001), and the crime films Heat (1995) and Collateral (2004).

Total Film ranked Mann No. 28 on their 100 The Greatest Directors Ever,Sight and Sound ranked him No. 5 on their list of the 10 Best Directors of the Last 25 Years, and Entertainment Weekly ranked Mann No. 8 on their 25 Greatest Active Film Directors list.

Early life and education

Mann was born on February 5, 1943 in Chicago, Illinois, of Jewish ancestry, the son of grocers Esther and Jack Mann.

He received a B.A. in English at the University of Wisconsin–Madison where he developed interests in history, philosophy and architecture. It was at this time that he first saw Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove and fell in love with movies. In a recent L.A. Weekly interview, he describes the film's impact on him: "It said to my whole generation of filmmakers that you could make an individual statement of high integrity and have that film be successfully seen by a mass audience all at the same time. In other words, you didn't have to be making Seven Brides for Seven Brothers if you wanted to work in the mainstream film industry, or be reduced to niche filmmaking if you wanted to be serious about cinema. So that's what Kubrick meant, aside from the fact that Strangelove was a revelation." His daughter Ami Canaan Mann is also a film director and producer.