# Jonathan Glazer

Jonathan Glazer (born 26 March 1965) is an English film director and screenwriter. He began his career in theatre before transitioning into film, directing the features Sexy Beast (2000), Birth (2004), Under the Skin (2013), and The Zone of Interest (2023). Glazer accepted the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film on behalf of the United Kingdom for The Zone of Interest.
Glazer's work is defined by depictions of flawed and desperate characters; themes such as alienation, loneliness and individualism; and a bold visual style uses an omniscient perspective and dramatic music. He has been nominated for six BAFTA Awards and two Academy Awards. For the historical drama The Zone of Interest, he won the Grand Prix and the FIPRESCI Prize at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival, and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay.
Glazer has directed music videos for acts including, Massive Attack, Radiohead, Richard Ashcroft and Jamiroquai. He received nominations for the MTV Video Music Award for Best Direction for his videos for Jamiroquai's "Virtual Insanity" (1996) and Radiohead's "Karma Police" (1997). He has also directed commercials for brands including Kodak, Sony, Nike, Barclays, Guinness and Alexander McQueen.

## Early life and education

   "There were all these fantastic characters, who were in and out of my house when I was a little boy. Many of them were East End Jews who had moved to the suburbs for a better quality of life, not super-intellectual people, but incredible entertainers – vaudeville musicians, writers and the like. As a child, I loved and absorbed the richness of that culture."
Jonathan Glazer was born on 26 March 1965 in London, England, and is of Ashkenazi Jewish descent. His ancestors were Ukrainian Jews and Bessarabian Jews who fled the Kishinev pogrom and arrived in the United Kingdom in the 1900s. He said: "My great-grandparents were born in Vilnius and Odesa. One was a tailor. His wife, a seamstress." His family lived in Hadley Wood, near Barnet, and was Reform Jewish: "Synagogue three times a year, and Friday-night dinners every week." His father was a cinephile, with whom he frequently watched David Lean, Sidney Lumet, Sydney Pollack, and Billy Wilder movies.
Glazer attended the Jewish Free School, then located in the borough of Camden. During his childhood, he participated in the Givat Washington programme, spending five months in a religious boarding school in Israel. After finishing high school, he went to art school, saying drawing was the only thing he was good at.
After graduating with an emphasis in theatre design from Nottingham Trent University, Glazer began his career directing theatre and making film and television trailers.

## Career
### 1993–1999: Early work and short films

In 1993, Glazer wrote and directed three short films ("Mad", "Pool" and "Commission"), and joined Academy Commercials, a production company based in Central London. He directed campaigns for Guinness (Dreamer, Swimblack and Surfer) and Stella Artois (Devil's Island).
Glazer directed music videos for "Street Spirit" (1996) and "Karma Police" (1997) by the rock band Radiohead,. He said "Street Spirit" was a turning point in his work: "I knew when I finished that, because [Radiohead] found their own voices as an artist, at that point, I felt like I got close to whatever mine was, and I felt confident that I could do things that emoted, that had some kind of poetic as well as prosaic value."
Glazer won the MTV Video Music Award for Best Direction in 1997 for his work on "Karma Police" and Jamiroquai's "Virtual Insanity" (1996). He was unsatisfied with his "Karma Police" video, saying he had "missed emotionally and dramatically". He described his video for the 1998 single "Rabbit in Your Headlights", by Unkle and the Radiohead singer Thom Yorke, as a more successful partner to the "Karma Police" video. Glazer's 1999 television advert "Surfer", for Guinness, was voted the best of all time in a poll conducted by Channel 4 and The Sunday Times the following year.

### 2000–2011: Sexy Beast and Birth

Glazer was set to direct the film Gangster No. 1, written by Louis Mellis and David Scinto, but was replaced after disagreements with the producers regarding casting. Glazer left the production along with Mellis and Scinto. In 2000, Glazer worked with Mellis and Scinto again, directing his first feature, the gangster film Sexy Beast. Ben Kingsley was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. In 2004, Glazer directed his second feature film, Birth, starring Nicole Kidman.
In 2001, Glazer directed the "Odyssey" spot for Levi Strauss jeans. In 2006, he directed the second Sony BRAVIA TV advertisement, which took ten days and 250 people to film. It was filmed at an estate in Glasgow, and featured paint exploding all over the tower blocks. Later the same year, he was commissioned to make a television advert for the new Motorola Red phone. The advertisement, showing two naked black bodies emerging from a lump of flesh rotating on a potter's wheel, was due to air in September 2006 but was shelved by Motorola. The advertisement was to benefit several charities in Africa.

### 2013: Under the Skin

In 2013, Glazer directed Under the Skin, a loose adaptation of the 2000 novel by Michel Faber, starring Scarlett Johansson. It premiered at the 2013 Telluride Film Festival and received a theatrical release in 2014. The film was named the best film of 2014 by numerous critics and publications, was included in many best-of-the-decade lists, and ranked 61st on the BBC's 100 Greatest Films of the 21st Century list, an international poll of 177 top critics.

### 2019–present: The Zone of Interest

Glazer's fourth feature film, The Zone of Interest, based loosely on the 2014 novel by Martin Amis, premiered at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival to acclaim. It competed for the Palme d'Or, and won the Grand Prix and FIPRESCI Prize. The Zone of Interest won the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film, becoming the first British film to do so. The film also received three British Academy Film Awards, making it the first film to win both Best Film Not in the English Language and Outstanding British Film.
In his acceptance speech at the 96th Academy Awards, Glazer addressed the ongoing Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip:
   All our choices are made to reflect and confront us in the present. Not to say, 'Look what they did then,' rather 'Look what we do now.' Our film shows where dehumanisation leads at its worst. It shaped all of our past and present. Right now, we stand here as men who refute their Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation which has led to conflict for so many innocent people. Whether the victims of October 7th in Israel or the ongoing attack on Gaza, all the victims of this dehumanization — how do we resist?

## Personal life

Known to be discreet about his private life, Glazer is married to the visual effects supervisor Rachael Penfold. They live in Camden, North London with their three children. He is Jewish. Glazer named Stanley Kubrick as his favourite director and said he was close to Italian and Russian cinema. His influences include Ingmar Bergman, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Federico Fellini, and Pier Paolo Pasolini.

## Filmography
### Feature films

| Year | Title | Director | Writer |
| 2000 | Sexy Beast | Yes | No |
| 2004 | Birth | Yes | Yes |
| 2013 | Under the Skin | Yes | Yes |
| 2023 | The Zone of Interest | Yes | Yes |

### Short films

| Year | Title | Director | Writer | Notes |
| 1994 | Mad | Yes | Yes | Also producer and editor |
| 1997 | Commission | Yes | Yes | |
| 2019 | The Fall | Yes | Yes | |
| 2020 | Strasbourg 1518 | Yes | Yes | TV short |
| 2020 | First Light: Alexander McQueen | Yes | No | |

### Music videos

| Year | Title | Artist |
| 1995 | "Karmacoma" | Massive Attack |
| 1995 | "The Universal" | Blur |
| 1996 | "Street Spirit (Fade Out)" | Radiohead |
| 1996 | "Virtual Insanity" | Jamiroquai |
| 1997 | "Into My Arms" | Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds |
| 1997 | "Karma Police" | Radiohead |
| 1998 | "Rabbit in Your Headlights" | UNKLE ft. Thom Yorke |
| 2000 | "A Song for the Lovers" | Richard Ashcroft |
| 2006 | "Live with Me" | Massive Attack |
| 2009 | "Treat Me Like Your Mother" | The Dead Weather |

### Commercials

| Year | Title | Company |
| | "Husband to Be" | Kodak |
| | "Linda 2" | Pretty Polly |
| | "Shock of the New" | Mazda |
| | "Chief Executive's Wife" | AT&T |
| | "City" | Club Med |
| | "Sales Director" | AT&T |
| 1996 | "Frozen Moment" | Nike |
| | "New York" | Caffrey's |
| 1997 | "Parklife" | Nike |
| 1998 | "Swimblack" | Guinness |
| 1998 | "Lamppost" | BT Easyreach |
| 1999 | "Surfer" | Guinness |
| 2000 | "Kung Fu" | Levi Strauss |
| 2000 | "Last Orders" | Stella Artois |
| 2000 | "Devil's Island" | Stella Artois |
| 2000 | "Protection" | Volkswagen Polo |
| 2000 | "Whatever You Ride" | Wrangler |
| 2001 | "Dreamer" | Guinness |
| 2002 | "Odyssey" | Levi Strauss |
| 2003 | "Evil" | Barclays |
| 2003 | "Bull" | Barclays |
| 2003 | "Chicken" | Barclays |
| 2004 | "Bar" | Band Aid 20 |
| 2004 | "Double Don" | Band Aid 20 |
| 2004 | "Rant" | Band Aid 20 |
| 2004 | "Razor" | Band Aid 20 |
| 2006 | "Ice Skating Priests" | Stella Artois |
| 2006 | "Paint" | Sony BRAVIA |
| 2006 | "Clay" | Motorola Red |
| 2010 | "Temptation" | Cadbury's Flake |
| 2010 | "Kaka" | Sony 3D |
| 2010 | "Last Tango in Compton" | Volkswagen Polo |
| 2013 | "The Ring" | Audi |
| 2019 | "Flight" | Apple |
| 2024 | "The Galleria" | Prada |

### Idents

* Channel 4 presentation (September 2015)

## Awards and nominations

| Award | Year | Category | Work | Result |
| Academy Awards | 2024 | Best Adapted Screenplay | The Zone of Interest | Nominated |
| Academy Awards | 2024 | Best Director | The Zone of Interest | Nominated |
| BAFTA Awards | 2001 | Outstanding British Film | Sexy Beast | Nominated |
| BAFTA Awards | 2015 | Outstanding British Film | Under the Skin | Nominated |
| BAFTA Awards | 2024 | Outstanding British Film | The Zone of Interest | Won |
| BAFTA Awards | 2024 | Best Direction | The Zone of Interest | Nominated |
| BAFTA Awards | 2024 | Best Adapted Screenplay | The Zone of Interest | Nominated |
| Boston Society of Film Critics | 2023 | Best Adapted Screenplay | The Zone of Interest | Won |
| Boston Society of Film Critics | 2023 | Best Director | The Zone of Interest | Won |
| British Independent Film Awards | 2001 | Best Director | Sexy Beast | Won |
| British Independent Film Awards | 2013 | Best Director | Under the Skin | Nominated |
| Camerimage | 2023 | Golden Frog | The Zone of Interest | Nominated |
| Cannes Film Festival | 2023 | Palme d'Or | The Zone of Interest | Nominated |
| Cannes Film Festival | 2023 | Grand Prix | The Zone of Interest | Won |
| Cannes Film Festival | 2023 | FIPRESCI Prize | The Zone of Interest | Won |
| César Awards | 2025 | Best Foreign Film | The Zone of Interest | Won |
| Chicago Film Critics Association Awards | 2002 | Most Promising Filmmaker | — | Nominated |
| Chicago Film Critics Association Awards | 2014 | Best Adapted Screenplay | Under the Skin | Nominated |
| Chicago Film Critics Association Awards | 2023 | Best Adapted Screenplay | The Zone of Interest | Nominated |
| European Film Awards | 2023 | European Film | The Zone of Interest | Nominated |
| European Film Awards | 2023 | European Director | The Zone of Interest | Nominated |
| European Film Awards | 2023 | European Screenwriter | The Zone of Interest | Nominated |
| Florida Film Critics Circle Awards | 2023 | Best Director | The Zone of Interest | Nominated |
| Gotham Awards | 2014 | Audience Award | Under the Skin | Nominated |
| Gotham Awards | 2014 | Best Feature | Under the Skin | Nominated |
| Gotham Awards | 2023 | Best International Feature | The Zone of Interest | Nominated |
| Gotham Awards | 2023 | Best Screenplay | The Zone of Interest | Nominated |
| Goya Awards | 2025 | Best European Film | The Zone of Interest | Nominated |
| Independent Spirit Awards | 2002 | Best International Film | Sexy Beast | Nominated |
| Independent Spirit Awards | 2015 | Best International Film | Under the Skin | Nominated |
| Independent Spirit Awards | 2024 | Best International Film | The Zone of Interest | Nominated |
| MTV Video Music Awards | 1997 | Best Direction | "Virtual Insanity" | Nominated |
| MTV Video Music Awards | 1997 | Best Editing | "Virtual Insanity" | Nominated |
| MTV Video Music Awards | 1997 | Best Special Effects | "Virtual Insanity" | Won |
| MTV Video Music Awards | 1998 | Best Direction | "Karma Police" | Nominated |
| Satellite Awards | 2002 | Best Director | Sexy Beast | Nominated |
| Satellite Awards | 2024 | Best Director | The Zone of Interest | Nominated |
| Satellite Awards | 2024 | Best Adapted Screenplay | The Zone of Interest | Nominated |
| Venice Film Festival | 2004 | Golden Lion | Birth | Nominated |
| Venice Film Festival | 2013 | Golden Lion | Under the Skin | Nominated |