Alfonso Cuarón

A writer/director/producer who cut his teeth in his native Mexico, Alfonso Cuaron broke into Hollywood with his 1995 adaptation of the novel A Little Princess and furthered his reputation with a high-profile movie version of Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations, starring Ethan Hawke, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Robert De Niro. Rather than playing nice with the American studio system, Cuaron opted to make the sensual Spanish-language art-house film Y Tu Mama Tambien, garnering international acclaim that placed him in the esteemed company of two other lauded Mexican directors, Guillermo del Toro and Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, who would become his close friends. Tapped as an unlikely choice to direct Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Cuaron succeeded in giving the magical franchise a serious jolt of dark, intriguing energy before departing Hogwarts to helm the acclaimed dystopian tale Children of Men. Though that film, starring Clive Owen and Julianne Moore, was criminally overlooked at the box office, it was nominated for three Academy Awards, vindicating Cuaron’s bold, uncompromising artistic vision.