Peter Weir

Australian director Peter Weir first achieved recognition, as well as an Australian Film Institute award for Best Director, with “Gallipoli” in 1981. His reputation was further enhanced quickly thereafter with “The Year of Living Dangerously”, also staring Mel Gibson, as well as Sigourney Weaver. It was screened in competition at the Cannes Film Festival and proved to be Weir's first international commercial success.

Weir made his first excursion onto American soil with “Witness”, starring Harrison Ford, which documented a culture clash viewed from the eyes of a wounded Philadelphia cop recovering from his injuries in a Pennsylvania Amish community. “Witness” was a worldwide success, and it earned Weir and Ford their first Academy Award Nominations.

Following the Harrison Ford and River Phoenix staring “Mosquito Coast”, Weir directed the breakout hit “Dead Poets Society”, which earned him his second Oscar nomination for Best Director, as well as an Oscar nomination for Best Picture, and, a French César for Best Foreign Film. Weir subsequently went on to direct his own screenplay and independent production of “Green Card”, the romantic comedy starring Gérard Depardieu and Andie MacDowell, which won the Golden Globe Award for Best Comedy, as well as an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay.

After directing “Fearless”, starring Jeff Bridges, Weir helmed the blockbuster hit “The Truman Show.” Starring Jim Carrey as a man trapped in a TV show about his own artificially constructed life, the film was a surreal, darkly humorous take on contemporary society's obsession with the media and celebrity. It was embraced by both critics and audiences worldwide, earning Weir his third Best Director Oscar nomination, as well as a host of other honors.

Weir took five years to follow up “The Truman Show” with the Napoleonic-era naval epic, “Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World” in 2003. It was greeted with many rapturous reviews and ten Academy Award® nominations, including Best Picture, and, yet another Best Director nod for Weir.