Biography
Steven Zaillian (born January 30, 1953) is an Armenian-American screenwriter, film director, film editor, producer, and founder of Film Rites, a film production company. He won an Academy Award for his screenplay for Schindler's List and he has been nominated two times for Awakenings and Gangs of New York. The Times called him "the most artful and subtle screenwriter Hollywood has had since Robert Towne." Zaillian was born in Fresno, California, the son of Jim Zaillian, a radio news reporter. H...
Known For
Complete Filmography

Those Who Wish Me Dead
2021
Producer
A young boy finds himself pursued by two assassins in the Montana wilderness, with a survival expert determined to protect him, and a forest fire thre...

The Irishman
2019
Screenplay
Pennsylvania, 1956. Frank Sheeran, a war veteran of Irish origin who works as a truck driver, accidentally meets mobster Russell Bufalino. Once Frank ...

My Dinner with Hervé
2018
Executive Producer
An unlikely friendship evolves over one wild night in LA between a struggling journalist and actor Hervé Villechaize, the world's most famous gun-toti...

Red Sparrow
2018
Producer
Prima ballerina Dominika Egorova faces a bleak and uncertain future after she suffers an injury that ends her career. She soon turns to Sparrow School...

The Current War
2018
Executive Producer
Electricity titans Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse compete to create a sustainable system and market it to the American people.

Exodus: Gods and Kings
2014
Screenplay
The defiant leader Moses rises up against the Egyptian Pharaoh Ramses, setting 400,000 slaves on a monumental journey of escape from Egypt and its ter...

Life Itself
2014
Executive Producer
The surprising and entertaining life of renowned film critic and social commentator Roger Ebert (1942-2013): his early days as a freewheeling bachelor...

The Cold Light of Day
2012
Executive Producer
After his family is kidnapped during their sailing trip in Spain, a young Wall Street trader is confronted by the people responsible: intelligence age...

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo: Men Who Hate Women
2012
as Self
Cast and crew discuss the success of the novel, transitioning it to film and condensing it for the medium, and gender dynamics in Sweden.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo: Characters - Salander, Blomkvist and Vanger
2012
as Self
Cast and crew, including Mara, discuss her casting.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
2011
Writer, Executive Producer
Disgraced journalist Mikael Blomkvist investigates the disappearance of a weary patriarch's niece from 40 years ago. He is aided by the pierced, tatto...

Moneyball
2011
Screenplay
The story of Oakland Athletics general manager Billy Beane's successful attempt to put together a baseball team on a budget, by employing computer-gen...

Welcome to the Rileys
2010
Executive Producer
Years after their teenage daughter’s death, Lois and Doug Riley, an upstanding Indiana couple, are frozen by estranging grief. Doug escapes to New Orl...

The Cove
2009
Thanks
The Cove tells the amazing true story of how an elite team of individuals, films makers and free divers embarked on a covert mission to penetrate the ...

Anvil! The Story of Anvil
2008
Thanks
At 14, best friends Robb Reiner and Lips made a pact to rock together forever. Their band, Anvil, hailed as the "demi-gods of Canadian metal" influenc...

American Gangster
2007
Screenplay, Executive Producer
Loosely based on the criminal career of Frank Lucas, a gangster from La Grange, North Carolina, who smuggled heroin into the United States on American...

All the King's Men
2006
Director, Writer, Producer
The story of an idealist's rise to power in the world of Louisiana politics and the corruption that leads to his ultimate downfall. Based on the 1946 ...

The Interpreter
2005
Screenplay
After Silvia Broome, an interpreter at United Nations headquarters, overhears plans of an assassination, an American Secret Service agent is sent to i...

Gangs of New York
2002
Screenplay
In early 1860s New York, Irish immigrant Amsterdam Vallon is released from prison and returns to the Five Points, seeking revenge against his father's...

Hannibal
2001
Screenplay
After having successfully eluded the authorities for years, Hannibal peacefully lives in Italy in disguise as an art scholar. Trouble strikes again wh...

A Civil Action
1998
Screenplay, Director, Producer
Jan Schlickmann is a cynical lawyer who goes out to 'get rid of' a case, only to find out it is potentially worth millions. The case becomes his obses...

Mission: Impossible
1996
Story
When Ethan Hunt, the leader of a crack espionage team whose perilous operation has gone awry with no explanation, discovers that a mole has penetrated...

Clear and Present Danger
1994
Screenplay
Agent Jack Ryan becomes acting Deputy Director of Intelligence for the CIA when Admiral Greer is diagnosed with cancer. When an American businessman, ...

Schindler's List
1993
Screenplay
The true story of how businessman Oskar Schindler saved over a thousand Jewish lives from the Nazis while they worked as slaves in his factory during ...

Searching for Bobby Fischer
1993
Director, Screenplay
A seven-year-old chess prodigy refuses to harden himself in order to become a champion like the famous but unlikable Bobby Fischer.

Jack the Bear
1993
Screenplay
Story of the relationships between two sons and their father, who moves the family to California and becomes a tv horror show host after the death of ...

Awakenings
1990
Screenplay
Dr. Malcolm Sayer, a shy research physician, uses an experimental drug to "awaken" the catatonic victims of a rare disease. Leonard is the first patie...

The Falcon and the Snowman
1985
Screenplay
The true story of a disillusioned military contractor employee and his drug pusher childhood friend who became walk-in spies for the Soviet Union.

Below the Belt
1980
Editor
A close-up look at the turbulent world of women's professional wrestling as a New York City waitress decides to become a professional wrestler.

Starhops
1978
Editor
After the owner of a failing drive-in restaurant sells his establishment, two waitresses and a French chef try to turn it around.

Kingdom of the Spiders
1977
Editor
Investigating the mysterious deaths of a number of farm animals, vet Rack Hansen discovers that his town lies in the path of hordes of migrating taran...

Breaker! Breaker!
1977
Editor
Truck driver searches for his brother, who has disappeared in a town run by a corrupt judge.