Biography
Jerzy Skolimowski is a Polish film director, screenwriter, dramatist and actor. He’s a graduate of the prestigious National Film School in Łódź. In 1967 he was awarded the Golden Bear prize for his film “Le départ”. He lived in Los Angeles for over 20 years where he painted in a figurative, expressionist mode and occasionally acted in films. He received the Golden Lion Award for Lifetime Achievement at the 2016 Venice Film Festival.
Known For
Complete Filmography

The Palace
2023
Writer, Executive Producer
A comedy set on New Year’s Eve 1999 in a luxurious hotel in the Swiss Alps where the lives of various guests and those who work for them intersect.

EO
2022
Producer, Director, Writer
The world is a mysterious place when seen through the eyes of an animal. EO, a grey donkey with melancholic eyes, meets good and bad people on his lif...

The Silent Twins
2022
Thanks
June and Jennifer Gibbons are twins from the only Black family in a small town in Wales in the 1970s and '80s. Feeling isolated from the community, th...

It's Not Us
2020
Director
Part of HBO Europe's Polish at Home series. Jerzy Skolimowski was in Sicily when the pandemic hit, where he was supposed to shoot his next film, Balta...

A Man in Love
2019
Editorial Staff
Middle age divorced man in Tokyo falls in love with Hostess club girl and his assistant.

The Stolen Caravaggio
2018
as Jerzy Kunze
Valeria, young secretary of a producer, lives with an eccentric mother and secretly writes for a successful screenwriter, Alessandro. One day, she rec...

Julius
2018
as Olgierd 'Chorwat' Szybenik
An organised arts teacher has only one main problem in life, which is his father – a painter always going from one party to the next. When the father ...

11 Minutes
2015
Producer, Director, Writer
The lives of urbanites intertwine in a world where anything can happen at any time.

Ida
2013
Thanks
Anna, a young novitiate in 1960s Poland, is on the verge of taking her vows when she discovers a family secret dating back to the years of the German ...

Ixjana
2012
Co-Producer
Marek, a young writer, is trying to solve the mystery of the night his friend Arthur died. In the recesses of his memory, Marek finds fragments of pas...

The Day of the Siege: September Eleven 1683
2012
as John III Sobieski
In the summer of 1683, 300 000 Ottoman Empire's warriors begin the siege of Vienna. City's fall, will open way to conquer the Europe. The Sept 11 is t...

The Avengers
2012
as Georgi Luchkov
When an unexpected enemy emerges and threatens global safety and security, Nick Fury, director of the international peacekeeping agency known as S.H.I...

'Deep End': Remembering the Deleted Scenes
2011
as Self
Short documentary about sequences removed from the film.

Starting Out: The Making of Jerzy Skolimowski's Deep End
2011
as Self
A fascinating and absorbing documentary about the making of Jerzy Skolimowski's cult favourite, DEEP END, which was shot in 1970 as a US-German co-pro...

Essential Killing
2010
Director, Screenplay, Producer
A Taliban soldier struggles to survive after he escapes his captors and flees into the Polish countryside.

Komeda: A Soundtrack for a Life
2010
as Self
Krzysztof Komeda was a jazz pianist and film composer. With compositions like the lullaby for Rosemary's Baby (1968) by Roman Polanski, Komeda succeed...

Four Nights with Anna
2008
Director, Writer, Producer
Leon falls in love with a nurse and obsessively tries to get close to her.

Eastern Promises
2007
as Stepan
A Russian teenager living in London dies during childbirth but leaves clues in her diary that could tie her child to a rape involving a violent Russia...

Before Night Falls
2000
as Professor
Spanning several decades, this powerful biopic offers a glimpse into the life of famed Cuban poet and novelist Reinaldo Arenas, an artist who was vili...

Operacja Samum
1999
as Hayes
The war between Iraq and Kuwait is just about to begin. While all foreigners are leaving Iraq, Pawel, a young Polish engineer is captured by the Iraqi...

L.A. Without a Map
1999
as Minister
An aspiring Hollywood actress, on a visit to a charming North England town, has a brief fling with the town undertaker, who also writes obituaries for...

Mars Attacks!
1996
as Dr. Zeigler
A fleet of Martian spacecraft surrounds the world's major cities and all of humanity waits to see if the extraterrestrial visitors have, as they claim...
The Hollow Men
1993
Producer
Matthew comes to a seaside town to see a performance of his play, although even his brother Marc, who plays the role of Napoleon, does not know that M...

30 Door Key
1991
as dyrektor szkoły
A young writer in 1939 Warsaw faces the conflict of acting his age or relapsing into childhood during the brink of World War II. Based on the famous n...

30 Door Key
1991
Director, Producer, Screenplay
A young writer in 1939 Warsaw faces the conflict of acting his age or relapsing into childhood during the brink of World War II. Based on the famous n...
Skolimowski à la table
1990
André S. Labarthe invites Jerzy Skolimowski to the editing table, to analyze his film Walkower shot by shot. Episode of the TV program "Cinéma, ciném...

Torrents of Spring
1989
as Wiktor Wiktorowicz
In 1840, a young Russian aristocrat, Dimitri Sanin, is returning home after a long tour of Europe. In Germany, he falls in love with a beautiful pastr...

Torrents of Spring
1989
Director, Screenplay
In 1840, a young Russian aristocrat, Dimitri Sanin, is returning home after a long tour of Europe. In Germany, he falls in love with a beautiful pastr...

Big Shots
1987
as Doc
Following the death of his father, a suburbanite runs away from home and winds up on Chicago's South Side. After being mugged, the boy befriends a you...

The Lightship
1985
Director
A trio of robbers, two brothers and their twisted genius leader, invade a lightship, but don't reckon on the crew fighting back.

White Nights
1985
as Colonel Chaiko
After his plane crashes in Siberia, a Russian dancer, who defected to the West, is held prisoner in the Soviet Union. The KGB keeps him under watch an...

Mesmerized
1985
Writer
An orphan weds an older man in circa-1900 New Zealand, then finds out he's a miser who spies on her.

Hands Up!
1985
as Andrzej Leszczyc, Zastawa (1967 footage) / Self (1981 footage)
The reunion of a group of former medical students results in a flood of bitter memories.

Hands Up!
1985
Director, Screenplay
The reunion of a group of former medical students results in a flood of bitter memories.

Success Is the Best Revenge
1984
Producer, Screenplay, Director
Poland is under Communist rule. An exiled Polish theater director is in England, enthusiastically preparing an abstract play which will criticize the ...

Moonlighting
1982
as Boss (uncredited)
A Polish contractor, Nowak, leads a group of workmen to London so they can provide cheap labor for a government official based there. Nowak has to man...

Moonlighting
1982
Director, Producer, Screenplay
A Polish contractor, Nowak, leads a group of workmen to London so they can provide cheap labor for a government official based there. Nowak has to man...

Circle of Deceit
1981
as Hoffmann
Georg Laschen leaves his family in West Germany to go work as a war correspondent in Beirut during the fights between Christians and Palestinians.

The Shout
1978
Director, Screenplay
A traveller by the name of Crossley forces himself upon a musician and his wife in a lonely part of Devon, and uses the aboriginal magic he has learne...

A Slip-Up
1972
as Auto Shop Owner
A young man strikes up an ill-fated romance with a married woman.

A Slip-Up
1972
Screenplay
A young man strikes up an ill-fated romance with a married woman.

King, Queen, Knave
1972
Based on a novel by Vladimir Nabokov, this English-language satirical drama details the experiences of Frank (John Moulder Brown), a young orphan who ...

King, Queen, Knave
1972
Director
Based on a novel by Vladimir Nabokov, this English-language satirical drama details the experiences of Frank (John Moulder Brown), a young orphan who ...

Deep End
1971
as Tube Passenger With Newspaper (uncredited)
London, England. Mike, a fifteen-year-old boy, gets a job in a bathhouse, where he meets Susan, an attractive young woman who works there as an attend...

Deep End
1971
Director, Screenplay
London, England. Mike, a fifteen-year-old boy, gets a job in a bathhouse, where he meets Susan, an attractive young woman who works there as an attend...

The Adventures of Gerard
1970
Screenplay, Director
Based on satirical short stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle about a vain, egotistical Etienne Gerard, a French brigadier serving during the Napoleonic ...

Dialogue 20-40-60
1968
Screenplay, Director
"Using the same, three times repeating dialogue – dramatic conversation between man and woman – Jerzy Skolimowski from Poland, Slovak director Peter S...

The Departure
1967
Director, Screenplay
A young Belgian car nut and hairdresser's apprentice attempts to get a Porsche by all means for his nearing debut race and meets a girl in the same ti...

Barrier
1966
as Waiter - Announcer (voice) (uncredited)
A dream-like meditation on post-industrial life in Communist Poland.

Barrier
1966
Director, Screenplay
A dream-like meditation on post-industrial life in Communist Poland.

Sposób bycia
1966
as Leopold
A forty-year old man, destroyed physically and mentally by life experiences recounts his life.

Identification Marks: None
1965
as Andrzej Leszczyc
After being drafted into military service, a Polish student spends his last day coming to terms with his estranged wife, visiting old friends, and sav...

Identification Marks: None
1965
Art Direction, Director, Screenplay
After being drafted into military service, a Polish student spends his last day coming to terms with his estranged wife, visiting old friends, and sav...

Walkover
1965
as Andrzej Leszczyc
Walkover, the autobiographical second feature by Polish enfant terrible Jerzy Skolimowski echoes the French nouvelle vague in its extraordinarily sty...

Walkover
1965
Director, Screenplay
Walkover, the autobiographical second feature by Polish enfant terrible Jerzy Skolimowski echoes the French nouvelle vague in its extraordinarily sty...

The Friend
1965
Dialogue
Engineer Ijon Tichy is called in to help with a malfunctioning electronic brain.

Night Fare
1962
Producer, Screenplay
The Nude
1962
Director

Knife in the Water
1962
Screenplay, Dialogue
On their way to an afternoon on the lake, husband and wife Andrzej and Krystyna nearly run over a young hitchhiker. Inviting the young man onto the bo...
Beautiful
1962
Director
Student film by Skolimowski abot a street ironically called Beautiful.

Your Money or Your Life
1961
Director, Writer
A short crime film set in a fairground.
Boxing
1961
Director, Screenplay
School study, variation on the theme of art, by Jerzy Skolimowski.

Erotique
1961
Director, Writer
A girl wipes the mirror and suddenly notices the reflection of a man who then speaks to her. The girl backs away, afraid.

Innocent Sorcerers
1960
as Boxer (uncredited)
A young doctor is tired of being sought by women. One night he meets a young girl who all but forces herself into his room where they talk of morals a...

Innocent Sorcerers
1960
Screenplay
A young doctor is tired of being sought by women. One night he meets a young girl who all but forces herself into his room where they talk of morals a...

Little Hamlet
1960
Director, Writer
Hamlet suspects his uncle has murdered his father to claim the throne of Denmark and the hand of Hamlet's mother, but the prince cannot decide whether...

The Menacing Eye
1960
Director, Writer
A knife thrower practices on a target girl.
Good Boy
N/A
Producer
Nineteen year old Tommy likes his life as a criminal, and leads his friends in acts of horrifying violence, until one night he is kidnapped by a stran...
Angel of Death
N/A
Director, Producer
A Jewish pathologist, Dr. Miklos Nyiszli, who is sent to work under Dr. Josef Mengele. There, he struggles to hold onto his humanity while being force...