Steve McQueen
1969–
Introduction
Sir Steve Rodney McQueen (born 9 October 1969) is a British film director, film producer, screenwriter, and video artist. Known for directing films that deal with intense subject matters, he has received several awards including an Academy Award, two BAFTA Awards and a Golden Globe Award. He was honoured with the BFI Fellowship in 2016 and was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 2020 for services to art and film. In 2014, he was included in Time magazine's annual Time 100 list of the "most influential people in the world".
McQueen began his formal training studying painting at London's Chelsea College of Art and Design. He later pursued film at Goldsmiths College and briefly at New York University. Influenced by Jean Vigo, Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut, Ingmar Bergman, and Andy Warhol, McQueen started making short films. In 1999 McQueen was awarded the Turner Prize for his "range" and "emotional intensity" of his art.
He made his feature length directorial film debut with the historical drama Hunger (2008) which focused on the 1981 Irish hunger strike followed by the erotic psychosexual drama Shame (2011) which explored sex addiction. He won the Academy Award for Best Picture directing the historical drama 12 Years a Slave (2013). He also directed the contemporary crime thriller Widows (2018), and the World War II drama Blitz (2024).
For television, he released Small Axe (2020), a collection of five anthology films "set within London's West Indian community from the late 1960s to the early '80s". He also directed the BBC documentary series Uprising (2021) and the documentary film Occupied City (2023).
Wikidata identifier
Q706475
Information from Wikipedia, made available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License . Accessed May 20, 2025.
Introduction
His black-and-white silent films, in which he often appears, are known for their visual economy and anti-narrative approach; he won the 1996 ICA Futures Award and the 1999 Turner Prize.
Country of birth
United Kingdom
Roles
Artist, cinematographer, director, photographer, sculptor, video artist
ULAN identifier
500114910
Names
Steve McQueen, Steven Rodney McQueen
Information from the Getty Research Institute's Union List of Artist Names ® (ULAN), made available under the ODC Attribution License. Accessed May 6, 2025.
