Jim Jarmusch

Jarmusch's films follow people who speak little and never quite belong anywhere, and they are in no hurry. He keeps casting musicians: John Lurie and Tom Waits share a cell in Down by Law, Screamin' Jay Hawkins is the hotel clerk in Mystery Train, and the music of Ghost Dog comes from RZA of the Wu-Tang Clan. He began with poetry, and at Columbia he was among those putting out the university's literary magazine; over ten months driving for a gallery in Paris he spent his nights at the Cinematheque francaise. At New York University's film programme he became Nicholas Ray's assistant and shot his first film, Permanent Vacation, there, though it never reached a wide audience. His name was made in 1984 with Stranger Than Paradise, which won the Camera d'Or given to first films at Cannes. Broken Flowers took the Cannes Grand Prix in 2005 and Father Mother Sister Brother the Golden Lion at Venice in 2025.