Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu Biography

Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu became the first Mexican director to be nominated for an Oscar for his work on the 2006 film Babel, then he won both directing and screenwriting Oscars for his 2014 film Birdman, followed by another Oscar for directing 2015’s The Revenant.

Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu grew up in Mexico City and got his professional start in the mid-1980s as a DJ and station manager of radio station WJM.

By the end of the ’80s, he’d done music for a handful of films, and in the early ’90s he formed Z Films with partner Raul Olvera.

Their production company began with short films and advertisements, but soon had a reputation in Mexican television as a creative force.

Gonzalez Inarittu turned to feature films and released his first in 2000 — Amores Perros, an unusual narrative of three different stories that won a prize at Cannes.He’s since followed up with critically acclaimed features, mostly dramas focused on tragedy and human interaction.

He has been hailed as one of Mexico’s greatest directors, and is also known for getting the best out of actors. Amores Perros helped make Gael Garcia Bernal a star; both Naomi Watts and Benicio del Toro were nominated for Oscars for 2003’s 21 Grams; Adriana Barraza and Rinko Kikuchi were nominated for Oscars for Babel; and Javier Bardem was nominated for an Oscar for 2010’s Biutiful (which also got a nomination for best foreign language film).

His 2014 film was the dark comedy Birdman (starring Michael Keaton and Emma Stone) was an exciting mystical curiosity set on Broadway, and it actuall won Inarritu three Oscars: for directing, screenwriting and (as a co-producer) for the year’s best picture.

He worked his magic with actors again in 2015, as his bloody mountain man epic The Revenant won an Oscar nomination for star Leonardo DiCaprio as well as his own for directing.