Age: 58
male
Denis Villeneuve (born October 3, 1967) is a Canadian filmmaker. He has received seven Canadian Screen Awards as well as nominations for three Academy Awards, five BAFTA Awards, and two Golden Globe Awards. Villeneuve's films have grossed more than $1.8 billion worldwide. Villeneuve began his career in his home country, directing four French-language dramas: August 32nd on Earth (1998); Maelström (2000); Polytechnique (2009), a dramatisation of the 1989 École Polytechnique massacre; and Incendies (2010). The last of these gained him international prominence and earned a nomination for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film. He expanded to English-language films by directing the thrillers Prisoners (2013), Enemy (2013), and Sicario (2015). Villeneuve gained wider recognition for directing science fiction films. His work on Arrival (2016) earned him a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Director. This was followed by Blade Runner 2049 (2017), which was critically lauded but financially unsuccessful. His next projects were Dune (2021) and Dune: Part Two (2024), a two-part adaptation of Frank Herbert's novel of the same name. Both films were critically and commercially successful, with the former earning him Academy Award nominations for Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Picture.
In the New England beach town of Amity Island, a young woman, Chrissie Watkins, goes skinny dipping in the ocean one evening during a beachside party. While she is treading water, an unseen force attacks her and pulls her under the water. The next day, her partial remains are found on shore. After the medical examiner concludes she was the victim of a shark attack, police chief Martin Brody decides to close the beaches, but Mayor Larry Vaughn persuades him to reconsider, fearing that the town's summer economy will be ruined. The coroner tentatively concurs with the mayor's theory that Chrissie was killed in a boating accident, and Brody reluctantly accepts their conclusion until the shark kills a young boy, Alex Kintner, in front of a crowded beach. A bounty is placed on the shark, causing an amateur shark-hunting frenzy, and eccentric and roughened local professional shark fisherman Quint offers his services for $10,000. Meanwhile, consulting oceanographer Matt Hooper examines Chrissie's remains, confirming that an abnormally large shark killed her.
