The Most Famous
FILM DIRECTORS from Malaysia
This page contains a list of the greatest Malaysian Film Directors. The pantheon dataset contains 1,581 Film Directors, 2 of which were born in Malaysia. This makes Malaysia the birth place of the 54th most number of Film Directors behind Taiwan and Vietnam.
Top 2
The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the most legendary Malaysian Film Directors of all time. This list of famous Malaysian Film Directors is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity.
1. James Wan (1977 - )
With an HPI of 51.70, James Wan is the most famous Malaysian Film Director. His biography has been translated into 47 different languages on wikipedia.
James Wan (born 26 February 1977) is an Australian filmmaker. He has primarily worked in the horror genre as the co-creator of the Saw and Insidious franchises and the creator of The Conjuring Universe. The lattermost is the highest-grossing horror franchise at over $2 billion. Wan is also the founder of film and television production company Atomic Monster. Beginning his career with the Saw franchise, Wan made his feature directorial debut with his first film in 2004. The franchise became commercially successful and grossed more than $1 billion globally. Following a period of setbacks, Wan found new success with the Insidious series, in which he directed the first film in 2010 and its 2013 sequel. The same year as the second Insidious, Wan directed the first Conjuring film to critical and commercial success. He served as the director of the second installment in 2016 and produced subsequent films in the franchise. Outside of horror, Wan directed Furious 7 (2015), the seventh installment of the Fast & Furious franchise, and the DC Extended Universe superhero films Aquaman (2018) and its sequel Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom (2023). Both Furious 7 and Aquaman grossed over $1 billion, making Wan the eighth director with two films to reach the milestone. He is the 16th highest-grossing director of all time as of 2021, with his films having grossed over $3.7 billion worldwide.
2. Tsai Ming-liang (1957 - )
With an HPI of 50.27, Tsai Ming-liang is the 2nd most famous Malaysian Film Director. His biography has been translated into 24 different languages.
Tsai Ming-liang (Chinese: 蔡明亮; born 27 October 1957) is a Malaysian filmmaker based in Taiwan. Tsai has written and directed 11 feature films, many short films, and television films. He is one of the most celebrated "Second New Wave" film directors of Taiwanese cinema. His films have been acclaimed worldwide and have won numerous awards at festivals. In 1994, Tsai won the Golden Lion at the 51st Venice International Film Festival for the film Vive L'Amour.
Pantheon has 2 people classified as film directors born between 1957 and 1977. Of these 2, 2 (100.00%) of them are still alive today. The most famous living film directors include James Wan and Tsai Ming-liang.
