FILM DIRECTORS from Taiwan

Top 2

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the most legendary Taiwanese Film Directors of all time. This list of famous Taiwanese Film Directors is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity.

1. Ang Lee (1954 - )

With an HPI of 64.62, Ang Lee is the most famous Taiwanese Film Director.  His biography has been translated into 72 different languages on wikipedia.

Ang Lee (Chinese: 李安; pinyin: Lǐ Ān; born October 23, 1954) is a Taiwanese filmmaker. His films are known for their emotional charge and exploration of repressed, hidden emotions. During his career, he has received international critical and popular acclaim and numerous accolades including two Academy Awards, four BAFTA Awards, and three Golden Globe Awards. In 2003, he was ranked 27th in The Guardian's 40 best directors. Born in Pingtung County, Lee was educated in Taiwan and later in the United States. He rose to prominence directing films such as Pushing Hands (1991), The Wedding Banquet (1993), and Eat Drink Man Woman (1994), which explored the relationships and conflicts between tradition and modernity, Eastern and Western; the three films are informally known as the "Father Knows Best" trilogy. The films were critically successful both in Taiwan and internationally. His breakthrough in Hollywood was the costume drama Sense and Sensibility (1995), which was also his first entirely English-language film. Lee went on to receive the Academy Award for Best Director twice for the romantic drama Brokeback Mountain (2005); and the survival drama Life of Pi (2012). He directed films in a broad range of genres, including the drama The Ice Storm (1997); the martial arts drama Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000); the superhero blockbuster Hulk (2003) and the erotic espionage drama Lust, Caution (2007).

2. Justin Lin (1971 - )

With an HPI of 45.17, Justin Lin is the 2nd most famous Taiwanese Film Director.  His biography has been translated into 27 different languages.

Justin Lin (traditional Chinese: 林詣彬; simplified Chinese: 林诣彬; pinyin: Lín Yìbīn; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Lîm Gē-pin, born October 11, 1971) is a Taiwanese-American film and television director, producer, and screenwriter. His films have grossed over $3 billion USD worldwide as of March 2017. He is best known for his directorial work on Better Luck Tomorrow (2002), the Fast & Furious franchise from The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006) to Fast & Furious 6 (2013) and F9 (2021), and Star Trek Beyond (2016). He is also known for his work on television programs like Community, and the second season of True Detective.