Sam Mendes
Biography
Sir Samuel Alexander Mendes CBE (born 1 August 1965) is a British film and stage director, producer, and screenwriter. In 2000, Mendes was appointed a CBE for his services to drama, and he was knighted in the 2020 New Year Honours List. In 2000, Mendes was awarded the Shakespeare Prize by the Alfred Toepfer Foundation in Hamburg, Germany. In 2005, he received a lifetime achievement award from the Directors Guild of Great Britain. In 2008, The Daily Telegraph ranked him number 15 in their list of the "100 most powerful people in British culture".
Born in Berkshire to a Trinidadian Catholic father and an English Jewish mother, Mendes grew up in North London. He read English at Peterhouse at Cambridge University. He began directing plays there before joining Donmar Warehouse, a centre of 1990s London theatre culture. In theatre, he is known for his dark re-inventions of the stage musicals Cabaret (1993), Oliver! (1994), Company (1995), and Gypsy (2003).
For the first time, he directed an original West End stage musical with Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2013). For his work on the London stage, Mendes has received three Laurence Olivier Awards for Company, Twelfth Night, and The Ferryman. On Broadway, he earned two Tony Awards for Best Direction of a Play for The Ferryman in 2019 and The Lehman Trilogy in 2022.
Most directed genres
Recurring actors
- Aimee Lou Wood 4
- Anna Sawai 4
- Barry Keoghan 4
- Farhan Akhtar 4
- Harris Dickinson 4
- James Norton 4
- Joseph Quinn 4
- Mia McKenna-Bruce 4
The career in numbers
- US$ 1.2 bi Total budget from 13 film(s) with data
- US$ 3.2 bi Total box office from 9 film(s) with data
- US$ 91 mi Average budget from 13 film(s) with data
- US$ 353 mi Average box office from 9 film(s) with data
- 7.1 Average rating from 9 film(s) with data
- 4.1× Return on investment from 9 film(s) with data
Budget and box office do not exist for every film in our records. Averages are computed over the films that carry the figure, and the count beside each one says how many.
Films directed
| Film | Year | Budget | Box office | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
The Beatles: John
|
2028 | US$ 100 mi | — | — |
The Beatles: George
|
2028 | US$ 100 mi | — | — |
The Beatles: Paul
|
2028 | US$ 100 mi | — | — |
The Beatles: Ringo
|
2028 | US$ 100 mi | — | — |
What They Found
|
2025 | — | — | 7.7 |
National Theatre Live: The Motive and the Cue
|
2024 | — | — | 7.5 |
Empire of Light
|
2022 | US$ 14 mi | US$ 11 mi | 6.6 |
1917
|
2019 | US$ 100 mi | US$ 446 mi | 8.0 |
National Theatre Live: The Lehman Trilogy
|
2019 | — | — | 8.2 |
Spectre
|
2015 | US$ 245 mi | US$ 881 mi | 6.6 |
National Theatre Live: King Lear
|
2014 | — | — | 7.1 |
Skyfall
|
2012 | US$ 200 mi | US$ 1.1 bi | 7.3 |
Away We Go
|
2009 | US$ 17 mi | US$ 16 mi | 6.7 |
Revolutionary Road
|
2008 | US$ 35 mi | US$ 76 mi | 7.0 |
Jarhead
|
2005 | US$ 72 mi | US$ 97 mi | 6.7 |
Road to Perdition
|
2002 | US$ 80 mi | US$ 181 mi | 7.4 |
American Beauty
|
1999 | US$ 15 mi | US$ 356 mi | 8.0 |
Company
|
1996 | — | — | 7.1 |
Cabaret
|
1993 | — | — | 8.1 |
