Rian Johnson

Rian Craig Johnson (born December 17, 1973) is an American filmmaker. He made his directorial debut with the neo-noir mystery film Brick (2005), which received positive reviews and grossed nearly $4 million on a $450,000 budget. Going on to make higher-profile films, Johnson achieved mainstream recognition for writing and directing the science-fiction thriller Looper (2012) to critical and commercial success. Johnson landed his largest project when he wrote and directed the space opera Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017), which grossed over $1 billion. He returned to the mystery genre with the Knives Out film series (2019–present), which earned him Academy Award nominations for Best Original Screenplay and Best Adapted Screenplay.

Additionally, Johnson is known for directing three highly acclaimed episodes for the television series Breaking Bad (2008–2013), namely "Ozymandias", "Fly", and "Fifty-One"; for the last, he received the Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directing – Drama Series in 2013. He created the murder mystery series Poker Face for Peacock starring Natasha Lyonne. Johnson is known for his longstanding collaboration with actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who has appeared in all of his feature films to date in varying capacity. He was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine in 2023.