Gus Van Sant
Birthdate: Jul 24, 1952
Birthplace: Louisville, Kentucky, USA
Gus Van Sant (birthname: Gus Green Van Sant Jr.) is one of the most respected independent American filmmakers of his generation, the maker of a wide range of movies ranging from the experimental (Mala Noche (1985), Gerry (2002) to broadly commercial (Good Will Hunting (1997), Finding Forrester (2000), often with strong LGTBQ+ themes.
After making nearly a dozen short films from 1967 to 1985, Van Sant launched his feature career as director/writer/producer/editor of the 16mm-shot movie, Mala Noche, based on Walt Curtis’s autobiographical story starring Tim Streeter, Doug Cooeyate, Ray Monge and Nyla McCarthy, and winning the Los Angeles Film Critics Association’s Douglas Edwards Experimental/Independent Film and Video Award.
Van Sant had his breakthrough as a major American film artist with his universally acclaimed drama based on James Fogle’s autobiographical novel, Drugstore Cowboy (1989), starring Matt Dillon, Kelly Lynch, James Remar, James LeGros, Heather Graham, and William S. Burroughs, premiering at the Toronto Film Festival and earning nearly $5 million for distributor Avenue Pictures. Van Sant as director/writer adapted Shakespeare’s Henry IV Pt. 1, Pt. 2 and Henry V for what has become a landmark in American queer cinema, My Own Private Idaho (1991), starring River Phoenix, Keanu Reeves, with James Russo, William Richert, Flea and Udo Kier, delivering a fine $8 million gross for Fine Line Features after premiering at the Venice Film Festival.
Gus Van Sant was director/writer/producer/co-editor of his fourth feature page-to-screen adaptation, his comedy-drama version of Tom Robbins’ 1976 novel, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (1993), starring Uma Thurman, Lorraine Bracco, Angie Dickinson, Noriyuki “Pat” Morita, Keanu Reeves, John Hurt and Rain Phoenix, launching at the Toronto Film Festival and returning poor box office for Fine Line Features. Van Sant was director only of his first studio movie (for Columbia Pictures), To Die For (1995), written by Buck Henry from Joyce Maynard’s 1992 novel, starring Nicole Kidman (in her most acclaimed early performance), with Joaquin Phoenix and Matt Dillon, premiering out of competition at the Cannes Film Festival and grossing a good $41 million for Sony Pictures Releasing (North America)/Rank-Castle Rock-Turner (U.K.).
Van Sant had his biggest commercial success as director only of the acclaimed drama, Good Will Hunting (1997), co-written by Ben Affleck and Matt Damon (who won the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar), starring Damon, Robin Williams (Oscar winner for Best Supporting Actor), Affleck, Stellan Skarsgard and Minnie Driver, earning an extremely profitable $226 million (based on the estimated budget) box office for Miramax Films. Van Sant was director/producer of a controversial shot-for-shot remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 seminal horror-thriller, Psycho (1998), written by Joseph Stefano, starring Vince Vaughn, Julianne Moore, Viggo Mortensen, William H. Macy, and Anne Heche, produced by Imagine Entertainment and released by the original’s studio, Universal Pictures, to a disappointing $37.2 million return.
Gus Van Sant, as director, partnered again with Columbia Pictures and star-producer Sean Connery for the J.D. Salinger-inspired drama, Finding Forrester (2000), with F. Murray Abraham, Anna Paquin, Busta Rhymes, and Rob Brown, grossing $80 million for Sony Pictures Releasing. Van Sant was director/co-writer/editor for the first time in nine years with one of his most experimental movies, Gerry (2002), the first in Van Sant’s “Death Trilogy” of features based on a true-life deaths, co-written with his two on-screen actors comprising his entire cast—Matt Damon and Casey Affleck—and shot under the stylistic influences of late Hungarian filmmaker Bela Tarr and the Tomb Raider videogame and launching at the Sundance Film Festival before a limited release by THINKFilm.
Van Sant continued his “Death Trilogy” as director/writer/editor of one of his artistic triumphs, Elephant (2003), concerned with a Portland, Oregon school shooting, co-starring Alex Frost, Eric Deulen, John Robinson, Elias McConnell and Timothy Bottoms and, after winning the Palme d’Or in competition at the Cannes Film Festival, grossed an excellent $10 million (based on estimated costs) for Fine Line Features/HBO Films as well as a score of rave reviews. Van Sant was director/writer/producer/editor for the first time in twelve years with the final movie in the “Death Trilogy” about the final days of Nirvana lead singer/songwriter Kurt Cobain, Last Days (2005), with Michael Pitt (as Cobain, and also co-composer), Lukas Haas, Asia Argento and Scott Patrick Green, produced by HBO Films and which earned $2.4 million for Picturehouse.
Gus Van Sant stayed in his low-budget mode as director/writer/editor working in his usual Portland, Oregon, setting for his skateboarding teen drama backed by French and American funding, Paranoid Park (2007), based on Blake Nelson’s novel, with co-stars Gabe Nevins, Taylor Momsen and Jake Miller, premiering at the Cannes Film Festival (where it won the festival’s 60th Anniversary Prize) and released to a $4.5 million return for distributors IFC Films (U.S.)/mk2@ diffusion (France). Van Sant shifted to bigger budgets as director only of the acclaimed, Oscar-winning biopic, Milk (2008), written by Dustin Lance Black and starring Sean Penn (both of whom won Oscars for, respectively, Best Original Screenplay and Best Actor), with Emile Hirsch, Josh Brolin, Diego Luna and James Franco, while earning $54.6 million for Focus Features.
Van Sant as director/producer reunited with producer Imagine Entertainment for the romantic drama, Restless (2011), starring Henry Hopper, Mia Wasikowska, Ryo Kase, Schuyler Fisk, and Jane Adams, launching in the Cannes Film Festival’s Un Certain Regard before a modest release by Sony Pictures Classics (U.S., Canada)/Sony Pictures Releasing International (International). Van Sant once again joined screenwriter/producer/star Matt Damon as director only of the fracking-themed drama, Promised Land (2012), co-written, co-produced and co-starring John Krasinski, with Frances McDormand, Rosemarie DeWitt and Hal Holbrook, premiering in the Bear competition at the Berlin Film Festival (where it won a Special Mention Bear) but losing money in release for Focus Features ($12.3 million return on an estimated $15 million).
Gus Van Sant experienced the worst reception of his career as director only of the Japan-set drama, Sea of Trees (2015), starring Matthew McConaughey, Ken Watanabe and Naomi Watts, launching to a near-legendary sea of boos at screenings at the Cannes Film Festival, setting the stage for a disastrous box office performance (just under $826,000 gross on an estimated $25 million budget) for A24. Van Sant returned to his Portland hometown and his multi-hyphenate mode as director/writer/co-editor of the cockeyed biopic of newspaper cartoonist John Callahan (portrayed by star Joaquin Phoenix), Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot (2018), based on Callahan’s memoir, co-starring Jonah Hill, Rooney Mara, Jack Black, Udo Kier and Kim Gordon, premiering at the Sundance Film Festival and delivering poor box office ($4.2 million) for Amazon Studios.
Van Sant continued his interest in dramatizing true stories as director only of the Indianapolis-set crime movie, Dead Man’s Wire (2025), starring Bill Skarsgard, Dacre Montgomery, Cary Elwes, Myha’la, Colman Domingo, Al Pacino, John Robinson and Kelly Lynch, launching out of competition at the Venice Film Festival and released in a wide pattern by Row K Entertainment.
Personal life
Gus Van Sant was born in Louisville, Kentucky, and raised in Louisville, and in various cities including Darien, Connecticut and Portland, Oregon by parents Betty and Gus Sr. (clothing manufacturing, traveling salesman and apparel operation president). Van Sant attended and graduated from Darien High School and Catlin Gabel School. Van Sant had begun studying painting but switched to filmmaking while attending the Rhode Island School of Design in 1970. Van Sant is openly gay and lives in the Los Feliz area of Los Angeles. Van Sant’s height is 5’ 9”. Van Sant’s estimated net worth is $20 million.
Known For
Elephant
(2003)
Paranoid Park
(2007)
Drugstore Cowboy
(1989)
My Own Private Idaho
(1991)
Gus Van Sant Movies
director
Previous (4)
- 2026 |
Dead Man’s Wire
On February 8, 1977, Tony Kiritsis entered the office of Richard Hall, president of the Meridian Mortgage Company, and took him hostage with a sawed-off shotgun wired with a "dead man's wire" from the trigger to Tony's own neck.
- 2018 |
Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot
Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot
On the rocky path to sobriety after a life-changing accident, John Callahan discovers the healing power of art, willing his injured hands into drawing hilarious, often controversial cartoons, which bring him a new lease on life.
- 2016 |
The Sea of Trees
A suicidal American befriends a Japanese man lost in a forest near Mt. Fuji and the two search for a way out.
- 1960 |
actor
Previous (23)
- 2024 | The Trainer
- 2019 | Zerovilleas Film Archive Curator
- 2015 | The Sea of Trees
- 2015 | I Don't Belong Anywhere: The Cinema of Chantal Akerman
- 2016 |
I Don’t Belong Anywhere: The Cinema of Chantal Akerman
asSelf
I Don’t Belong Anywhere: The Cinema of Chantal Akerman
I DON'T BELONG ANYWHERE: THE CINEMA OF CHANTAL AKERMAN explores some of the Belgian filmmaker's 40 plus films, and from Brussels to Tel Aviv, from Paris to New York, it charts the sites of her peregrinations. An experimental filmmaker, a nomad, Chantal Akerman shared with Mariann... Read all
- 2013 | The Canyonsas Dr. Campbell
- 2012 | My Own Private River
- 2012 | Promised Land
- 2011 | Restless
- 2008 | Milk
- 2007 | Paranoid Park
- 1986 | Mala Noche
- 2006 | Paris, I Love You
- 2005 | Last Days
- 2003 | Larry Clark, Great American Rebel
- 2003 | Elephant
- 2002 | Gerry
- 2000 | Finding Forrester
- 1997 | Good Will Hunting
- 1995 | To Die For
- 1993 | Even Cowgirls Get the Blues
- 1991 | My Own Private Idaho
- 1989 | Drugstore Cowboy
Facts About Gus Van Sant
Recording Artist: Gus Van Sant’s lesser-known creative venture is the recording and release of two music albums titled Gus Van Sant and 18 Songs About Golf.
Film Archive: Van Sant is one of the few working American filmmakers who already has his work archived—in this case, at the Academy Film Archive in Los Angeles, which holds copies of his preserved short films.
Favorite: Gus Van Sant has stated that his favorite filmmaker of all time is Stanley Kubrick.
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