Babak Anvari (Persian: بابک انوری; born 1983) is a British-Iranian[2] filmmaker. He is best known for directing horror films such as Under the Shadow (2016) and Wounds (2019).
Anvari grew up in Tehran, Iran, with his older brother at the time of the Iran–Iraq War and the Iranian Cultural Revolution. He said in 2016, "We've both grown up with night terrors, being afraid of being left alone, of being in the dark for too long."[3] At age 19 in 2002, Anvari moved to London,[1] going on to graduate from the University of Westminster in 2005.[4]
In 2016, Anvari made his directorial debut with the horror film Under the Shadow.[3] It was submitted by the United Kingdom for an Oscar nomination.[2] The film was nominated for six British Independent Film Awards and won three, and won the BAFTA Award for Outstanding Debut.[5]
In 2019, Anvari's follow-up film Wounds, a horror film based on the novella The Visible Filth by Nathan Ballingrud, was released. The cast includes Armie Hammer, Dakota Johnson and Zazie Beetz, and it screened at the Sundance Film Festival.[5]
Anvari was announced as the director of an upcoming Cloverfield film in September 2022.[6] In November 2023, Anvari's film Hallow Road started production. The film's cast includes Rosamund Pike and Matthew Rhys.[7]
In 2022, Anvari participated in the Sight & Sound film polls of that year. Anvari's selections were Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Batman Returns, Jurassic Park, Stalker, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Mulholland Dr., Beetlejuice, The Dark Knight, Heat and Se7en.[8]
In October 2022, Anvari wrote an open letter urging the entertainment industry to "amplify the voice" of the Mahsa Amini protesters and "give hope to the youth of Iran that the world is listening to their chants for freedom."[9]
Short film
| Year | Title | Director | Writer | Producer |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2005 | What's Up with Adam? | Yes | No | No |
| Creed | Yes | No | Yes | |
| 2007 | Solitary | Yes | Yes | No |
| 2011 | Two & Two | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Feature film
| Year | Title | Director | Writer | Producer |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | Under the Shadow | Yes | Yes | No |
| 2019 | Wounds | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 2022 | I Came By | Yes | Yes | Co-producer |
| 2025 | Hallow Road | Yes | No | Executive |
| TBA | Untitled Cloverfield film[10] | Yes | No | No |
TV series
| Year | Title | Director | Executive Producer |
Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Monsterland | Yes | Yes | Directed episode "Newark, NJ" |
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
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