Destin Daniel Cretton

Destin Yori Daniel Cretton (born November 23, 1978) is an American filmmaker. He is best known for directing the drama films Short Term 12 (2013), The Glass Castle (2017), Just Mercy (2019) as well as the Marvel Studios films Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021) and the upcoming Spider-Man: Brand New Day (2026).

Cretton was born and raised in Haiku, Hawaii on the island of Maui. He is of half-Japanese descent. He was home-schooled by his Christian mother. His sister Joy is a costume designer who has worked on several of Destin's projects. He lived in Haiku in a two-bedroom house with his five siblings, until he was 19 years old. He moved to San Diego, California, to attend Point Loma Nazarene University, where he majored in communications. After graduating, Cretton worked for two years as a staff person at a group home for at-risk teenagers.

He made short films as a hobby, which developed as a vocational path. He attended and graduated from film school at San Diego State University.

While at San Diego State University, Cretton made a 22-minute short film, Short Term 12, based on his experiences at the facility for teenagers. The short film premiered at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, where it won the Jury Prize in Short Filmmaking.

After graduating from film school, Cretton made his feature directorial debut with the 90-minute film, I Am Not a Hipster, which premiered at Sundance on January 20, 2012. The film was produced by Ron Najor, who would later go on to produce the feature adaptation of Short Term 12 alongside Maren Olson, Asher Goldstein, and Joshua Astrachan. Cretton's feature-length screenplay won one of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' five Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting in 2010.

The film premiered on March 10, 2013, at South by Southwest, where it won the Grand Jury and Audience Awards for a Narrative Feature. Widely acclaimed as one of the best films of 2013, it was listed on many film critics' annual top ten lists. The film earned several accolades, including three Independent Spirit Award nominations.

In 2014, Cretton was attached to rewrite the script and direct The Glass Castle, an adaptation of Jeannette Walls' 2005 best-selling memoir of the same name about a successful young woman raised by severely dysfunctional parents. Starring Brie Larson, the film also features Woody Harrelson and Naomi Watts as her alcoholic father and eccentric mother, respectively. Larson's role was originally considered by Jennifer Lawrence, but she dropped out while the studio was seeking the male lead. The film was released on August 10, 2017. It received mixed reviews from critics; they praised the performances of its cast (particularly Larson and Harrelson) but criticized the emotional tones and adaptation of the source material.

In 2016, it was announced that Ryan Coogler had teamed up with Cretton and poet/playwright Chinaka Hodge to develop Minors, a television drama series produced by Charles D. King. Drawing from Cretton's experiences working in residential foster care, Hodge's background teaching under-served youth in San Francisco Bay area continuation schools and Coogler's upbringing in the East Bay, Minors promises to take an unflinching look at institutionalization, exploring juvenile facilities and the children who grow up in that system. The series will show how that system shapes young people over a one-year period. Hodge will write the series, and Coogler and Cretton will direct.