Lynne Ramsay

Lynne Ramsay (born 5 December 1969) is a Scottish filmmaker and cinematographer best known for the feature films Ratcatcher (1999), Morvern Callar (2002), We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011), You Were Never Really Here (2017), and Die, My Love (2025).

Her works are marked by a fascination with children and young people and the recurring themes of grief, guilt, death, and its aftermath.

Ramsay was born on 5 December 1969 in Glasgow into a working-class family. Her parents introduced her to movies at an early age through the work of Bette Davis, Nicolas Roeg, Alfred Hitchcock, and Michael Curtiz. She also credits the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz as an early inspiration.

Ramsay had an early passion for photography. She studied fine art and photography at Napier College, Edinburgh. In class she watched Maya Deren's film Meshes of the Afternoon and later cites it as a turning point in her career, inspiring her to apply to film school on a whim and encouraging her turn towards filmmaking.

In 1995, she graduated from the National Film and Television School in Beaconsfield, England, where she specialised in cinematography and direction.

In 1996 Ramsay completed her debut short film Small Deaths as her graduating film at the UK's National Film and Television School. It is a series of three vignettes of children grappling with familial realities and the repercussions of their actions. Ramsay is the writer, director and cinematographer for this film. It won the 1996 Cannes Film Festival Short Film Prix du Jury. Later that same year Ramsay finished Kill the Day, her second short film. It captures a day in the life of a heroin addict recently released from jail, and tackles the theme of memory.

Gasman (1998), also written and directed by Ramsay, is about a brother and sister who attend a Christmas party with their father, and encounter two other children who are strangely familiar with him. This won her another Prix du Jury that year as well as a nomination for a BAFTA Award for Best Short Film.

Ramsay's short films impressed Ruth McCance of BBC Scotland, who approached Ramsay to write a treatment for a feature film. This movie turned into Ramsay's debut feature Ratcatcher which released in 1999 and was funded by BBC Scotland and Pathé. The film's crew was composed entirely of first-time filmmakers, as Ramsay enlisted the help of her film school colleagues. Ratcatcher is set in Maryhill, Glasgow during the binmen's strike of the 1970s and follows James (William Eadie), the child of a struggling working-class family. The film received great critical success and while an arthouse hit, didn't reach a wider audience. It was screened at the 1999 Cannes Film Festival and opened the Edinburgh International Film Festival, winning her the BAFTA Award for Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer.