Born in 1951, Robert Lee Zemeckis is an American director, producer, and screenwriter. He studied film at the University of Southern California, where he met fellow student Robert Gale, who would become his long-time screenwriting partner. While still a student, Zemeckis caught the attention of Steven Spielberg, who produced his first feature film, Beatlemania (1978), marking the start of a decades-long collaboration.
Zemeckis gained public recognition in the 1980s with the Back to the Future film series (1985-1990) and the Oscar-winning Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988). Although often labelled as a director mainly interested in special effects, critics like David Thomson have praised him for using effects to serve dramatic and narrative purposes.
His Oscar win for Best Director with Forrest Gump (1994) confirmed his reputation as a versatile and eclectic filmmaker, beyond his expertise in visual effects. His other major films include Contact (1997), Cast Away (2000), and The Polar Express (2004). In 2015, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York honoured Zemeckis with a retrospective titled What Lies Beneath: The Films of Robert Zemeckis, celebrating his contributions to film and television.
