Michael Mann

Michael Mann (born February 5, 1943, Chicago, Illinois, U.S.) is an American director and screenwriter working in film and television. He has specialized in crime dramas and is known for work that showcases an elegantly stylized realism.

Mann grew up in Chicago and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Wisconsin at Madison in 1965. He became interested in film while there, and he went on to study at the London School of Film Technique (now London School of Film), earning a master’s degree in 1967.

For several years Mann remained in England working on television commercials, but he eventually returned to the United States and began writing for television police dramas, including Starsky and Hutch and Police Story. He went on to create Vega$ (1978–81), a series centered on a Las Vegas detective, and he received his first directing credit for The Jericho Mile (1979), a made-for-TV movie about a prisoner training to run in the Olympics. Mann cowrote the teleplay with Patrick J. Nolan, and the pair won an Emmy Award for outstanding writing in a limited series or special.

Mann transitioned to directing theatrical films with Thief (1981), a thriller about a professional jewel thief (played by James Caan) that established his reputation for intelligent drama and stylized atmosphere. After a brief turn to horror with The Keep (1983), he directed Manhunter (1986), a gritty police procedural based on Red Dragon, the first in a series of Thomas Harris novels featuring the charismatic serial killer Hannibal Lecter.

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Meanwhile, Mann achieved major success as the executive producer of Miami Vice (1984–90), a popular television police series starring Don Johnson and Philip Michael Thomas. Characterized by chic fashions, a prominent soundtrack, and cinematography inspired by music videos, the show both reflected and influenced popular culture of the 1980s. Mann later wrote and directed a film version of Miami Vice (2006) starring Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx. He was also the executive producer of Crime Story (1986–88), a noir drama set in the early 1960s that used a serialized, rather than episodic, format.

As a film director, Mann gained additional attention for The Last of the Mohicans (1992), a romantic epic starring Daniel Day-Lewis that was adapted from the James Fenimore Cooper novel of the same name. He found both critical and commercial success with the ensemble crime drama Heat (1995), featuring Al Pacino and Robert De Niro. His career reached a high-water mark, however, with The Insider (1999), based on the true story of a would-be tobacco-industry whistleblower (played by Russell Crowe), which picked up seven Academy Award nominations, including best picture and best director. It was followed by another narrative lifted from real life, Ali (2001), with Will Smith as the boxer Muhammad Ali.

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In the 2000s Mann became interested in shooting on high-definition video instead of film. He explored its potential with Collateral (2004), a suspense film set in the underbelly of Los Angeles, and Public Enemies (2009), a dense ambitious treatment of the life of notorious gangster John Dillinger (played by Johnny Depp). Mann then directed Blackhat (2015), a thriller that traces the efforts of a hacker and his cohort to track down a cybercriminal.

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In addition, Mann served as executive producer of the television series Robbery Homicide Division (2002–03), another police drama, and Luck (2011–12), which was set in the high-stakes milieu of professional horse racing. He was also the executive producer of the movie Ford v Ferrari (2019), set in the car-racing world of the 1960s. Mann returned to motorsport with the movie Ferrari (2023), which he directed; it focuses on Enzo Ferrari during the 1950s.