Jane Campion

Jane Campion (born April 30, 1954, Wellington, New Zealand) is a New Zealand director and screenwriter whose films often focus on women who are outsiders in society. Her notable movies include The Piano (1993) and The Power of the Dog (2021). For her work on the latter drama, Campion became just the third woman to win an Academy Award for best director.

Although both her parents were involved in New Zealand theatre, Campion initially chose a different direction, earning a B.A. (1975) in anthropology from the Victoria University of Wellington. She obtained a second degree (1981), in art, from the Sydney College of the Arts at the University of Sydney in Australia before turning to film. Campion enrolled in the Australian Film, Television and Radio School and made several notable short films while there and afterward. Her first theatrical feature, Sweetie (1989), won notice at the Cannes film festival and was followed by the successful An Angel at My Table (1990; originally produced for New Zealand television), which was based on autobiographies by Janet Frame.

Campion next wrote and directed the internationally acclaimed The Piano (1993), for which she won an Academy Award for best original screenplay and was nominated for best director. The movie was also nominated for best picture. The 19th-century love story centers on a mute woman (played by Holly Hunter) who journeys from Scotland to New Zealand for an arranged marriage and later has a passionate affair with her husband’s overseer (Harvey Keitel).

Campion’s subsequent films included The Portrait of a Lady (1996), an adaptation of the novel by Henry James starring Nicole Kidman and John Malkovich; Holy Smoke (1999), a dramedy that examines spiritual awakenings and deprogrammers and featured Kate Winslet; and the thriller In the Cut (2003). In 2009 Campion earned accolades for Bright Star, which chronicles the romance between poet John Keats and Fanny Brawne. She later cowrote and codirected the eerie TV series Top of the Lake (2013, 2017), about a female detective.

Campion returned to the big screen with The Power of the Dog (2021), a western centering on a rancher (Benedict Cumberbatch) whose cruelty—especially toward his brother (Jesse Plemons) and the latter’s wife (Kirsten Dunst)—hides his inner turmoil. The drama earned widespread acclaim, and its 12 Oscar nominations included nods for Campion’s direction and for her screenplay, which was adapted from a novel by Thomas Savage. She ultimately received the Academy Award for best director.