Writer/
director/
producer known for his
independent-spirited
filmmaking and for discovering some of today's most talented young actors (most notably in
Dazed and Confused, which launched the careers of
Ben Affleck and
Matthew McConaughey among others). Born on July 30, 1960, Linklater grew up in
Houston, Texas. He quit college to save money working on an offshore oil rig in the
Gulf of Mexico before moving to
Austin, Texas, where he began his movie career.
He has no formal film
education, but he spent several years doing "technical exercises" to educate himself. He says: "I'd already worked and saved up some money, so I'd created an
environment to learn by myself. I could still go to two movies a day, I could still read, and then I could edit all night or work on stuff like lighting, editing, everything."
In 1985, Linklater founded the Austin Film Society to showcase films from around the world that were not typically shown in Austin. Still active as Artistic Director, the
Film Society shows over 100 films a year and in the last two years has given out $80,000 in
grants to 31 Texas filmmakers.
In 1987 Linklater completed his first film, "It's Impossible to Learn to Plow By Reading Books", and shot his first feature, "
Slacker" which was lauded on the
festival circuit in 1990, showcased at the 1991
Sundance Film Festival, and released commercially later that year. 1993 saw the release of Linklater's
Dazed and Confused, an ensemble piece that portrays the lives of American teenagers in the '70s that quickly became a
cult hit.
Linklater's latest project is a critically acclaimed
animated film entitled
Waking Life. His production company is called
Detour Films, an excellent name for a filmmaker who has gone off the road well traveled.
Filmography
- It's Impossible to Learn to Plow by Reading Books (1988 - as writer and director)
- Slacker (1991 - as writer and director)
- Dazed and Confused (1993 - as writer and director)
- Before Sunrise (1995 - as writer and director)
- SubUrbia (1996 - as director)
- The Newton Boys (1998 - as writer and director)
- Waking Life (2001 - as writer and director)
- Tape (2001 - as director)
- School of Rock (2003 - as director)
- Before Sunset (2004 - as writer and director)
- Bad News Bears (2005 - as director)
- A Scanner Darkly (2006 - as director)
- Fast Food Nation (2006- as co-writer and director)
- Me and Orson Welles (2008 - as director)
- Bernie (2011 - as co-writer and director)
- Before Midnight (2013 - as co-writer and director)
- Boyhood (2015 - as writer and director)
- Everybody Wants Some!! (2016 - as writer and director
- Last Flag Flying (2017 - as co-writer and director)
- Where'd You Go, Bernadette? (2019 - as co-writer and director)
- Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood (2022 - as writer and director)
- Hit Man (2023 - as co-writer and director)
- Blue Moon (2025 - as director)
- Nouvelle Vague (2025 - as director)
Linklater's film
Tape concerns three old high school friends who pass the time in a
Michigan motel room dissecting the painful memories of their
high school years.
Linklater has also performed acting duties on varied projects, such as
Spy Kids (2001) and
Beavis and Butthead do America (1996) (voice acting).
Info culled from various interviews and the ever helpful IMDB
Update 10.20.03 - Updated filmography with latest films...