Peter Jackson

Biography

Sir Peter Jackson ONZ KNZM is a New Zealand film director, producer, and screenwriter best known for helming The Lord of the Rings trilogy (2001–2003), one of the most critically acclaimed, culturally monumental, and financially lucrative cinematic achievements in history. Starting his career making inventive, low-budget splatter comedies like Bad Taste and Braindead, Jackson earned early critical acclaim with the psychological drama Heavenly Creatures (1994), which introduced Kate Winslet. He then embarked on an unprecedented artistic gamble: filming all three installments of J.R.R. Tolkien's high-fantasy epic simultaneously in New Zealand. The trilogy grossed nearly $3 billion worldwide and won 17 Academy Awards; the final chapter, The Return of the King (2003), swept all 11 Oscars for which it was nominated, including Best Director and Best Picture, tying the all-time Oscar record. Jackson followed with his visually opulent 2005 remake of King Kong, The Hobbit prequel trilogy, and groundbreaking documentary restoration projects including They Shall Not Grow Old (2018) and the eight-hour music documentary The Beatles: Get Back (2021). As co-founder of Wētā FX, he revolutionized CGI.