Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu | Biography, Movies, & Facts | Britannica (2024)

Alejandro González Iñárritu (born August 15, 1963, Mexico City, Mexico) is a Mexican director and producer whose movies—which often feature interconnected stories and a nonlinear narrative—placed him at the forefront of the Mexican film renaissance in the early 21st century.

González Iñárritu was expelled from school at age 16. His first job, as a commercial sailor, persuaded him to complete his education at the Ibero-American University, Mexico City. In 1984 González Iñárritu became a popular disc jockey at Mexico’s top-rated radio station, where he pieced together playlists into a loose narrative arc; he credited this experience with cultivating his interest in storytelling. He later became the youngest producer for Televisa, Mexico’s premiere TV company. After leaving Televisa, he founded (1991) Zeta Film and moved into advertising as a writer and director of television commercials.

From 1988 to 1990 González Iñárritu concentrated on his first love—music—and wrote the scores for six Mexican films. During this time he became acquainted with Mexican novelist and screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga, and the two began a long and fruitful collaboration. The pair continued to correspond and develop ideas when González Iñárritu traveled to the United States to study filmmaking, and they transformed one of their early ideas—about three interconnected stories set in a grim yet realistic Mexico City—into the screenplay for González Iñárritu’s feature directorial debut, Amores perros (2000). The movie was an international success; it won awards at the Cannes and Chicago film festivals, garnered 10 Mexican Ariel Awards, and earned an Oscar nomination for best foreign-language film.

González Iñárritu parlayed his newfound celebrity into high-profile jobs directing two unconventional short films. In 2001 he directed Powder Keg, an entry in a series of extended BMW commercials made by A-list directors. The next year González Iñárritu contributed a segment titled “Mexico” to the episodic short-film collaboration 11′09″01—September 11, a collection of reflections on the September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States that were all limited to 11-minute 9-second running times and were shot in a single frame.

For their next feature film, 21 Grams (2003), González Iñárritu and Arriaga ventured into English-language cinema. As with Amores perros, the film told the story of seemingly isolated individuals whose lives are subtly intertwined. The two men next collaborated on Babel (2006), featuring an international cast headlined by Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett. The multilingual drama employed a mosaic structure similar to its predecessors and thereby completed a loose trilogy. For his work on Babel, González Iñárritu received an Academy Award nomination for best director.

After a falling out with Arriaga, he directed and cowrote the Spanish-language Biutiful (2010), about a Barcelona criminal (played by Javier Bardem) raising two children while dying of cancer. González Iñárritu then cowrote and directed the 2014 English-language Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance), a caustic comedy about a former film star (Michael Keaton) attempting to mount a comeback by appearing on Broadway. He won Academy Awards for best director and best screenplay for his work on that film, and it was named best picture. The Revenant (2015), based on a true story, chronicles the travails of Hugh Glass, a fur trapper (Leonardo DiCaprio) whose companions murder his son and leave him for dead following an attack by a bear. González Iñárritu again won an Oscar for his direction of the drama, which also received a nod for best picture. In 2017 he debuted a virtual-reality project, Carne y arena (“Flesh and Sand”), about the experience of desperate migrants; the piece earned him an Academy Award for special achievement. González Iñárritu returned to the big-screen with Bardo, falsa crónica de unas cuantas verdades (2022; Bardo: False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths). The ambitious, existential comedy centres on an acclaimed Mexican journalist who is experiencing a crisis of identity.