Rise to Fame
His father ran a petrol station and a cinema in rural New South Wales, which probably explains why he treats every film like a theatrical event someone forgot to close the curtain on. He trained at NIDA and turned a stage play into Strictly Ballroom (1992), which won a prize at Cannes. Romeo + Juliet (1996) came next, Shakespeare rewritten in guns-and-neon modern slang, and proved the Cannes win wasn't a fluke. By Moulin Rouge! (2001), he'd built enough cultural credit to turn a film musical set in 1899 Paris into a contemporary pop culture moment. He calls the three films his Red Curtain Trilogy, which at least shows some self-awareness about what he's doing.
In the Spotlight
He makes a film roughly every six years, which means each one arrives as a referendum on his entire style. Critics dismissed The Great Gatsby (2013) and its Jay-Z soundtrack as spectacle without soul, but the film still earned $353 million worldwide. Elvis (2022) became his highest-grossing domestic film at $144.8 million. Audiences gave it an A-, critics settled at 64 on Metacritic, which is exactly the split that defines how people respond to his work. EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert, a documentary follow-up, opened in IMAX and landed at 96% on Rotten Tomatoes. The people who said he peaked in 2001 should revise that.
Side Notes
'Baz' came from Basil Brush, a British puppet character, because of his school hair. He liked it enough to legally change his name to Bazmark in high school. His wife is Catherine Martin, a costume and production designer who has won four Academy Awards collaborating almost exclusively with him. His mother taught ballroom dancing. His father ran a cinema. He grew up inside the two things he makes films about.