Rise to Fame
A family trapped in a compound where 'sea' means 'chair' and children aren't allowed outside until they can physically jump over the fence. That was Dogtooth. Lanthimos had spent a decade making commercials and music videos in Athens, including work for Greek pop star Sakis Rouvas, before that film arrived. Dogtooth won the Prix Un Certain Regard at Cannes in 2009 and earned an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film. The Greek Weird Wave had a director.
In the Spotlight
Poor Things (2023) won the Golden Lion at Venice, earned 4 Oscars, and grossed $117 million on a $35 million budget, numbers that usually turn arthouse directors into cautious crowd-pleasers. He didn't flinch. Kinds of Kindness (2024) made $16.4 million worldwide, which for most filmmakers would be alarming. Bugonia (2025) followed with four Oscar nominations. Emma Stone has now headlined three consecutive films for him. The working relationship reads less like director-muse and more like two people running an experiment nobody asked for.
Side Notes
His father played professional basketball for the Greek national team. Lanthimos played for the same club until a reportedly career-ending injury around age 19 pushed him toward film school. He was part of the creative team for the 2004 Athens Olympics ceremonies. Before every new film, he reportedly watches Seijun Suzuki's Branded to Kill (1967), a pre-production ritual he's mentioned in multiple interviews. Photography is a parallel pursuit: three books published and a recent exhibition at the Onassis Foundation in Athens.