John Crowley, born August 19, 1969, is best known for the films Brooklyn (2015), which was nominated for the Best Picture Oscar, and his debut feature, Intermission (2003), for which he won the Irish Film and Television Best Director Award.
Crowley earned a BA in English and Philosophy (1990) and an MA in Philosophy from University College Cork.
Crowley became involved in theatre as a student, and began directing plays in Dublin in the early 90s, reached London’s West End by 1996 and eventually become an associate director at the Donmar Warehouse.
In 2000, he directed Come and Go as part of the Beckett on Film series and made his feature debut Intermission (2003), a comedy drama set in Dublin, starring Colin Farrell, Cillian Murphy and Kelly Macdonald, based on a screenplay by playwright Mark O’Rowe.
In May 2005, Crowley, along with Danny Boyle, launched the UK Film Council Development Fund’s “25 Words or Less: Director’s Cut” scheme to develop a feature film project, to “create a contemporary ‘rebirth’ or transformation story about a man or woman who begins as someone that spreads coldness.”
In 2007, Crowley reteamed with O’Rowe for the BAFTA-winning drama Boy A, about a young man’s return to civilian life after imprisonment for a brutal childhood killing, which was made for British TV but was released theatrically in the US the following year.
Crowley was Tony nominated for the successful London and Broadway runs of Martin McDonagh’s play The Pillowman in 2003 and 2005. He directed Neve Campbell and Cillian Murphy in the West End production of Love Song in 2006-7, and in 2007 filmed a TV version of Harold Pinter’s Celebration starring Michael Gambon, Stephen Rea and Colin Firth.
In 2009 he directed the film Is Anybody There? set in 1980s seaside Britain, written by Peter Harness and starring Michael Caine as a grumpy ex-magician.
In 2010, Crowley teamed once again with McDonagh for “A Behanding in Spokane” on Broadway.
Crowley plans to direct the screen adaptation of Donna Tartt’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel “The Goldfinch” for Warner.
He is a brother of the designer Bob Crowley.
