- Born
- Height6′ 3″ (1.91 m)
- Joseph Kosinski is a director whose uncompromising style has quickly made a mark in the filmmaking zeitgeist. His five theatrical releases have earned $2.8 billion worldwide and been nominated for 11 Academy Awards including 2 for Best Picture.
Most recently, Joseph directed and produced "F1" for Apple Studios. The film stars Brad Pitt, Damson Idris, Kerry Condon, Javier Bardem and earned over $634 million. It is a career high for Pitt and the highest grossing sports film of all time. It was named a Top Film of 2025 by the National Board of Review, nominated for 4 Academy Awards including Best Picture, and won the Oscar for Sound.
His film debut, "Tron: Legacy" for Walt Disney Studios, grossed $400 million and was nominated for an Academy Award for Sound Editing and a Grammy for the groundbreaking score by Daft Punk.
For his sophomore feature, Kosinski directed and produced the original science-fiction thriller "Oblivion" for Universal Pictures, starring Tom Cruise and Morgan Freeman. With a score by M83, it grossed $288 million.
Kosinski's third feature was the critically-acclaimed drama "Only The Brave", based on the true story of the Granite Mountain Hotshots, for Columbia Pictures. The film stars Josh Brolin, Miles Teller, Jennifer Connelly and Jeff Bridges.
Joseph reunited with Cruise, Teller, and Connelly for "Top Gun: Maverick". The Paramount film grossed $1.5 billion, won the National Board of Review for Best Film, was nominated for 6 Academy Awards including Best Picture, and won the Oscar for Sound. It is the highest grossing film of Tom Cruise's career. In addition, Joseph was nominated for Best Director by the Directors Guild of America.
Kosinski's "Spiderhead", a Netflix release, was based on the short story by acclaimed author George Saunders. The film starring Chris Hemsworth, Miles Teller, and Jurnee Smollet was #1 on the streaming service and crossed 100 million total view hours in its first 100 days.
Joseph received his undergraduate degree in Mechanical Engineering at Stanford University and a Masters in Architecture at Columbia University.
- IMDb mini biography by: Anonymous
- ParentsPatricia Eileen ProvostJoel Michael Kosinski
- Gender / Gender identityMale
- Characters in his films often sacrifice themselves for a noble cause (Kevin Flynn in Tron: Legacy (2010), Jack Harper in Oblivion (2013), Granite Mountain Hotshots in Only the Brave (2017)).
- Often works with cinematographer Claudio Miranda
- Often works with Miles Teller.
- Vast, lonely landscapes
- Flawed relationships between fathers and sons
- Many of his films have been Specially Formatted for IMAX (1.90:1), although TRON: Legacy used the IMAX Expanded Aspect Ratio for seven sequences in the film and Top Gun: Maverick used it for the dogfight sequences in the film.
- He has directed two films that have been nominated for the Best Picture Oscar: Top Gun: Maverick (2022) and F1: The Movie (2025).
- Saw Predator 2 on opening day and said it "was the best Thanksgiving weekend ever".
- His favorite movies in no particular order are The Godfather Part II, The Usual Suspects, Panic Room, Godzilla: Minus One, Raiders Of The Lost Ark, Back To The Future, Pinocchio, Suspiria and Twelve Monkeys.
- Is interested in potentially starting up his own production company but is waiting for the right time.
- You never watch movies the same as you do when you're a kid, ever again.
- When you make a movie, you can only make the movie that you would want to see.
- I think the excitement of movies is discovering stuff you weren't expecting, and I hope to preserve that.
- I'm a huge electronic-music fan.
- That's the tricky thing these days: being able to surprise people.
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