Life and career
Laurent Bouzereau is the director and co-producer of JAWS @ 50 (2025), produced by NatGeo, Amblin Documentaries & Nedland Films, and of the acclaimed feature documentary Music by John Williams about the life and career of composer John Williams, produced by Steven Spielberg, Ron Howard, Lucasfilm, Amblin Documentaries, Imagine Documentaries & Nedland Films. [1] [2] The film premiered at the AFI Film Festival [3] and received the Best Music Documentary Award from the Critics' Choice Awards. [4]
Bouzereau directed and co-produced Faye, [5] about actress Faye Dunaway, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival and was released on HBO and Max in 2024. [6] [7] His other films include Becoming Hitchcock: The Legacy of Blackmail for StudioCanal [8] which premiered at the 2024 Lumière Film Festival, [9] Timeless Heroes: Indiana Jones & Harrison Ford for Lucasfilm / Disney+ [10] and the HBO feature-length documentary Mama's Boy, based on the best-selling memoir by Dustin Lance Black. [11] The film was produced by LD Entertainment, Amblin Television, Playtone and Nedland Media and opened the 2022 NewFest - LGBTQ+ Film and Media festival. [12] [13] Bouzereau is also the director / co-producer of Natalie Wood: What Remains Behind, for HBO and Amblin Television. [14] The film was selected at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival and presented in the Documentary Premiere selection. [15] He directed and co-produced the acclaimed Netflix series Five Came Back , executive produced by Steven Spielberg and Amblin Television, based on the best-selling book by Mark Harris, with an Emmy-winning narration by Meryl Streep. [16] The documentary features Francis Ford Coppola, Guillermo del Toro, Paul Greengrass, Lawrence Kasdan, and Steven Spielberg. [17]
Bouzereau was born and raised in a suburb of Paris, France. [18] He began his career in New York as a freelance journalist and author with The De Palma Cut while working in publicity and promotion for the independent distribution company Spectrafilm. Upon moving to Hollywood, he was story editor and graduated to director of development for Bette Midler's production company, All Girl Productions. He got his start in home entertainment when he recorded audio commentary for the Criterion Collection on the LaserDisc for Carrie in 1991. [19] In 1995, he directed and produced his first of many documentaries for Steven Spielberg when he was asked to work on the LaserDisc restoration of the film 1941. [19] That year he also directed and produced The Making of Steven Spielberg's 'Jaws', a feature-length documentary that was included on the LaserDisc release of Jaws in 1995, [20] and later on the DVD and Blu-ray releases of the film. [21] Following the success of this documentary, Bouzereau continued to direct and produce retrospective documentaries for Laserdisc, including the making of Scarface [22] and E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial [23] in 1996, the making of Psycho [24] in 1997 and the making of Close Encounters of the Third Kind [25] in 1998. In 2002, for the production of A.I. Artificial Intelligence , he began documenting the filmmaking process on-set. [26]
Bouzereau has directed and produced documentaries on the making-of some of the biggest films in the history of cinema, by some of the most acclaimed directors of all-time. He has directed and produced most of the documentaries on the making of Steven Spielberg's films. [27] In total, he has documented over 150 films, including the Indiana Jones [28] and Jurassic Park [29] film franchises. Among the many titles include American Graffiti [30] by George Lucas, Titanic [31] and Avatar [32] by James Cameron, Universal and Warners Bros. Alfred Hitchcock collections, [33] Lawrence of Arabia [34] and The Bridge on the River Kwai [35] by David Lean, Taxi Driver , [36] Raging Bull and Casino [37] by Martin Scorsese, Scarface , [38] Carrie , [39] and Dressed to Kill [40] by Brian De Palma, Cruising [41] and The Exorcist [42] by William Friedkin, Back to the Future [43] by Robert Zemeckis, Reds [44] by Warren Beatty, Chinatown [45] and Tess [46] by Roman Polanski, and The Last Picture Show [47] by Peter Bogdanovich.
As an author, Bouzereau's credits include Steven Spielberg: The First Ten Years, [48] The De Palma Decade, [49] West Side Story: The Making of the Steven Spielberg Film, [50] Hitchcock: Piece by Piece, [51] The Art of Bond, [52] The New York Times Best-Seller The Making of Star Wars, Episode I – The Phantom Menace [53] , Star Wars: The Annotated Screenplays, [54] The Cutting Room Floor: Movie Scenes Which Never Made It To The Screen, [55] Ultra Violent Movies: From Sam Peckinpah to Quentin Tarantino, [56] and The De Palma Cut: The Films of America's Most Controversial Director. [57]
Bouzereau wrote, directed and produced the documentary on legendary film producer Richard D. Zanuck entitled Don't Say No Until I Finish Talking, executive produced by Steven Spielberg. [58] Zanuck watched the film three days before he died. [59] He also wrote, directed and produced the TCM/Amblin Television series A Night at the Movies. [60] Episodes include George Lucas and the World of Fantasy Cinema, The Horrors of Stephen King, Hollywood Goes to Washington, The Gigantic World of Epics, The Suspenseful World of Thrillers, Merry Christmas!, and Cops & Robbers and Crime Writers. [61]
