Barry Sonnenfeld is an American film maker. He started his career as a cinematographer and moved on to direction and production. He has been associated with many large budget successful Hollywood films.
Barry Sonnenfeld was born in New York City on April 1, 1953. In 1978 he graduated from New York University of Film School and found his first work behind the camera directing pornographic films. Later in life, he would say that he was depressed when Boogie Nights came out because he had wanted to make a film documenting the hectic days of his early career. His first well recognized work in Hollywood was as director of photography for "In Our Water" in 1982. From there, Barry Sonnenfeld started working regularly with the Coen Brothers as their cinematographer on films including "Blood Simple", "Raising Arizona" and "Miller's Crossing". Other movies he did cinematography for during the late eighties to early nineties included "Throw Momma from the Train" with Danny DeVito, "When Harry Met Sally", and "Misery". His first experience directing was on the "Addams Family" movies, of which the first one was a great success. One of his next directed films, "Get Shorty", won a Golden Globe for Best Male Performance and was critically well received. While the late nineties were not without error for Barry Sonnenfeld - he turned down an offer to direct "Forrest Gump", the Tom Hanks film that went on to sweep the 1994 movie industry awards - he attained a terrific success with "Men in Black", the Tommy Lee Jones / Will Smith action comedy about agents who protect the Earth from criminal aliens.
Barry Sonnenfeld has continued to work as a director and movie producer since the turn of the millennium. His most recent works include the Robin Williams family comedy "RV", which he directed, and he has been a producer for "The Ladykillers" and "Lemony Snicket: A Series of Unfortunate Events", starring Tom Hanks and Jim Carrey respectively.