James Mangold

James Mangold (born 16 December 1963) is an American director, screenwriter, and producer known for moving fluently between genres while keeping a strong focus on character. After studying filmmaking at CalArts and earning an MFA at Columbia, he broke through with Heavy (1995) and quickly established himself with films like Cop Land (1997) and Girl, Interrupted (1999), before expanding into thrillers and romantic comedy with Identity (2003) and Kate & Leopold (2001).

He became a major mainstream filmmaker with Walk the Line (2005), then delivered a string of high-profile, crowd-pleasing films including 3:10 to Yuma (2007), Knight and Day (2010), and Ford v Ferrari (2019). In franchise filmmaking, Mangold directed The Wolverine (2013) and the widely acclaimed Logan (2017), which earned him an Academy Award nomination for Adapted Screenplay, and later took over the Indiana Jones series with Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023).

In the mid-2020s he directed and co-wrote the Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown, continuing his pattern of alternating between large-scale studio films and more performance-driven stories. He has also been attached to write and direct a Swamp Thing film for DC Studios and to develop a Star Wars feature set in the “dawn of the Jedi” era, while signing a broader feature-film deal with Paramount that includes the Timothée Chalamet project High Side.

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