Ang Lee, alumnus of New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts graduate film program, won the academy award for best director at the 85th Academy Awards for his film, Life of Pi. The award marks Lee’s second Academy award for Best Director, which he also won in 2005 for the film Brokeback Mountain

Tisch Alum Ang Lee Wins Oscar for Best Director
Ang Lee accepts the Oscar for Best Director at the 2013 Academy Awards.Photo: © Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science and the Academy Awards®

Ang Lee, alumnus of New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts graduate film program, won the academy award for best director at the 85th Academy Awards for his film, Life of Pi. The award marks Lee’s second Academy award for Best Director, which he also won in 2005 for the film Brokeback Mountain. Over the last two decades, Lee has received 38 Oscar nominations for various films including “The Ice Storm,” “Sense and Sensibility,” “Eat Drink Man Woman” and “The Wedding Banquet.”


Born in 1954 in Pingtung, Taiwan, Lee has become one of the world’s leading contemporary filmmakers. Prior to attending NYU’s graduate film program, he graduated from the National Taiwan College of Arts in 1975 and received a B.F.A. Degree in Theatre/Theater Direction at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.


At NYU, he served as Assistant Director on Spike Lee's student film, Joe's Bed-Stuy Barbershop: We Cut Heads (1983). Subsequent notable films include the Wedding Banquet (1993), followed by Eat Drink Man Woman (1994), which received a Best Foreign Film Oscar nomination. Lee then collaborated with Emma Thompson in Sense and Sensibility (1995), his first Hollywood-mainstream movie. It acquired a Best Picture Oscar nomination, and won Best Adapted Screenplay.


Lee and frequent collaborator James Schamus next filmed The Ice Storm (1997), followed by Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, a martial-arts epic that dealt with love, loyalty and loss which was then followed by a comic-book adaptation, Hulk (2003).

Other 2013 Oscar nominees from the Tisch School of the Arts included:

Actor in a Supporting Role
Philip Seymour Hoffman ’89 (BFA, Drama) for The Master

Writing - Adapted Screenplay
Lucy Alibar ’05 (BFA, Drama) for Beasts of the Southern Wild
Tony Kushner ’84 (MFA, Directing) for Lincoln


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