List of directors who appear in their own films

Several film directors have appeared in their own films, sometimes with an uncredited cameo, in a small walk-on role, or sometimes in a more major role.^[1] The following lists directors who have appeared in their own films.^[2]

Directors who regularly appear in their own films

Alfred Hitchcock made cameo appearances in nearly all his films.

Mel Brooks has had acting roles of varying degrees in every single film he has directed.

Michael Moore has appeared in all his films

Orson Welles had roles in most of his films.

• Dodo Abashidze in his films such as The Legend of Suram Fortress and Ashik Kerib.
• Dev Anand regularly starred in or at least had a major role in most of his films.
• Kenneth Branagh has starred in and directed many films.
• Tinto Brass appears in almost all his films.
• Mel Brooks has had prominent roles in most of his films.
• Jan Bucquoy has appeared in many of his films.
• James Cameron very briefly appeared in Titanic, as Leonardo DiCaprio's artist hands and as a bystander in the third-class dance sequence.
• John Carpenter has had small roles in many of his films, as well as composing the score for several.
• John Cassavetes in his films such as Opening Night.
• Wes Craven has appeared in cameos in a few of his films.
• William Dear has appeared in several films he has directed. His wife Susan and their son Oliver, now a director, has appeared in his productions.
• Ruggero Deodato makes very brief cameos in most of his films.
• Clint Eastwood, while originally well known just as an actor, since taking up directing, has starred or had a prominent role in nearly all his films.
• Rainer Werner Fassbinder in his films such as Love Is Colder Than Death, Katzelmacher, Gods of the Plague, The American Soldier, Beware of a Holy Whore, Ali: Fear Eats the Soul, The Marriage of Maria Braun, and Veronika Voss.
• Subhash Ghai has appeared in many of his films.
• Christopher Guest has prominent roles in many of his "mockumentaries".
• Alfred Hitchcock made (often very brief) cameo appearances in nearly all of his films. See List of Alfred Hitchcock cameo appearances for more details.
• Peter Jackson has made small cameo appearances in most of his films.
• Terry Jones directed and appeared in all Monty Python films, as well as The Wind In The Willows, where he played Mr. Toad.
• Mike Judge has had significant roles in all of his films.
• Abbas Kiarostami appeared in his film Taste of Cherry.
• Takeshi Kitano appears in almost all his films.
• Fritz Lang made appearances in most of his films.^[3]
• Spike Lee has had small roles in many of his films.
• Jørgen Leth in his films such as The Five Obstructions.
• Michael Moore has starred in his own movies.
• Tom Noonan in his films such as The Wife.
• Perarasu has made cameo appearances in all of his films to date.
• Tyler Perry has so far regularly starred in or at least had a major role in all but three of his films.
• Roman Polanski has regularly appeared in his films, in both major and smaller roles.
• S.S. Rajamouli, the most successful Telugu movie director regularly appears in his movies.
• K. S. Ravikumar makes a special appearance or sometimes appears in a supporting role in all his films.
• Jean Renoir in his films such as The Rules of the Game.
• Robert Rodriguez makes small cameo appearances in most of his films. His most concealed role would be in the opening scene of The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl, voicing a shark; most noticeable are in Sin City, where he played a member of the SWAT and in Sin City: A Dame to Kill For where he appears alongside Frank Miller in a film-noir movie on a TV.
• Eli Roth has a small role in every film he has directed. In the latest Hostel movie, only his severed head is in it.
• Eldar Ryazanov has had small roles in many of his films.
• John Sayles has appeared in many of his films.
• Martin Scorsese has appeared in a fair number of his films.
• Lowell Sherman normally an actor, Sherman began directing when sound arrived. From there he also appeared in productions he directed.
• Daryush Shokof has appeared in at least 4 of his films.
• M. Night Shyamalan has so far had a small role in all but two of his films (Wide Awake and The Last Airbender). His role in 2008's The Happening was his most concealed to date. (He was the voice on the phone that Zooey Deschanel was talking to throughout the film.)
• Vilgot Sjöman in his films such as I Am Curious (Yellow) and I Am Curious (Blue).
• Kevin Smith, as the character Silent Bob in all of the View Askewniverse films.
• Quentin Tarantino, in both high-profile roles (Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Grindhouse) and Django Unchained and smaller roles (Jackie Brown, uncredited voice only).^[4]
• Chris Tashima played the lead in Visas and Virtue and played the storyteller character in Day of Independence.
• Eric von Stroheim, famously appeared in his lengthy silent film epics i.e. Blind Husbands and Foolish Wives.
• Lars von Trier in his films such as The Element of Crime, Europa, and The Five Obstructions.
• John Waters has had roles of varying prominence in most of his films.
• Orson Welles had roles of varying significance in every film he directed.
• Edgar Wright appears briefly in both Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz.
• Lydia Zimmermann in her films such as Aro Tolbukhin. En la mente del asesino.

Actors who have directed and starred in their own films

Charles Chaplin starred in almost every film he directed.

Both Dennis Hopper and Jack Nicholson have directed and acted in their own films.

Buster Keaton starred in every film he also directed.

Seth MacFarlane has had main roles in both of the films he has directed.

• Woody Allen in Take the Money and Run, Bananas, Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (*But Were Afraid to Ask), Sleeper, Love and Death, Annie Hall, Manhattan, Stardust Memories, A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy, Zelig, Broadway Danny Rose, Hannah and Her Sisters, New York Stories, Crimes and Misdemeanors, Shadows and Fog, Husbands and Wives, Manhattan Murder Mystery, Don't Drink the Water, Mighty Aphrodite, Everyone Says I Love You, Deconstructing Harry, Small Time Crooks, The Curse of the Jade Scorpion, Hollywood Ending, Scoop and To Rome with Love
• Alan Alda in The Four Seasons, Sweet Liberty, A New Life and Betsy's Wedding
• Ben Affleck in The Town, Argo and the Untitled Batman Film (not yet released)
• Warren Beatty in Heaven Can Wait, Reds, Dick Tracy and Bulworth
• Roberto Benigni in Life Is Beautiful, The Tiger and the Snow
• Matthew Broderick in Infinity
• Nicolas Cage in Sonny
• Charlie Chaplin starred in almost every film he directed
• Kevin Costner in Dances with Wolves, Waterworld, The Postman and Open Range
• Billy Crystal in Mr. Saturday Night and Forget Paris
• Johnny Depp in The Brave
• Danny DeVito in Throw Momma from the Train, The War of the Roses, Hoffa, Matilda and Death to Smoochy
• Kirk Douglas in Scalawag and Posse
• Robert Duvall in The Apostle
• Clint Eastwood in A Perfect World, Million Dollar Baby and Gran Torino, Absolute Power (film), Bronco Billy, The Eiger Sanction (film), Firefox (film), The Gauntlet (film), High Plains Drifter, The Outlaw Josey Wales, Pale Rider, Play Misty for Me, Space Cowboys, Sudden Impact, True Crime, Unforgiven
• Jodie Foster in Little Man Tate and The Beaver (film)
• Jonathan Frakes in Star Trek: First Contact and Star Trek: Insurrection
• Mel Gibson in The Man Without a Face and Braveheart
• Crispin Glover in What is It?
• Kamal Haasan in Hey Ram and Virumaandi
• Tom Hanks in That Thing You Do and Larry Crowne
• Ed Harris in Pollock
• Charlton Heston in Antony and Cleopatra, Mother Lode and A Man for All Seasons
• Dennis Hopper in Easy Rider, The Last Movie, Out of the Blue
• Michael Jackson in Moonwalker
• Diana Lee Inosanto in The Sensei
• Tommy Lee Jones in The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada
• Buster Keaton starred in every film he directed
• Diane Keaton in Hanging Up
• Aamir Khan in Taare Zameen Par
• Walter Matthau in Gangster Story
• Cheran in Autograph, Thavamai Thavamirundhu and Mayakannadi
• Nikita Mikhalkov in At Home Among Strangers, A Slave of Love, An Unfinished Piece for a Player Piano, Burnt by the Sun, The Barber of Siberia, 12, Burnt by the Sun 2
• Bill Murray in Quick Change
• Leonard Nimoy in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock and Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
• Jack Nicholson in Goin' South, The Terror (1963 film) and The Two Jakes
• Anthony Perkins in Psycho III, Lucky Stiff (film)
• Tyler Perry in all of his films so far except Daddy's Little Girls
• Prince in Under The Cherry Moon
• Robert Redford in The Horse Whisperer and Lions for Lambs
• Rob Reiner in This Is Spinal Tap, Misery, The Story of Us and Alex and Emma
• George C. Scott in Rage (1972)
• William Shatner in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier and Groom Lake
• Gary Sinise in Of Mice and Men
• Martin Sheen in Cadence
• Sylvester Stallone in Rocky II, Rocky III, Rocky IV and Rocky Balboa, Rambo (2008 film), The Expendables and The Expendables 2
• Ben Stiller in Reality Bites, The Cable Guy, Zoolander, Tropic Thunder, and The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
• Barbra Streisand in Yentl, The Prince of Tides and The Mirror Has Two Faces
• S. J. Suryah in New and Anbe Aaruyire
• Billy Bob Thornton in Sling Blade and Daddy and Them
• François Truffaut in The Wild Child, Day for Night and The Green Room
• Alejandro Jodorowsky in El Topo and The Holy Mountain
• Ralph Fiennes in Coriolanus
• Seth MacFarlane in Ted and A Million Ways to Die in the West
• George Clooney in Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Good Night, and Good Luck, Leatherheads, The Ides of March and The Monuments Men
• Eric Allan Kramer and Leigh-Allyn Baker in Good Luck Charlie

Directors who have occasionally cameoed in their own films

Terry Gilliam had memorable cameos in Monty Python and the Holy Grail and Jabberwocky

• Kevin Allen in Twin Town
• Emile Ardolino in Dirty Dancing
• Michael Bay in Armageddon, Bad Boys II and Transformers
• Luc Besson in L'Avant dernier, Subway, The Big Blue^[5] and in animated form in Arthur and the Minimoys
• Madhur Bhandarkar appears in his movie fashion, apparently researching on the same movie.
• Rob Cohen in Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story, Daylight, The Skulls, The Fast and the Furious and xXx^[6]
• Telugu director, S.S. Rajamouli has appeared as a stall owner in the 2015 Telugu industry hit Baahubali: The Beginning
• Francis Ford Coppola in Apocalypse Now, as the director of a camera crew filming the action in a village.
• Wes Craven in all four Scream films and New Nightmare
• Alfonso Cuarón in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
• Richard Curtis in Love Actually as a trombonist at a wedding.
• Richard Donner in Superman, Superman II, Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut, The Goonies, Conspiracy Theory, Timeline and 16 Blocks^[7]
• Jon Favreau in Elf, Made, Iron Man, Iron Man 2 and Iron Man 3
• Terry Gilliam in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Jabberwocky, The Crimson Permanent Assurance, Brazil and The Adventures of Baron Munchausen^[8]
• Jean-Luc Godard^[9] appears as the bystander who betrays Jean-Paul Belmondo in Breathless (1960).
• Renny Harlin in Deep Blue Sea
• Ron Howard in Night Shift kissing a girl outside of Henry Winkler's apartment.
• Shekhar Kapur in Bandit Queen as a lorry driver.
• Stanley Kubrick briefly appeared in his final film, Eyes Wide Shut. He also had a small voice role in his penultimate film, Full Metal Jacket.
• John Landis in Schlock, The Kentucky Fried Movie, The Blues Brothers and An American Werewolf in London^[10]
• Richard Linklater in It's Impossible to Learn to Plow by Reading Books, Slacker and Waking Life^[11]
• George Lucas in Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith^[12]
• David Lynch in The Amputee, Dune, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me and Dumb Land (voice only)^[13]
• Gautham Menon in Minnale, Kaaka Kaaka, Vettaiyaadu Vilaiyaadu, Pachaikili Muthucharam and Vaaranam Aayiram
• Mike Newell in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
• Todd Phillips in Road Trip, Old School, and The Hangover
• Sydney Pollack in The Electric Horseman, Tootsie, Random Hearts and The Interpreter^[14]
• Michael Powell in Peeping Tom as the sadistic scientist father (only seen in home-movie footage). Also seen briefly in Hotel Splendide, The Fire Raisers, The Edge of the World, One of Our Aircraft Is Missing, The Volunteer^[15]
• Robert Rafelson in the Monkees' feature film, Head^[16]
• Sam Raimi had a cameo in The Evil Dead as one of the roadside people waving goodbye to Ash and his friends. Also seen briefly in Evil Dead II and Army of Darkness^[17]
• Harold Ramis as the neurologist in Groundhog Day^[18]
• Raúl Ruiz in Colloque de chiens, Las soledades, Cofralandes, Chilean Rhapsody, La Recta Provincia and Ballet aquatique
• Martin Scorsese^[19] in Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, The King of Comedy, After Hours, The Age of Innocence and Hugo. (Some of these are offscreen voice roles, but he had a significant speaking part in Taxi Driver.)
• Daryush Shokof as the thief in Venussian tabutasco, as the nose in all women film Breathfuland was the chief detective in A2Z
• Steven Spielberg in Jaws, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and The Lost World: Jurassic Park^[20]
• Oliver Stone in The Hand, Platoon, Wall Street, Born on the Fourth of July, The Doors, Nixon (voice only), Any Given Sunday and Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps^[21]
• Gus Van Sant in My Own Private Idaho, Psycho, Finding Forrester and Last Days
• David Yates in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
• David Zucker and Jerry Zucker in Airplane!
• Chris Columbus in his film adaptation of musical Rent.
• John Woo in A Better Tomorrow
• Robin Das in Orajnoitik Noy
• Cameo appearance
• List of Hitchcock cameo appearances

References

1. "Greatest Film Director Cameos". filmsite.org. Retrieved 2010-12-31.
2. "10 Worst Performances by Directors Acting in Their Own Films". Filmcritic.com. Retrieved 2010-12-30.
3. Gunning, Tom (2000). The films of Fritz Lang: Allegories of Vision and Modernity. British Film Institute. p. 2. ISBN 978-0-85170-742-6.
4. Quentin Tarantino
5. Luc Besson
6. Rob Cohen (I)
7. Richard Donner
8. Terry Gilliam
9. Holmes, Diana; Gaffney, John (2007). Stardom in postwar France. Berghahn Books. p. 136. ISBN 978-1-84545-020-5.
10. John Landis (I)
11. Richard Linklater
12. George Lucas
13. David Lynch (I)
14. Sydney Pollack
15. Michael Powell (I)
16. Head (1968) - Full cast and crew
17. Sam Raimi
18. Harold Ramis (I)
19. Horton, Andrew (1991). Comedy/cinema/theory. University of California Press. p. 89. ISBN 978-0-520-07040-0.
20. Steven Spielberg (I)
21. Oliver Stone (I)

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