Baz Luhrmann Australian Director Born 1962 in Sydney

Early life

Baz Luhrmann was born Mark Anthony Luhrmann on 17 September 1962 in Sydney. He grew up in Herons Creek, a small rural settlement in northern New South Wales. His mother taught ballroom dancing and owned a dress shop, and his father ran a petrol station and a cinema. He was a ballroom dancer as a child, and that background later fed into his first film. At school he picked up the nickname Baz, and while still a student he changed his name by deed poll to Bazmark, combining the nickname with his birth name. He attended St Paul's Catholic College in Manly and, later, Narrabeen Sports High School, where he met his future collaborator Craig Pearce.

In 1980 he finished school and was cast the same year in the Australian film Winter of Our Dreams, directed by John Duigan. In 1982 he co-founded the Bond Theatre Company with three friends, and he took part in a television documentary about street kids, Kids of the Cross. He enrolled in an acting course at the National Institute of Dramatic Art in 1983 and graduated in 1985.

Career

Luhrmann began with theatre. His short play Strictly Ballroom premiered at the Wharf Theatre, and in 1992 he turned it into his first feature film as director. It won the AACTA Award for Best Direction that year. William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet followed in 1996, with Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes in the leading roles. It won two BAFTA Awards for Luhrmann, for adapted screenplay and for direction, and he produced both volumes of the film's soundtrack. In 1997 he married the production and costume designer Catherine Martin, who has designed many of his projects.

Moulin Rouge! (2001), a musical set in Paris at the start of the twentieth century and starring Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor, completed what became known as his Red Curtain Trilogy together with the two earlier films. It earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture, and Luhrmann received the European Film Award for Best Non-European Film for it. He produced the soundtrack, which included the hit "Lady Marmalade". In 2004 he directed N° 5 the Film, a commercial for Chanel.

His 2008 film Australia, with Kidman and Hugh Jackman, is a historical epic that begins just before the Second World War and draws on events such as the bombing of Darwin and the removal of Indigenous children from their families. It was a commercial success in several European countries. In 2013 he directed The Great Gatsby, an adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel starring DiCaprio, which he shot in 3D and which grossed more than $353 million worldwide, the highest total of any of his films. The soundtrack, produced by Luhrmann with Anton Monsted and Jay-Z, mixed music of the Jazz Age with contemporary hip hop. At the AACTA Awards he won both Best Film and Best Direction for it, and the film won the Academy Awards for production design and costume design.

In 2016 he worked with the playwright Stephen Adly Guirgis on the Netflix series The Get Down, which tells of the birth of hip hop in the 1970s. His next film, Elvis (2022), is a biography of Elvis Presley that concentrates on the singer's relationship with his manager, Colonel Tom Parker. It premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2022, starred Austin Butler and Tom Hanks, and received eight Academy Award nominations, among them Best Picture. In January 2023 he signed a first-look deal with Warner Bros. Pictures. His first documentary, EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert, built from long-lost concert footage, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on 6 September 2025. In 2024 it was reported that he was writing a film about Joan of Arc with the playwright Ava Pickett.

Luhrmann's work extends beyond film. He staged Puccini's La boheme for Opera Australia and for Broadway, and he is also behind the stage musical Strictly Ballroom (2014). His album Something for Everybody collects music from his films and opera productions, and it includes the spoken-word song "Everybody's Free (to Wear Sunscreen)", for which he is credited as producer.

Recognition

Luhrmann's major prizes include two BAFTA Awards for Romeo + Juliet (1996 and 1998), the European Film Award for Best Non-European Film for Moulin Rouge! in 2001, three AACTA Awards (for Best Direction in 1992 and again in 2014, and Best Film in 2014), and the Byron Kennedy Award in 1999. The records list nine wins and seven nominations in total. His nominations include the Academy Award for Best Picture for Moulin Rouge! (2002) and for Elvis (2023), a Tony Award nomination for Best Direction of a Musical in 2003, a Grammy Award nomination for the Moulin Rouge! musical theatre album in 2020, and a Golden Globe nomination for Best Director for Elvis in 2023.

Public roles

In 2025 he was appointed a Companion of the Order of Australia in the King's Birthday Honours, for eminent service to the arts as a filmmaker, to theatre and to cultural heritage. He led the jury at the 2023 Red Sea International Film Festival in Jeddah.

Personal life

Luhrmann married Catherine Martin on 26 January 1997. They have worked together on his films and other projects, including a bar in New York's East Village that opened in 2025.