Elitist Snob's Guide to Groundbreakers and Pioneers

1. Jim Jarmusch

Moved to New York City at the age of seventeen from Akron, Ohio. Graduated from Columbia University with a B.A. in English, class of '75. Without any prior film experience, he was accepted into the Tisch School of the Arts, New York.

2. David Cronenberg

Actor | The Fly

David Cronenberg, also known as the King of Venereal Horror or the Baron of Blood, was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, in 1943. His father, Milton Cronenberg, was a journalist and editor, and his mother, Esther (Sumberg), was a piano player. After showing an inclination for literature at an early...

3. David Lynch

Writer | Twin Peaks

Born in precisely the kind of small-town American setting so familiar from his films, David Lynch spent his childhood being shunted from one state to another as his research scientist father kept getting relocated. He attended various art schools, married Peggy Lynch and then fathered future ...

4. Hunter S. Thompson

Writer | Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

Hunter S. Thompson was born on July 18, 1937 in Louisville, Kentucky, USA. He was a writer and actor, known for Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998), The Rum Diary (2011) and Gonzo (2008). He was married to Anita Thompson and Sondi Wright. He died on February 20, 2005 in Aspen, Colorado, USA.

5. H.P. Lovecraft

Writer | Color Out of Space

Born in Providence, Lovecraft was a sickly child whose parents died insane. When he was 16, he wrote the astronomy column in the Providence Tribune. Between 1908 and 1923, he wrote short stories for Weird Tales magazine and others. He died in Providence, in poverty, on March 15, 1937. His most ...

6. Jack Kerouac

Writer | On the Road

Jack Kerouac was born into a French-Canadian family and spoke French before he learned English. His father was a printer and a local businessman. His first story was inspired by the radio show "The Shadow". As a young writer he styled himself after Thomas Wolfe, and attended Columbia University. ...

7. Allen Ginsberg

Soundtrack | Beginners

Louis Ginsberg, the moderate Jewish Socialist and his wife Naomi, who was a radical Communist and irrepressible nudist are the parents of Irwin Allen Ginsberg, the poet and man of many other things eg. actor. Poems he written eg. Howl, Six gallery, Sunflower Sutra ... His themes: drugs, against ...

8. Sun Ra

Soundtrack | Space Is the Place

Sun Ra was born on May 22, 1914 in Birmingham, Alabama, USA. He was a composer and writer, known for Space Is the Place (1974), The Last Thing He Wanted (2020) and Deceiver (1997). He died on May 30, 1993 in Birmingham, Alabama, USA.

9. Stanley Kubrick

Director | 2001: A Space Odyssey

Stanley Kubrick was born in Manhattan, New York City, to Sadie Gertrude (Perveler) and Jacob Leonard Kubrick, a physician. His family were Jewish immigrants (from Austria, Romania, and Russia). Stanley was considered intelligent, despite poor grades at school. Hoping that a change of scenery would ...

10. Spike Jonze

Producer | Her

Spike Jonze made up one-third (along with Andy Jenkins and Mark Lewman) of the triumvirate of genius minds behind Dirt Magazine, the brother publication of the much lamented ground-breaking Sassy Magazine. These three uncommon characters were all editors for Grand Royal Magazine as well, under the ...

11. Andy Warhol

Director | Blue Movie

Andrew Warhol's father, Ondrej, came from the Austria-Hungary Empire (now Slovakia) in 1912, and sent for his mother, Julia Zavackyová Warholová, in 1921. His father worked as a construction worker and later as a coal miner. Around some time, the family moved to Pittsburgh. During his teenage years...

See Also: Roy Lichtenstein, Michel Majerus, Mr. Brainwash

12. Chuck Palahniuk

Writer | Fight Club

Chuck is a low key writer who never stops writing and taking down notes to file away for future writing. Very funny, very creative and very thought provoking. His books often make you look at yourself in ways that you would never have before. Same goes for the world, he will make you notice things ...

See Also: Banksy, Reverend Billy, Sasha Baron Cohen

13. H.R. Giger

Art_department | Alien

H.R. Giger was born on February 5, 1940 in Chur, Switzerland. He was a director, known for Alien (1979), Alien vs. Predator (2004) and Aliens (1986). He was married to Carmen Maria Scheifele and Mia Bonzanigo. He died on May 12, 2014 in Zurich, Switzerland.

See Also: HP Lovecraft, Dado, Ernst Fuchs, Trent Reznor

14. Damien Hirst

Actor | Agent Cody Banks 2: Destination London

In his youth, Hirst was already considered a rebel, but his artistic talent also emerged. After graduating from school with a high school diploma, Hirst studied fine art at Goldsmiths College in London from 1986 to 1989. In 1988, while still a student, he was given the responsibility of planning an...

15. Matthew Barney

Director | Drawing Restraint 9

Matthew Barney was born on March 25, 1967 in San Francisco, California, USA. He is a director and writer, known for Drawing Restraint 9 (2005), Cremaster 2 (1999) and The Cremaster Cycle (2003).

16. Jeff Koons

Actor | Milk

Jeff Koons was born on January 21, 1955 in York, Pennsylvania, USA. He is an actor, known for Milk (2008), The Price of Everything (2018) and The Hammer. He is married to Justine Wheeler. They have three children. He was previously married to Ilona Staller.

17. Theodore Gottlieb

Actor | The 'Burbs

Theodore Gottlieb was born on November 11, 1906 in Düsseldorf, Germany. He was an actor and writer, known for The 'Burbs (1989), The Last Unicorn (1982) and Nocturna (1979). He died on April 5, 2001 in New York City, New York, USA.

18. Björk

Soundtrack | Dancer in the Dark

Born in 1965 in the Icelandic capital city of Reykjavik, the daughter of Gudmundur Gunnarsson (an electrician) and Hildur Hauksdóttir who divorced before her second birthday, Björk grew up in a hippie-type community with her mother and her seven siblings. She started to study classical music at the...

See Also: Frida Kahlo, Yoko Ono, Yo-Landi Visser

19. Franz Kafka

Writer | Le procès

Franz Kafka was born into a German-speaking Jewish family in Prague, Austrian Empire, in 1883. His father, Hermann Kafka, was a business owner and a domestic tyrant, frequently abusing his son. Kafka later admitted to his father, "My writing was all about you...". He believed that his father broke ...

20. Mia Goth

Actress | Pearl

Mia Gypsy Mello da Silva Goth, also known by her nickname Brush Cut, was born October 25, 1993 in Southwark, London, England to a Brazilian mother and a Canadian father.

Aged 14, she was discovered at the Underage Festival in London by fashion photographer Gemma Booth, who signed her to Storm Model ...

21. Lars von Trier

Writer | Dancer in the Dark

Probably the most ambitious and visually distinctive filmmaker to emerge from Denmark since Carl Theodor Dreyer over 60 years earlier, Lars von Trier studied film at the Danish Film School and attracted international attention with his very first feature, The Element of Crime (1984). A highly ...

22. F.W. Murnau

Director | Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans

F.W. Murnau was a German film director. He was greatly influenced by Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Shakespeare and Ibsen plays he had seen at the age of 12, and became a friend of director Max Reinhardt. During World War I he served as a company commander at the eastern front and was in the German air ...

23. Fritz Lang

Actor | Le mépris

Fritz Lang was born in Vienna, Austria, in 1890. His father managed a construction company. His mother, Pauline Schlesinger, was Jewish but converted to Catholicism when Lang was ten. After high school, he enrolled briefly at the Technische Hochschule Wien and then started to train as a painter. ...

24. Leonard Cohen

Soundtrack | Watchmen

Leonard Cohen was born on September 21, 1934 in Montréal, Québec, Canada. He was a music artist and composer, known for Watchmen (2009), Night Magic (1985) and Natural Born Killers (1994). He died on November 7, 2016 in Los Angeles, California, USA.

25. Kim Gordon

Actress | Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot

Kim Gordon was born on April 28, 1953 in Rochester, New York, USA. She is an actress and composer, known for Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot (2018), I'm Not There (2007) and Last Days (2005). She has been married to Thurston Moore since June 9, 1984. They have one child.

26. Aphex Twin

Soundtrack | Children of Men

Richard D. James is one of the most inventive musicians to have come out of Britain. Born in Limerick, Ireland, and raised in Truro, Cornwall, UK, to parents of Welsh decent, his music is always changing, always inventive, and liberally laced with his own brand of eccentric humor. Under a variety ...

27. Nick Cave

Soundtrack | The Proposition

Nick Cave is a man of many talents. Musician. Songwriter. Screenwriter. Novelist. Actor. The Australian was born in Warracknabeal, Victoria in 1957, and would go onto form the alternative rock band Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, who have since successfully released a string of hit albums.

In film, Nick ...

28. Jello Biafra

Soundtrack | The Manchurian Candidate

Jello Biafra is a compelling, enigmatic public speaker and musician. He has sung for many bands: his first band, Dead Kennedys, was a seminal early punk band and continues to define and influence American punk rock and its beneficiaries. A leader and follower of the "Do It Yourself" punk ethic of ...

29. Shane MacGowan

Soundtrack | Grosse Pointe Blank

Born in Kent, England, songwriter/poet Shane MacGowan attended Westminster School (and was later expelled for drug use). After a brief time with the Nips (77-79), Shane MacGowan formed the democratically operated Pogues, a successful '80s group which released a handful of well-received records (e.g...

30. Tom Verlaine

Soundtrack | The Diary of a Teenage Girl

Tom Verlaine was born on December 13, 1949 in Morristown, New Jersey, USA. He was a composer, known for The Diary of a Teenage Girl (2015), I'm Not There (2007) and Gold (2016). He died on January 28, 2023 in Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA.

31. Lee Hazlewood

Soundtrack | (500) Days of Summer

This singer, songwriter and producer who wrote millionsellers for Nancy Sinatra 'These boots are made for walkin' and for Dean Martin 'Houston' and 'Shades', and for Frank sinatra 'This town' was the son of an oilman. Drafted during the Korean war, he became a country DJ in¨Phoenix in 1953. He ...

32. Elliott Smith

Soundtrack | Good Will Hunting

Elliott Smith was born on August 6, 1969 in Omaha, Nebraska, USA. He was an actor and composer, known for Good Will Hunting (1997), The Royal Tenenbaums (2001) and Up in the Air (2009). He died on October 21, 2003 in Los Angeles, California, USA.

33. Woody Guthrie

Soundtrack | Paper Towns

Charley and Nora Guthrie named their son after the Democrat elected president that year. Woodrow Wilson Guthrie knew hard times as a youngster (his house burned down, his sister Clara burned to death, his father's small-town business and political careers never went anywhere, his mother suffered ...

34. Jonathan Richman

Soundtrack | There's Something About Mary

Massachusetts native Jonathan Richman first gained fame as the frontman for the legendary The Velvet Underground-influenced proto-punk band "The Modern Lovers", who recorded their first and only album in 1973. The self-titled record included such classics as "Roadrunner", "Pablo Picasso" and "She ...

35. Jean-Michel Jarre

Soundtrack | Nine 1/2 Weeks

Jean-Michel Jarre is a French composer, performer, music producer and designer. With Vangelis and Mike Oldfield in the 1970s, he is regarded as a pioneer in the electronic, synth-pop, ambient and New Age genres, as well as an organizer of spectacular outdoor events and concerts, which feature the ...

36. George Carlin

Actor | Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure

George Denis Patrick Carlin was born and raised in Manhattan, New York City, to Mary (Bearey), a secretary, and Patrick John Carlin, an advertising manager for The Sun; they had met while working in marketing. His father was from Donegal, Ireland, and his mother was Irish-American. His parents ...

37. Morrissey

Soundtrack | Shaun of the Dead

Steven Patrick Morrissey was born in Davyhulme, Manchester, England, UK. At a very early age, he took an interest in writing. His top priority was poetry, though he would have his biography on James Dean, "James Dean Is Not Dead", published by his early 20s. His literary influences ranged from ...

38. John Waters

Writer | Pecker

Growing up in Baltimore in the 1950s, John Waters was not like other children; he was obsessed by violence and gore, both real and on the screen. With his weird counter-culture friends as his cast, he began making silent 8mm and 16mm films in the mid-'60s; he screened these in rented Baltimore ...

39. Panos Cosmatos

Writer | Mandy

Panos Cosmatos is known for Mandy (2018), Beyond the Black Rainbow (2010) and Tombstone (1993).

40. S. Craig Zahler

Writer | Bone Tomahawk

S. Craig Zahler was born on January 23, 1973 in Miami, Florida, USA. He is a writer and director, known for Bone Tomahawk (2015), Dragged Across Concrete (2018) and Brawl in Cell Block 99 (2017).

41. Ian MacKaye

Soundtrack | SLC Punk!

Ian MacKaye formed the Washington, D.C. band Fugazi with Brendan Canty and Joe Lally and Guy Picciotto in 1987. Before that, he was a member of Egg Hunt, Embrace, Minor Threat, Skewbald/ Grand Union, and Teen Idles. Ian created "Dischord Records" in 1980 to document the music coming out of the ...

42. Henry Miller

Actor | Reds

Henry Miller was born on December 26, 1891 in New York City, New York, USA. He was a writer and actor, known for Reds (1981), Quiet Days in Clichy (1970) and Quiet Days in Clichy (1990). He was married to Hoki Tokuda, Evelyn Byrd (Keven) McClure, Janina Martha Lepska, June Edith Smith and Beatrice ...

43. J.D. Salinger

Writer | My Foolish Heart

U.S. writer whose novel "The Catcher in the Rye" (1951) won critical acclaim and devoted admirers, especially among the post-World War II generation of college students. His entire corpus of published works consists of that one novel and 13 short stories, all originally written in the period 1948-...

44. Edgar Allan Poe

Writer | Stonehearst Asylum

Edgar Allan Poe was born on January 19, 1809, in Boston, Massachusetts. His father, named David Poe Jr., and his mother, named Elizabeth Arnold Hopkins Poe, were touring actors. Both parents died in 1811, and Poe became an orphan before he was 3 years old. He was adopted by John Allan, a tobacco ...

1809 American

45. Karl Marx

Writer | Amerikai anzix

Karl Heinrich Marx was born on May 5, 1818, in Trier, then Kingdom of Prussia, German Confederation. His father, Hershel Mordechai, was the son of a rabbi. Karl converted to Lutheran Christianity because Jews were not allowed to practice law. He graduated from the Trier Gymnasium, then studied law ...

1818 German (Prussian)

46. Fyodor Dostoevsky

Writer | The Double

Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky was born on November 11, 1821, in Moscow, Russia. He was the second of seven children of Mikhail Andreevich and Maria Dostoevsky. His father, a doctor, was a member of the Russian nobility, owned serfs and had a considerable estate near Moscow where he lived with his ...

1821 Russian

47. Akira Kurosawa

Writer | Kakushi-toride no san-akunin

After training as a painter (he storyboards his films as full-scale paintings), Kurosawa entered the film industry in 1936 as an assistant director, eventually making his directorial debut with Sanshiro Sugata (1943). Within a few years, Kurosawa had achieved sufficient stature to allow him greater...

1910

48. Salvador Dalí

Art_department | Spellbound

Surrealist-turned-catholic painter Dalí worked on various movies as well. While a member of the French surrealist group, he co-wrote Un chien andalou (1929) and L'Age d'Or (1930) with Luis Buñuel. The latter may have marked the beginning of a long-lasting quarrel with the surrealists when Dalí did ...

1904 Spanish

49. George Orwell

Writer | Nineteen Eighty-Four

Born the son of an Opium Agent in Bengal, Eric Blair was educated in England (Eton 1921). The joined the British Imperial Police in Burma, serving until 1927. He then travelled around England and Europe, doing various odd jobs to support his writing. By 1935 he had adopted the 'pen-name' of 'George...

1903 English

50. Jackson Pollock

Art_department | American Gothic

Jackson Pollock was born on January 28, 1912 in Cody, Wyoming, USA. He is known for American Gothic (2016), Works of Calder (1950) and The New York School (1972). He was married to Lee Krasner. He died on August 11, 1956 in Springs, New York, USA.

1912

51. William S. Burroughs

Actor | Drugstore Cowboy

William S. Burroughs, one of the three seminal writers of the Beat Generation (the other two being his friends Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg), was born in St. Louis, Missouri, on February 5, 1914, to the son of the founder of the Burroughs Adding Machine Co. He grew up in patrician surroundings ...

1914

52. Orson Welles

Actor | Citizen Kane

His father, Richard Head Welles, was a well-to-do inventor, his mother, Beatrice (Ives) Welles, a beautiful concert pianist; Orson Welles was gifted in many arts (magic, piano, painting) as a child. When his mother died in 1924 (when he was nine) he traveled the world with his father. He was ...

1915

53. Roy Lichtenstein

Director | Step: Dock Water Moving

Roy Lichtenstein was born on October 27, 1923 in New York City, New York, USA. He was a director, known for Step: Dock Water Moving (1970), Sunset Water with Suspended Seagull (1970) and Happy Tears (2009). He was married to Dorothy Herzka and Isabel Wilson. He died on September 29, 1997 in New ...

1923 Jewish American

54. Miles Davis

Soundtrack | Adrift

Miles Davis, famous jazz trumpeter, composer and bandleader, was born 26 May 1926 in Alton, Illinois. He moved to New York in 1944 and studied at Juilliard. He left school and entered the jazz society of New York, meeting such famous musicians as Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker and Charles Mingus. ...

1926

55. Eartha Kitt

Actress | The Emperor's New Groove

An out-of-wedlock child, Eartha Kitt was born in the cotton fields of South Carolina. Kitt's mother was a sharecropper of African-American and Cherokee Native American descent. Her father's identity is unknown. Given away by her mother, she arrived in Harlem at age nine. At 15, she quit high school...

1927

56. Ernesto 'Che' Guevara

Writer | Diarios de motocicleta

Ernesto Guevara de la Serna was born to a middle-class family in Rosario, Santa Fe Province, Argentina, on June 14, 1928. Disgusted by the corrupt Argentine military dictatorship, Guevara became a dedicated Marxist while in his teens. As a student he vowed to devote his life to revolutionary causes...

1928

57. Noam Chomsky

Triangle of Sadness

Noam Chomsky was born on December 7, 1928, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His undergraduate and graduate years were spent at the University of Pennsylvania, where he received his PhD in linguistics in 1955. From 1951-55, he was a Junior Fellow of the Harvard University Society of Fellows. While a ...

1928 Jewish American

58. Carl Sagan

Writer | Contact

Astronomer, educator and author Carl Sagan was perhaps the world's greatest popularizer of science, reaching millions of people through newspapers, magazines and television broadcasts. He is well-known for his work on the PBS series Cosmos (1980), the Emmy Award and Peabody Award-winning show that ...

59. George A. Romero

Writer | Land of the Dead

George A. Romero never set out to become a Hollywood figure; by all indications, though, he was very successful. The director of the groundbreaking "Living Dead" films was born February 4, 1940 ,in New York City to Ann (Dvorsky) and Jorge Romero. His father was born in Spain and raised in Cuba, and...

1940

60. Lou Reed

Soundtrack | V for Vendetta

He formed the group The Velvet Underground with Welsh multi-instrumentalist John Cale, second guitarist Sterling Morrison, and drummer Maureen Tucker in New York in 1965. The group soon became a part of Andy Warhol's Factory scene, which housed a great number of the most freaked and experimental ...

61. Jim Morrison

Soundtrack | Army of the Dead

James Douglas "Jim" Morrison was an American poet, singer, and songwriter from Florida. He was the lead vocalist of the rock band "The Doors" (1965-1973), and has been cited as "one of the most influential frontmen in rock history". Morrison recorded a total of six studio albums with the Doors, all...

62. Syd Barrett

Soundtrack | Doctor Strange

Syd Barrett was born on January 6, 1946 in Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England, UK. He was a composer and actor, known for Doctor Strange (2016), Mysterious Skin (2004) and The X-Files (1993). He died on July 7, 2006 in Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England, UK.

Jan. 6 1946

63. Tom Waits

Actor | Seven Psychopaths

Thomas Alan Waits was born in Pomona, California, to schoolteachers Alma Fern (Johnson) and Jesse Frank Waits. Described as one of the last beatniks of the contemporary music, Waits in fact has two separate careers. From 1973 (LP "Closing Time") to 1983 ("One From The Heart" soundtrack), he ...

64. Todd Solondz

Director | Welcome to the Dollhouse

Todd Solondz was born in Newark, New Jersey. One of his earliest jobs in the film industry was when, as a young man, he worked as a messenger for the Writers' Guild of America. During this time, he wrote several screenplays.

Solondz's first color film with sync sound was the short "Schatt's Last ...

65. Terrence Malick

Writer | Days of Heaven

Terrence Malick was born in Ottawa, Illinois. His family subsequently lived in Oklahoma and he went to school in Austin, Texas. He did his undergraduate work at Harvard, graduating summa cum laude with a degree in philosophy in 1965.

A member of the Phi Beta Kappa honor society, he attended Magdalen ...

66. Jean Michel Basquiat

Soundtrack | Downtown 81

Jean Michel Basquiat began painting graffiti in New York in 1977. He always signed his works with SAMO, which means "Same Old Shit". His works came to the attention of the American painter Keith Haring, who drew inspiration for his own work from New York graffiti paintings. Basquiat also made ...

67. Nico

Soundtrack | Allegiant

Model and singer Nico was born in Cologne, Germany in 1938. She was a part of the Andy Warhol "scene" in the 1960s. A member of The Velvet Underground experimental rock band (with John Cale), circa 1967, she made several solo albums during the 1970s. A heroin addict for the latter part of her life,...

68. Daniel Johnston

Soundtrack | Horns

Daniel Johnston was born on January 22, 1961 in Sacramento, California, USA. He was a composer and actor, known for Horns (2013), Before Sunrise (1995) and Empire Records (1995). He died on September 10, 2019 in Waller, Texas, USA.

69. Irvine Welsh

Writer | Trainspotting

Welsh's books have made him a cult figure within the writing world since the 1990s. Several of his books have become best sellers and all have a mixture of comedy, drama and hard-hitting issues...the best-known being Trainspotting (1996) which was made into a box-office smash worldwide at the ...

70. Keith Haring

Art_department | Beautiful Boy

Keith Haring was born on May 4, 1958 in Reading, Pennsylvania, USA. He was a director, known for Beautiful Boy (2018), Love Is Strange (2014) and Tokyo Pop (1988). He died on February 16, 1990 in New York City, New York, USA.