Woody Allen (born Allan Stewart Konigsberg; December 1, 1935) is an American actor, author, filmmaker, comedian, playwright, and musician, whose career spans more than six decades.
He worked as a comedy writer in the 1950s, writing jokes and scripts for television and publishing several books of short humor pieces. In the early 1960s, Allen began performing as a stand-up comedian, emphasizing monologues rather than traditional jokes. As a comedian, he developed the persona of an insecure, intellectual, fretful nebbish, which he maintains is quite different from his real-life personality. In 2004, Comedy Central ranked Allen in fourth place on a list of the 100 greatest stand-up comedians, while a UK survey ranked Allen as the third greatest comedian.
By the mid-1960s Allen was writing and directing films, first specializing in slapstick comedies before moving into dramatic material influenced by European art cinema during the 1970s, and alternating between comedies and dramas to the present. He is often identified as part of the New Hollywood wave of filmmakers of the mid-1960s to late 1970s. Allen often stars in his films, typically in the persona he developed as a standup. Some of the best-known of his over 40 films are Annie Hall (1977), Manhattan (1979), and Hannah and Her Sisters (1986). In 2007 he said Stardust Memories (1980), The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985), and Match Point (2005) were his best films. Critic Roger Ebert described Allen as "a treasure of the cinema."
Allen won four Academy Awards: three for Best Original Screenplay and one for Best Director (Annie Hall). He also won nine British Academy of Film and Television Arts Awards. His screenplay for Annie Hall was named the funniest screenplay by the Writers Guild of America in its list of the "101 Funniest Screenplays."
Filmography
- What's New Pussycat? (1965) (actor & screenwriter only)
- What's Up, Tiger Lily? (1966)
- Casino Royale (1967) (actor only)
- Take the Money and Run (1969)
- Bananas (1971)
- Play It Again, Sam (1972) (actor & screenwriter only)
- Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (*But Were Afraid to Ask) (1972)
- Sleeper (1973)
- Love and Death (1975)
- The Front (1976) (actor only)
- Annie Hall (1977)
- Interiors (1978)
- Manhattan (1979)
- Stardust Memories (1980)
- A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy (1982)
- Zelig (1983)
- Broadway Danny Rose (1984)
- The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985)
- Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)
- Radio Days (1987)
- September (1987)
- Another Woman (1988)
- New York Stories (1989)
- Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989)
- Alice (1990)
- Scenes from a Mall (1991) (actor only)
- Shadows and Fog (1991)
- Husbands and Wives (1992)
- Manhattan Murder Mystery (1993)
- Bullets Over Broadway (1994)
- Don't Drink the Water (1994)
- Mighty Aphrodite (1995)
- Everyone Says I Love You (1996)
- Deconstructing Harry (1997)
- Antz (1998) (voice)
- Celebrity (1998)
- Sweet and Lowdown (1999)
- Small Time Crooks (2000)
- Picking Up the Pieces (2000) (actor only)
- The Curse of the Jade Scorpion (2001)
- Hollywood Ending (2002)
- Anything Else (2003)
- Melinda and Melinda (2005)
- Match Point (2005)
- Scoop (2006)
- Cassandra's Dream (2007)
- Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008)
- Whatever Works (2009)
- You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (2010)
- Midnight in Paris (2011)
- Paris Manhattan (2012) (actor only)
- To Rome with Love (2012)
- Fading Gigolo (2013) (actor only)
- Blue Jasmine (2013)
- Magic in the Moonlight (2014)
- Irrational Man (2015)
- Café Society (2016)
