Hossein Amini

Iranian-born screenwriter and director Hossein Amini earned critical praise and numerous award nominations for his highly literate and complex scripts, including "The Wings of a Dove" (1998), which brought him an Oscar nomination, as well as "Drive" (2011) and "The Two Faces of January" (2014). Amini transitioned smoothly between drawing room dramas like "Dove" and major epics like "The Four Feathers" (2002), but showed a definite talent for suspense pictures with Hitchcockian flair. With director Nicolas Winding Refn, he fashioned "Drive" into a lean neo-noir, while "Two Faces of January" - adapted from a novel by Patricia Highsmith, author of the source material for Hitchcock's "Strangers on a Train" (1951) - took its cues from classic thrillers. Amini's ability to move between genre, profile and style, as well as his assured feature directorial debut, marked him as a major screen talent in multiple mediums.