Lee Unkrich is an American director

Film director

A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...

 and film editor. He is a longtime member of the creative team at Pixar

Pixar

Pixar Animation Studios, pronounced , is an American computer animation film studio based in Emeryville, California. The studio has earned 26 Academy Awards, seven Golden Globes, and three Grammy Awards, among many other awards and acknowledgments. Its films have made over $6.3 billion worldwide...

, where he started in 1994 as a film editor. He later began directing, first as co-director of Toy Story 2

Toy Story 2

Toy Story 2 is a 1999 American computer animated film directed by John Lasseter and co-directed by Lee Unkrich and Ash Brannon. It is the sequel to the 1995 film Toy Story, released by Walt Disney Pictures and the third film to be produced by Pixar...

. After co-directing Monsters, Inc.

Monsters, Inc.

Monsters, Inc. is a 2001 American computer-animated film and the fourth feature-length film produced by Pixar Animation Studios. It was directed by Pete Docter, co-directed by Lee Unkrich and David Silverman, and written by Jill Culton, Peter Docter, Ralph Eggleston, Dan Gerson, Jeff Pidgeon, Rhett...

, and Finding Nemo

Finding Nemo

Finding Nemo is a 2003 American comi-drama animated film written by Andrew Stanton, directed by Andrew Stanton and Lee Unkrich and produced by Pixar. It tells the story of the overly protective clownfish Marlin who, along with a regal tang called Dory , searches for his abducted son Nemo...

, Unkrich made his solo directorial debut with Toy Story 3

Toy Story 3

Toy Story 3 is a 2010 American 3D computer-animated comedy-adventure film, and the third installment in the Toy Story series. It was produced by Pixar and released by Walt Disney Pictures. It was directed by Lee Unkrich. The film was released worldwide from June through October in Disney Digital...

, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature in 2011. Unkrich is the 2011 recipient of University of Southern California's Mary Pickford Distinguished Alumni Award recognizing alumni contributions to the cinematic arts. With the award, Unkrich joins a list of distinguished USC alumni including Robert Zemeckis

Robert Zemeckis

Robert Lee Zemeckis is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. Zemeckis first came to public attention in the 1980s as the director of the comedic time-travel Back to the Future film series, as well as the Academy Award-winning live-action/animation epic Who Framed Roger Rabbit ,...

, Walter Murch, Jon Landau

Jon Landau (film producer)

Jon Landau is an American film producer.Landau was born in New York City, New York, the son of Edie, a producer, and Ely A. Landau, a studio executive and producer, of non-practicing Jewish, German ancestry. He is one of the "famous faces" due to being a regular player on the online poker website...

, Gary Rydstrom and Jay Roach.

A native of Chagrin Falls, Ohio

Chagrin Falls, Ohio

Chagrin Falls is a village in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, United States. It is a suburb of Cleveland in the Northeast Ohio region, the 14th largest Combined Statistical Area nationwide. The village was established and has grown around a natural waterfall on the Chagrin River. As of the 2010 census,...

, Unkrich spent his youth acting at the Cleveland Playhouse. Unkrich graduated from the University of Southern California

University of Southern California

The University of Southern California is a private, not-for-profit, nonsectarian, research university located in Los Angeles, California, United States. USC was founded in 1880, making it California's oldest private research university...

 School of Cinematic Arts

USC School of Cinematic Arts

The USC School of Cinematic Arts, until 2006 named the School of Cinema-Television , is a film school within the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, California. It is the oldest and largest such school in the United States, established in 1929 as a joint venture with the Academy of...

 in 1990. Before joining Pixar in 1994, Unkrich worked for several years in television as an editor and director.

Filmography

• Prison Stories: Women on the Inside (1991) (TV) (production assistant)
• Silk Stalkings
  Silk Stalkings
  Silk Stalkings is a TV crime drama originally shown on CBS in 1991 as part of the network's late-night Crimetime After Primetime programming package, and rebroadcast on the USA Network. After CBS ended the Crimetime experiment in 1993, the series ran exclusively on USA until its finale in the...
  
  (1991) (TV Series) (assistant editor, editor, director)
• Renegade
  Renegade (TV series)
  Renegade is an American television series that ran for 110 episodes spanning 5 seasons between September 19, 1992 and April 4, 1997.The series stars Lorenzo Lamas as Reno Raines, a police officer who is framed for a murder he didn't commit. Raines goes on the run and joins forces with Native...
  
  (1993) (TV series) (assistant editor)
• Betrayed by Love (1994) (TV) (assistant editor)
• Separated by Murder (1995) (TV) (editor)
• Toy Story
  Toy Story
  Toy Story is a 1995 American computer-animated film released by Walt Disney Pictures. It is Pixar's first feature film as well as the first ever feature film to be made entirely with CGI. The film was directed by John Lasseter and featuring the voices of Tom Hanks and Tim Allen...
  
  (1995) (editor)
• A Bug's Life
  A Bug's Life
  A Bug's Life is a 1998 American computer animated adventure comedy film produced by Pixar and released by Walt Disney Pictures in the United States on November 25, 1998. A Bug's Life was the second Disney·Pixar feature film after Toy Story, and the third American computer-animated film after Toy...
  
  (1998) (editor)
• Toy Story 2
  Toy Story 2
  Toy Story 2 is a 1999 American computer animated film directed by John Lasseter and co-directed by Lee Unkrich and Ash Brannon. It is the sequel to the 1995 film Toy Story, released by Walt Disney Pictures and the third film to be produced by Pixar...
  
  (1999) (co-director, editor, additional story material)
• Monsters, Inc.
  Monsters, Inc.
  Monsters, Inc. is a 2001 American computer-animated film and the fourth feature-length film produced by Pixar Animation Studios. It was directed by Pete Docter, co-directed by Lee Unkrich and David Silverman, and written by Jill Culton, Peter Docter, Ralph Eggleston, Dan Gerson, Jeff Pidgeon, Rhett...
  
  (2001) (co-director, additional editor)
• Finding Nemo
  Finding Nemo
  Finding Nemo is a 2003 American comi-drama animated film written by Andrew Stanton, directed by Andrew Stanton and Lee Unkrich and produced by Pixar. It tells the story of the overly protective clownfish Marlin who, along with a regal tang called Dory , searches for his abducted son Nemo...
  
  (2003) (co-director, supervising editor)
• Cars
  Cars (film)
  Cars is a 2006 American animated family film produced by Pixar and directed by John Lasseter and co-directed by Joe Ranft. It is the seventh Disney·Pixar feature film, and Pixar's final, independently-produced motion picture before its purchase by Disney...
  
  (2006) (additional editor)
• Ratatouille
  Ratatouille (film)
  Ratatouille is a 2007 American computer-animated comedy film produced by Pixar Animation Studios and distributed by Walt Disney Pictures. It is the eighth film produced by Pixar, and was directed by Brad Bird, who took over from Jan Pinkava in 2005...
  
  (2007) (additional editor)
• Toy Story 3
  Toy Story 3
  Toy Story 3 is a 2010 American 3D computer-animated comedy-adventure film, and the third installment in the Toy Story series. It was produced by Pixar and released by Walt Disney Pictures. It was directed by Lee Unkrich. The film was released worldwide from June through October in Disney Digital...
  
  (2010) (director, story, additional voice) (BAFTA) (Academy Award)

External links