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Todd Phillips

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This article is about the film director. For the bass musician, see Todd Phillips (musician).
Todd Phillips
OccupationScreenwriter/Director
Years active1994–present

Todd Phillips (born Todd Bunzl[citation needed], December 20, 1970) is an Academy Award-nominated screenwriter and a film director.

Biography

Early life and career

Born in Brooklyn, New York, Todd Phillips attended New York University Film School under his birth name, Todd Bunzl, but dropped out[citation needed] in order to focus on completing his first film, the feature-length documentary Hated: GG Allin and the Murder Junkies, about the life and death of punk rocker GG Allin. Phillips made the film while a junior at NYU.

Circa this time, Phillips worked on St. Mark's Place at an all-night video store that specialized in explicit material and hard to find films.[citation needed] In 1996, he was a taxi driver in two episodes of the first season of HBO series Taxicab Confessions.

Filmmaker and festival founder

In 1994, Phillips founded the New York Underground Film Festival. He also helped distribute a controversial documentary about NAMBLA, Chicken Hawk: Men Who Love Boys, directed by Adi Sideman, which had premiered at the 1994 festival.

Phillips second film was Frat House a documentary about college fraternities that he produced and directed with then-partner, Andrew Gurland. Frat House premiered at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival and would win the Grand Jury Prize for documentary features.[citation needed]

At Sundance, Phillips met director-producer Ivan Reitman, which led to Phillips directing his first two features, Road Trip and Old School, for Reitmans' Montecito Picture Company. Phillips also directed the 2006 film School for Scoundrels, starring Billy Bob Thornton and Jon Heder.

Phillips worked on Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (2006); however, he resigned his position as director of the movie in early 2005, due to creative differences.[citation needed] Nevertheless, he was nominated for an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for his role in fashioning the story.

Filmography as director


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