Steven Soderbergh

Born: January 14 1963
Where: Atlanta, Georgia, USA

Equally happy with art house movies such as Full Frontal and commercial blockbusters like Ocean's Eleven, Soderbergh ploughs a personal furrow.

As a teen, he enrolled in the university's film animation class and began making short 16 mm films with second-hand equipment, one of which was the short film Janitor.

After graduating from high school, he went to Hollywood, where he worked as a game show scorer, cue card holder and eventually a freelance film editor.

His first major break was in 1986 when rock group Yes assigned him to shoot a full-length concert film which eventually earned him a Grammy nomination for the video 9012 Live.

Following this Soderbergh filmed Winston, the short subject film that he later expanded into Sex, Lies and Videotape, a film that earned him the Cannes Film Festival Palme d'Or Award, and an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay.

Finding himself in a rut after The Underneath he headed back home to Louisiana and shot Schizopolis for £172,000 employing used equipment, a bare-bones crew and casting himself in a dual lead role.

Steven returned to mainstream movies in 1998, directing Out of Sight, starring George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez.

The breakthrough movies Erin Brockovich and Traffic were both nominated for Best Picture Oscars at the 2001 Academy Awards and gave him the first twin director Oscar nomination in almost 60 years.

He won the Oscar for Best Director for Traffic.

In 2002, Soderbergh directed a retelling of Ocean's Eleven with George Clooney, Matt Damon, Andy Garcia, Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts.

Switching back to the experimental, Miramax released Soderbergh's contemporary comedy Full Frontal starring David Duchovny, Nicky Katt, Catherine Keener, Mary McCormack and David Hyde Pierce.

Solaris saw him reworking Russian director Tarkovsky's 1972 classic with George Clooney reunited with the director for the third time.

Soderbergh and Clooney's Section Eight film production company were behind Welcome to Collinwood, starring William H. Macy, Isaiah Washington, Luis Guzman, and Clooney.

They have also backed Charlie Kaufman's adaptation of Chuck Barris' book Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, directed by and starring Clooney.

Soderbergh and Clooney also executive produced Insomnia, directed by Christopher Nolan and starring Al Pacino and Robin Williams and Far From Heaven, written and directed by Todd Haynes.

In 2004, he made his first sequel - the disappointing Ocean's Twelve - with Catherine Zeta-Jones joining the original cast.