Bryan Singer

Born: 1966
Where: New Jersey, USA

Major feature debuts don't come much better than Singer's labyrinthine mystery thriller The Usual Suspects.

With an impressive cast that included Gabriel Byrne and Kevin Spacey, the 28 year-old director beat all the odds by bringing the £4m, 35-day shoot in on time and under budget.

The movie, which has passed into film folklore for its legendary twist, also picked up two Oscars.

After attending the School of Visual Arts in New York, he moved to Los Angeles where he began undergraduate studies at the University of Southern California.

After graduating from USC, he wrote and directed Lion's Den, an award-winning 25-minute film chronicling the lives of five school friends who reunite after graduation.

Singer called upon his childhood friend Ethan Hawke to star in the £10,000 project.

The film led to Singer co-writing, producing and directing Public Access, his first full length film project, which won the Grand Jury Prize at the 1993 Sundance Film Festival.

After the Usual Suspects, his next feature film was the dramatic thriller Apt Pupil, written by Stephen King and starring Ian McKellen, who he directed again on X-Men.

X-Men, the much-anticipated adaptation of the Marvel comic strip, was Singer's most high-profile project to date.

It featured a cast that included Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen and Halle Berry and a £50 million budget.

Following on from X-Men's success, Singer helmed the above average sequel X-Men 2.