Lynne Ramsay

Lynne Ramsay
Ramsay at ADIFF 2018
Born	(1969-12-05) December 5, 1969 Glasgow, Scotland
Nationality	Scottish
Alma mater	Napier College National Film and Television School
Occupations	Film director screenwriter cinematographer
Years active	1995–present
Children	1

Lynne Ramsay (born 5 December 1969) is a Scottish film director, writer, producer, and cinematographer, best known for the feature films Ratcatcher (1999), Morvern Callar (2002), We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011), and You Were Never Really Here (2017). As of 2024, Ramsay is working on numerous feature films that have yet to be released.

Her works are marked by a fascination with children and young people and the recurring themes of grief, guilt, death, and its aftermath. They are low on dialogue and explicit story exposition, and instead use images, vivid details, music, and sound design to create their worlds.

Early life and education

Ramsay was born on 5 December 1969 in Glasgow. Her parents introduced her to movies at an early age through the work of Bette Davis, Nicolas Roeg, Alfred Hitchcock, and Michael Curtiz. She also credits the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz as an early inspiration.

Ramsay had an early passion for photography. She studied fine art and photography at Napier College, Edinburgh. In class she watched Maya Deren's film Meshes of the Afternoon and later cites it as a turning point in her career, inspiring her to apply to film school on a whim and encouraging her turn towards filmmaking.

In 1995, she graduated from the National Film and Television School in Beaconsfield, England, where she specialised in cinematography and direction.

Career

Short films (1996–1998)

In 1996 Ramsay completed her debut short film Small Deaths as her graduating film at the UK's National Film and Television School. It is a series of three vignettes of children grappling with familial realities and the repercussions of their actions. Ramsay is the writer, director and cinematographer for this film. It won the 1996 Cannes Film Festival Short Film Prix du Jury. Later that same year Ramsay finished Kill the Day, her second short film. It captures a day in the life of a heroin addict recently released from jail, and tackles the theme of memory.

Gasman (1998), also written and directed by Ramsay, is about a brother and sister who attend a Christmas party with their father, and encounter two other children who are strangely familiar with him. This won her another Prix du Jury that year as well as a Scottish BAFTA for Best Short Film.

Ratcatcher and Morvern Callar (1999–2002)

Ramsay's short films impressed Ruth McCance of BBC Scotland, who approached Ramsay to write a treatment for a feature film. This movie turned into Ramsay's debut feature Ratcatcher which released in 1999 and was funded by BBC Scotland and Pathé. The film was entirely made by first-time filmmakers, as Ramsay enlisted the help of her film school colleagues. Ratcatcher is set in Maryhill, Glasgow during the binmen's strike of the 1970s and follows James (William Eadie), the child of a struggling working-class family. The film received great critical success and while an arthouse hit, didn't reach a wider audience. It was screened at the 1999 Cannes Film Festival and opened the Edinburgh International Film Festival, winning her the BAFTA Award for Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer.

Morvern Callar (2002) is based on Alan Warner's existential 1995 novel of the same name. The film follows a young girl (Samantha Morton) adrift in Europe following the suicide of her boyfriend, which she doesn't report to the police. The movie has been described as a portrait of subversive grief and dissociation. The movie's soundtrack included acts like Can, Aphex Twin, Boards of Canada, Broadcast and The Mamas & the Papas.

The Lovely Bones debacle

In 2001, it was announced Ramsay was slated to direct the adaptation of Alice Sebolds The Lovely Bones, which she had read in a manuscript form prior to its publication. Her script told the story of the murder of a girl from her father's perspective. Shortly after the book turned into a global bestseller resulting in more pressure. Ramsay has said in interviews "People started to call it ‘The Lovely Money,’ they were getting greedy around it. And I could feel the vibes. It became like the Holy Bible, I kept handing in drafts and I thought they were good, but it was like ‘But that’s not exactly like the book, the book’s going to be a success.’ That was the mistake they made with the project." Then Film4, which had signed her onto the project, was massively downsized and the head of the company ultimately replaced Ramsay with Peter Jackson in 2004, when Jackson was fresh off The Lord Of The Rings saga. Ramsay has described dealing with Hollywood as a "David and Goliath situation".

The loss of The Lovely Bones hurt Ramsay's self-confidence for a while, and the following year was made even more difficult for Ramsay, as both her father and her close friend, Liana Dognini, died. Dognini had been Ramsay's co-writer on Morvern Callar and the unrealized The Lovely Bones script.

We Need To Talk About Kevin and Jane Got a Gun dispute (2010–2015)

After a long hiatus Ramsay returned in 2011 with We Need to Talk About Kevin. The film, based on Lionel Shriver's novel, is about a mother (Tilda Swinton) dealing with the aftermath of a school massacre committed by her own son (Ezra Miller). It is again directed by Ramsay and this time co-written with her then-husband Rory Kinnear. Ramsay recalls working together with Jonny Greenwood for the soundtrack of the movie as an especially exciting part of the process.

Starting in 2011, Ramsay was sharing plans to direct a modern science-fiction adaptation of Herman Melville's Moby Dick called Mobius. The film was to be set in space, and deal with themes of psychology and claustrophobia. Ramsay explained, "So we're creating a whole new world, and a new alien. [It's] a very psychological piece, mainly taking place in the ship, a bit like Das Boot, so it's quite claustrophobic. It's another monster movie, cos the monster's Ahab." She secured funding for the project in 2012, but as of 2023 the film was still a future project.

The short film Swimmer (2012), was co-commissioned by BBC Films, Film4 and the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games. It won a BAFTA Award for Best Short Film at the 66th British Academy Film Awards in 2013.

In 2012, Ramsay was slated to direct Jane Got a Gun, a movie about the farmer wife of an outlaw husband, who, after his gang turns on him, must defend herself with the help of an old lover. Natalie Portman signed on to star and produce the film. In March 2013, Ramsay abruptly left the project due to creative differences with producers and funders, including over the latter's demand for a happy ending. She was replaced by Gavin O'Connor. Actor Jude Law also left the production shortly after. In November 2013 news broke that the production company behind the movie was suing Ramsay for $750,000, claiming that she had not fulfilled her contractual obligations. The lawsuit also stated that Ramsay "was repeatedly under the influence of alcohol, was abusive to members of the cast and crew and was generally disruptive." Ramsay denied the allegations in a statement made shortly after. A year after parting ways, the lawsuit was resolved out of court. The public aspect of the dispute caused significant backlash against Ramsay. At the same time her marriage with Rory Kinnear came to an end. During the fallout she went to Santorini where she worked on the script that would become her next film, You Were Never Really Here. She ended up staying in Santorini for four years and in that time got pregnant with and gave birth to her daughter in Athens.

Cannes jury including Ramsay (2013)

In April 2013, she was selected as a member of the main competition jury at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival. In 2015, she was named as a member of the jury for the main competition at the 2015 Venice Film Festival.

You Were Never Really Here and in-between projects (2016–2024)

You Were Never Really Here, an adaptation of Jonathan Ames's novella of the same name, premiered to wide critical acclaim at the 70th Cannes Film Festival in 2017, where it received a standing ovation, and Ramsay won the Best Screenplay award. The film, starring Joaquin Phoenix as Joe, a war veteran and hitman saving young girls from sex trafficking, was picked up by Amazon Studios. It follows a "shattered [...] narrative structure" in trying to capture the effects of PTSD on the mind. The movie also marks the second collaboration with Jonny Greenwood. She later said she "found her soulmate in making movies" in Phoenix.

Following You Were Never Really Here, Ramsay hoped to next make the Civil War film Call Black Horse starring Casey Affleck, which entered the early stages of development.

In 2018, she revealed she had started writing a script that she describes as an "epic environmental horror". In November 2020, it was announced Ramsay would be filming an adaptation of Stephen King's 1999 novel The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon. The movie is co-written by Christy Hall, who co-created the Netflix series I Am Not Okay With This, and produced by Christine Romero and Roy Lee of Vertigo Entertainment among others.

Brigitte, a short documentary on Brigitte Lacombe, was released in 2019 after being commissioned as part of Miu Miu's Women's Tales series. The movie sees both women, who usually prefer being behind the camera, shooting each other.

At the Valencia International Film Festival in 2021 Ramsay revealed that she was working on another movie with Joaquin Phoenix called Polaris. It was additionally revealed that it would also co-star Rooney Mara. In 2023, Ramsay confirmed that they had just wrapped production on the project, and that it could be released under the title Dark Slides. In a 2024 interview Ramsay described the movie as "Rosemary’s Baby in the Arctic".

In May 2022, Ramsay announced that she was working on a film adaptation of Margaret Atwood's Stone Mattress. The film, which is set to star Julianne Moore, Sandra Oh and Kyle Chandler, has been picked up by Amazon Studios. Ramsay says about the movie "regarding the overturning of Roe v Wade in America this story [...] feels more important than ever." The movie is set in the Arctic and Greenland.

Die, My Love (2024–present)

In November 2022, it was announced that Ramsay would be directing an adaptation of Ariana Harwicz’s novel Die, My Love, which will be produced by Martin Scorsese and Jennifer Lawrence through Excellent Cadaver. Lawrence will additionally star as a woman who is driven to insanity by her marriage and childbirth. Ramsay said that Lawrence sent her a copy of the book, which is about postpartum depression and bipolar disorder, noting that the film itself would be funny, and that the movie would "probably" be her next film after the 2023 Hollywood strikes. The first draft of the screenplay was written by Irish playwright Enda Walsh. In July 2024, Robert Pattinson entered talks to join the film. In August 2024, cinematographer Seamus McGarvey spoke about reuniting with Ramsay on the film, including citing Repulsion (1965) and Rosemary's Baby (1968) as influences for the film. Later that month, LaKeith Stanfield, Sissy Spacek, and Nick Nolte joined the cast, during which the project began filming in Calgary.

In 2024, Variety reported Ramsay was writing yet another script with Townend, titled Hierarchies. No additional information about the scope of the project was released.

Personal life

Ramsay was previously married to Rory Stewart Kinnear, a writer and musician. Her niece, Lynne Ramsay Jr., has starred in multiple of her early short films.

Ramsay has one daughter. In an interview with The Guardian Ramsay shared that We Need To Talk About Kevin stars Tilda Swinton and John C. Reilly are the godparents of the child.

Influences and themes

In 1999, before the release of Ratcatcher, she cited Nan Goldin, Richard Billingham, Terrence Malick, Andrei Tarkovsky and John Cassavetes as her creative mentors. In that same interview she spoke about Robert Bresson's book Notes on the Cinematographer as "a little bible [...] in film school". Ramsay has also noted Rainer Werner Fassbinder's Fear Eats the Soul, David Lynch's Blue Velvet and Ingmar Bergman's The Virgin Spring as deeply moving movie-going experiences.

Ramsays films explore themes of death, rebirth, childhood, loss of innocence, guilt and memory. Many of her movies also deal with grief and its aftermath.

Critical response

Los Angeles Times columnist Mark Olsen considered Ramsay "one of the leading lights of young British cinema", describing her additionally as "among the most celebrated British filmmakers of her generation." The Harvard Film Archive describes Ramsay as "an uncompromising filmmaker fascinated by the tremendous power of cinema to appeal directly to the senses and awaken new depths in our audio-visual imagination. Immersive and at times almost overwhelming, Ramsay's films abound with uncommon imagery arresting for its remarkable use of texture, composition, color, music and sound." British film critic Jonathan Romney, wrote on the topic of We Need to Talk About Kevin, "Ramsay thinks not in concepts but in images. She doesn't make intellectual films, but ones that are close to music, taking visuals to the point of abstraction."

In 2007, Ramsay was rated number 12 in Guardian Unlimited's list of the world's 40 best directors working at the time.

Filmography

Feature films

Year	Title	Director	Writer	Producer	Ref(s).
1999	Ratcatcher	Yes	Yes	No
2002	Morvern Callar	Yes	Yes	No
2011	We Need to Talk About Kevin	Yes	Yes	Executive
2017	You Were Never Really Here	Yes	Yes	Yes
2025	Die, My Love	Yes	Yes	No	Filming
TBA	Polaris	Yes	Yes	No	Post-production

Short films

Year	Title	Director	Writer	Producer	DoP	Notes	Ref(s).
1996	Small Deaths	Yes	Yes	No	Yes
1997	Kill the Day	Yes	Yes	No	No
1998	Gasman	Yes	Yes	No	No
2012	Swimmer	Yes	No	Executive	No
2019	Brigitte	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Documentary

Awards and nominations

Main article: List of awards and nominations received by Lynne Ramsay

On 8 October 2013, Ramsay was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Edinburgh for her contribution to British film.

See also

• List of female film and television directors
• Women's cinema