D.W. Griffith

Born

1875

Died

1948

From

LaGrange, Kentucky, USA·Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA

Height

1.80 m (5'11")

Also:
Writer
Producer

260

Credits on file

Decades active

Awards

In short · Directed for 13 decades — 260 credits, 2 Academy Honorary Award wins.

Remembered for

Ranked by community engagement + sustained interest across this person's credits in our database.

Recent & in release

1936
Award win
Academy Honorary Award — Academy Honorary Award
1935
Award win
Academy Awards — Oscar — Special Award

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Biography

David Wark Griffith was born in rural Kentucky to Jacob "Roaring Jake" Griffith, a former Confederate Army colonel and Civil War veteran. Growing up, Griffith was influenced by his father's romantic war stories and the melodramatic literature of the 19th century, which later influenced his filmmaking. In 1897, he moved to New York to pursue a career in acting and writing for the theater, though he found little success. He eventually agreed to work in the emerging motion picture industry, acting for Edwin S. Porter at the Edison Company. In 1908, he joined the financially struggling American Mutoscope & Biograph Co., where he directed over 450 short films and experimented with storytelling techniques that he later refined in his epic *The Birth of a Nation* (1915). Alongside his cinematographer G.W. Bitzer, Griffith developed and perfected cinematic techniques such as the flashback, the iris shot, the mask, and cross-cutting. After *The Birth of a Nation*, Griffith never again achieved the same level of success, and by 1931, his declining output led to his retirement. While celebrated for his innovations in narrative filmmaking, he was also widely criticized for the overt racism in his work. Griffith died in Los Angeles in 1948, remembered as one of the most controversial and influential figures in film history.