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Directors love making small cameos in their own films. But few have made as many as Alfred Hitchcock . In The Birds , he can be seen leaving the pet shop with two of his own terriers as Tippi Hedren comes in; he’s sitting on a bus next to the film’s star Cary Grant in To Catch a Thief , and in Lifeboat , he can be spotted in “before and after” photographs in a newspaper weight-loss advert.
Hitchcock’s 37 silent cameos became so popular with fans that the director began to make his appearances earlier in the film to avoid distracting the audience from the plot.
Likewise, Quentin Tarantino frequently sneaks into his own films, from Pulp Fiction Kill Bill . Others taking a leaf out of Hitchcock’s book include directors M Night Shyamalan and Martin Scorsese .
It is more understandable when actors become directors, such as Clint Eastwood, who stars in most of his films, but who also made a brief cameo in his early film Breezy (1973). But in many cases, it seems the director just can’t resist showing up on the big screen, rather than just during the end credits.
Show all 21 1 /21Directors who have made cameos in films Directors who have made cameos in films Steven Spielberg in The Blues Brothers (1980) He’s had some cameos in his own films including the voice of the radio operator in Jaws and as a man watching the news in The Lost World: Jurassic Park. He's turned up in other people’s films too, such as Cameron Crowe’s Vanilla Sky and Barry Sonnenfeld’s Men in Black. But in John Landis’s The Blues Brothers, he is unforgettable as a bureaucrat who stamps a receipt for the Blue Brothers, played by John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd.
Universal Pictures
Directors who have made cameos in films John Huston in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) John Huston played a background blackjack player in his Marilyn Monroe-starring film The Misfits in 1961 and as a barman in Moby Dick in 1956. But perhaps most memorable is his cameo as a well-dressed American tourist who is pestered for money by drifter Fred C Hobbs (Humphrey Bogart) in his Oscar-winning drama The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. Apparently, Humphrey Bogart directed the scene and took pleasure in making Huston perform it over and over again.
Warner Bros
Directors who have made cameos in films Quentin Tarantino in Little Nicky (2000) The director has had roles in many of his own films: his voice was the answer machine message in Jackie Brown; he plays one of 88 masked ninjas in Kill Bill and Jimmy Dimmick in Pulp Fiction. But his intermittent appearance in Steven Brill’s film as a blind deacon, who recognises Adam Sandler’s character as the son of the devil, is perhaps the weirdest.
Rex Features
Directors who have made cameos in films Peter Jackson in Hot Fuzz (2007) Like Hitchcock, the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit director is known for making cameos in his own films. Though his most notable cameo was “carrot man” in Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, more surprising was his brief turn in Edgar Wright’s police comedy. Dressed up as a Father Christmas, he stabs Simon Pegg’s Sergeant Angel in the hand at the beginning of the film.
Universal Pictures
Directors who have made cameos in films Wes Craven in Scream (1996) Principal Himbry (Henry Winkler) is working late at school when he hears a knock at his door. The only person he sees when he goes to open it is the janitor, played by director Wes Craven, who is dressed as Freddie Krueger, his own creation.
Dimension Films
Directors who have made cameos in films Terrence Malik in Badlands (1973) The famously reclusive director made a brief and unexpected cameo in his film Badlands. The actor he hired to play “caller at rich man’s house” where Kit (Michael Sheen) and Holly (Sissy Spacek) are hiding out, didn’t turn up, so Malik played the part himself.
Warner Bros
Directors who have made cameos in films Stanley Kubrick in Eyes Wide Shut (1999) He’s not credited, but Stanley Kubrick is sitting in a booth at the Sonata Café in this thriller starring Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. When Dr Bill Hartford (Cruise) is invited to an orgy by Nick Nightingale (Todd Field), Kubrick – understandably – glances twice at Bill.
Moviestore Collection/REX/Shutterstock
Directors who have made cameos in films Alfred Hitchcock in North by Northwest (1959) The director was known for his signature cameos, and found ingenious ways to insert himself into his own films. In North by Northwest, he plays a man missing a bus just after the credit “directed by Alfred Hitchcock” passes on screen.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Directors who have made cameos in films Rob Reiner in Misery (1990) The When Harry Met Sally director makes a cameo in his psychological-horror film, Misery, about a psychotic fan (Kathy Bates) who holds an author (James Caan) captive and forces him to write her stories. Reiner plays a helicopter pilot helping the local sheriff Buster search for Paul’s car.
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Directors who have made cameos in films Martin Scorsese in Taxi Driver (1976) The director makes cameo appearances in nearly every film he makes. But playing a twisted passenger in the taxi driven by Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro) has to be one of his best. When the cab stops at an apartment, the silhouette of the passenger’s wife can be seen. He then describes to Bickle how he would like to kill the woman with a 44 Magnum pistol.
Columbia Pictures
Directors who have made cameos in films Clint Eastwood in Breezy (1973) He has directed himself in many of his films, including Million Dollar Baby and Unforgiven, but Eastwood also gave himself a cameo role in his third film Breezy. In the romantic drama, starring William Holden and Kay Lenz, he can be seen briefly, leaning on a pier in a white jacket.
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Directors who have made cameos in films Roman Polanski in Chinatown (1974) Roman Polanski’s cameo in Chinatown as “man with knife” is memorable. He slashes the nostril of leading man Jack Nicholson, who plays snooping detective Jake Gittes. Polanski pulls out the knife and says: “You're a very nosy fellow, kitty-cat, huh? You know what happens to nosy fellows? Huh, no? Want to guess? Huh, no? OK. They lose their noses.“
Paramount Pictures
Directors who have made cameos in films Oliver Stone in Platoon (1986) The director has a small cameo role in his film Platoon, as an officer at the US bunker which gets destroyed by a suicide bomber. It’s not the first time he has made appearances in his films: he was an investor in Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps and a UCLA film professor in his biographical film The Doors.
Directors who have made cameos in films David Cronenberg in The Fly (1986) Most of the director’s cameo roles are in other people’s films, including John Landis’s Into the Night and Gus van Sant’s To Die For. But he makes a brief appearance as an obstetrician delivering a giant larva in his film The Fly, after Martin Scorsese observed that he resembled a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon. Cronenberg delivers a maggot-baby to Geena Davis’s Veronica, the girlfriend of Jeff Goldblum’s scientist Seth Brundle.
Directors who have made cameos in films George Lucas in Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith After 28 years behind the camera, the Star Wars creator made his one and only cameo appearance in Revenge of the Sith, as Baron Papanoida, a blue-coloured alien statesman who appears in the opera house scene. He gave three of his children – Jett, Amanda and Katie Lucas – cameo roles in it, too.
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Directors who have made cameos in films Cameron Crowe in Minority Report (2002) Cameron Crowe had already put Steven Spielberg in his film Vanilla Sky, so perhaps this was a return favour? Crowe can be seen as a passenger on a train, along with another extra, the actor Cameron Diaz.
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Directors who have made cameos in films Hal Ashby in Harold and Maude (1971) The Shampoo director had several cameos in his films, including playing a passenger in a Porsche who is flashing a peace sign in Coming Home, his Oscar-nominated 1978 film. But in the darkly humourous love story Harold and Maude, in which Harold, a lonely teenager intrigued by death, has a romantic relationship with a 79-year-old Holocaust survivor, Maude, Ashby pops up as a bearded man watching model trains.
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Directors who have made cameos in films M Night Shyamalan in The Sixth Sense (1999) M Night Shyamalan's parents are doctors, while the director considered becoming one as well. So it is perhaps no surprise that he cast himself as Dr Hill in his supernatural horror The Sixth Sense. He plays a psychiatrist who talks to young Cole Sear (Haley Joel Osment) after he is locked inside a closet by bullies at a birthday party.
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Directors who have made cameos in films Todd Philips in Old School (2003) The director has some creepy cameos in his films, including as a suspicious man in an elevator in The Hangover, and a man with a foot fetish in Road Trip. But he really comes into his own as “gang bang guy”, who turns up late to an orgy in Old School. When Luke Wilson’s character finds out his wife is into group sex, he opens the door to Philips who says: “I’m here for the gang bang.”
DreamWorks Pictures
Directors who have made cameos in films David and Jerry Zucker in Airplane! (1980) All three directors of this spoof aeroplane disaster movie make cameos in their film. The Zuckers play two distracted air traffic controllers who accidentally guide a jumbo 747 jet into the LAX airport terminal. Jim Abrahams turns up as one of the religious fanatics in the Chicago airport terminal.
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Directors who have made cameos in films Francis Ford Coppola in Apocalypse Now (1979) The director plays a TV news director, with cinematographer Vittorio Storaro playing the cameraman by his side, in his film Apocalypse Now. As they film mock news footage of the combat, Coppola shouts at Michael Sheen’s character Captain Benjamin L Willard, who is fighting in the Vietnam War: “Don't look at the camera! Just go by like you're fighting. Like you're fighting. Don't look at the camera! This is for television. Just go through, go through.”
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