Damien Chazelle

Damien Chazelle (born January 19, 1985, in Providence, Rhode Island) is a French-American filmmaker best known for directing ambitious, music-driven stories with razor-sharp rhythm and emotional intensity. Working across drama, romance, and period spectacle, he has become one of the defining American directors of his generation.

Chazelle broke through with the psychological music drama Whiplash (2014), earning an Academy Award nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay. He followed with the musical romance La La Land (2016), a global hit that matched classic Hollywood sweep with modern melancholy. The film received 14 Oscar nominations and won six, including Best Director—making Chazelle the youngest winner of that prize at 32.

His later features expanded in scale and subject: the biographical drama First Man (2018) and the bold, era-spanning black comedy Babylon (2022). He also directed episodes of Netflix’s limited series The Eddy (2020), continuing his exploration of performance, obsession, and the cost of artistic ambition.

Beyond directing, Chazelle has appeared as himself in film documentaries and specials, and is also credited under international name variants such as 데미언 샤젤 and 达米恩·查泽雷.