A Career in Review: Steven Soderbergh

"I learned from Richard Lester that as your career goes on, you learn more about how things can go wrong, but you never learn how things can go right. And it's really disorienting." - Steven Soderbergh

Filmmaker Steven Soderbergh is one of the most successful independent directors who has crossed between indie and mainstream films effortlessly. Although Sex, Lies, and Videotapes (1989) was his breakout film with the indie audiences, he did several films before getting mainstream acceptance with Erin Brockovich (2000). Being an indie filmmaker at heart he directed the surreal like Kafka (1991), King of the Hill (1993), Underneath (1995), Gray's Anatomy (1996), and Schizopolis (1996), before reaching real indie creed with Out Of Sight (1998) and The Limey (1999), the former of which he would first work with actor George Clooney whom would become a frequent collaborator and business & producing partner with Section Eight, which would last for six years.

Soderbergh was born in 1963 in Atlanta, Georgia. Like many of his contemporaries he got his start by making shorts in 16mm during high school before enrolling in college. His first major break came in 1986 when he earned an Emmy Nomination for his feature length concert film for the rock group Yes. He would then become an independent maverick with his ground breaking Sex, Lies, and Videotapes which earned him the Cannes Film Festivals Palme d'Or Award, the Independent Spirit Award for Best Director, and an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay.

In 2000 he would direct his two most commercially successful and critical films in Erin Brockovich and Traffic, for which both were nominated for Academy Awards and for which he took home the Oscar for Best Director for Traffic at the 2001 Academy Awards.