Olivier Assayas (born 25 January 1955) is a French film director, screenwriter and film critic. Assayas is known for his slow-burning period pieces, psychological thrillers, neo-noirs and French comedies. His work has become associated with the film movement known as the New French Extremity and he has frequently collaborated with Juliette Binoche and Kristen Stewart. The son of filmmaker Jacques Rémy, Assayas began his career as a critic for influential magazine Cahiers du Cinéma. Here he wrote about the World Cinema and its film auteurs who would later influence his own works. Assayas made several shorts, and then made the leap from writer to screenwriter.
He made his directorial film debut with Disorder in 1986. He continued directing films, with Cold Water (1994) becoming a breakthrough film in his career. It would be his first film to be screened at the Cannes Film Festival in the Un Certain Regard section. His follow up film Irma Vep (1996) also screened at Cannes, while Sentimental Destinies (2000), Demonlover (2002), and Clean (2004) all officially competed for the Palme d'Or. In 2006, he contributed a short film to the anthology film Paris, je t'aime (2006) with fellow directors such as Alexander Payne, Coen Brothers and Alfonso Cuarón. He gained acclaim with his dramas Summer Hours (2008), Clouds of Sils Maria (2014) and Personal Shopper (2016); the latter won him the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Director. He has also directed the comedy Non-Fiction (2018) and the spy thriller Wasp Network (2019).
Assayas was born in Paris, France, the son of French director/screenwriter Raymond Assayas, alias Jacques Rémy (1911–1981). His father was of Turkish-Jewish origin who had settled in Italy, while his mother, Catherine de Károlyi, was a fashion designer of Protestant Hungarian origin. Assayas started his career in the industry by helping his father. He ghostwrote episodes for TV shows his father was working on when his health failed. In a 2010 interview, Assayas stated that his main political influences when growing up were Guy Debord and George Orwell. Speaking of the 1968 May uprising to overthrow General de Gaulle, Assayas in the same interview stated: "I was defined by the politics of May '68, but for me May '68 was an anti-totalitarian uprising. People seemed to forget that at the occupied Odéon theater, you had crossed flags-black and red, and I was on the side of the black element."

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