Terrence Frederick Malick (born November 30, 1943) is an American filmmaker. His films include Days of Heaven (1978), The Thin Red Line (1998), for which he received Academy Award nominations for Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay, The New World (2005) and The Tree of Life (2011), the latter of which garnered him another Best Director Oscar nomination and the Palme d'Or at the 64th Cannes Film Festival.
Malick began his career as part of the New Hollywood wave with the films Badlands (1973), about a murderous couple on the run in 1950s American Midwest, and Days of Heaven (1978), which detailed a love triangle between two laborers and a wealthy farmer during the First World War, before a lengthy hiatus.
Malick's films have explored themes such as transcendence, nature, and conflicts between reason and instinct. They are typically marked by broad philosophical and spiritual overtones, as well as the use of meditative voice-overs from individual characters. The stylistic elements of his work have inspired divided opinions among film scholars and audiences; some praised his films for their cinematography and aesthetics, while others found them lacking in plot and character development. His first five films have nonetheless ranked highly in retrospective decade-end and all-time polls.

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