Justin Lin

Justin Lin (, born October 11, 1971) is a Taiwanese-American film and television director, producer, and screenwriter.

Lin was born on October 11, 1971, in Taipei, Taiwan.

He immigrated with his family to the United States at the age of eight and grew up in Buena Park, California.

He graduated from nearby Cypress High School.

Lin earned the rank of Eagle Scout in March 1989 while a member of Boy Scout Troop 670.

Lin attended the University of California, San Diego for two years before transferring to the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).

He received a Bachelor of Arts with a major in film and television and a Master of Fine Arts in film directing and production from the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television.

Lin's first feature film was Shopping for Fangs (1997), which he co-directed with fellow UCLA Film School alumnus Quentin Lee when they were still at UCLA.

The film stars John Cho and is considered to be a "cult classic" among independent Asian American films.

Lin wrote and directed a documentary, Crossover (2000), which focused on the 70-year-old phenomenon of the Japanese American Basketball Leagues, which were established in the 1930s.

He is best known for his directorial work on Better Luck Tomorrow (2002), the Fast & Furious franchise from The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006) to Fast & Furious 6 (2013) and F9 (2021), and Star Trek Beyond (2016).

He is also known for his work on television programs like Community, and the second season of True Detective.

Lin's solo directorial debut was Better Luck Tomorrow (2002), a film focusing on a circle of high-school-age Asian-Americans who become caught up in a cascading series of petty and then serious crimes.

The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival of that year, and in a question and answer session following a festival screening, Roger Ebert stood up and angrily responded to an audience member asking Lin if he thought it irresponsible to portray Asian-Americans in a negative light, saying, "[N]obody would say to a bunch of white filmmakers, 'How could you do this to your people?' ... Asian-American characters have the right to be whoever the hell they want to be. They do not have to 'represent' their people."

Ebert's approval of the film drew the attention of major studios, eventually leading to MTV Films buying the film for distribution, MTV Films' first such acquisition.

Better Luck Tomorrow was also an official selection of the 2002 Toronto International Film Festival, was nominated for a Grand Jury Prize at 2002 Sundance, and was a nominee for the John Cassavetes Award at the 2004 Independent Spirit Awards.

Variety magazine named him one of the "Top 10 Directors to Watch" in 2002, citing the film.

Lin's second feature film—and first film to be produced and distributed by a large studio, Touchstone Pictures—was Annapolis (2006), which starred James Franco, Tyrese Gibson, Donnie Wahlberg and Jordana Brewster.

The film cost US$26 million to make, but grossed only $17 million worldwide.

His third feature film, The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, was released in North American cinemas on June 16, 2006.

Despite mixed reviews, Tokyo Drift brought in over US$24 million on its opening weekend; the domestic box office would eventually total $62 million with a further $95 million accruing from the foreign box office, making total gross receipts $158 million.

With Tokyo Drift, Lin would begin his run as director of the next three Fast & Furious films, leading the franchise until Furious 7.

Lin was initially approached to direct the film after the success of Better Luck Tomorrow at Sundance, and after wrapping his first studio film Annapolis, but wanted some "conditions" met, as the script presented him was about "cars drifting around Buddhist statues and geisha girls."

Instead, Lin wanted to make a film about Japan, which was "much more postmodern" as he mentioned, and intended to have a film on a more global scale that went against preconceived stereotypes.

After Tokyo Drift, Lin directed a short film that also premiered at the Sundance Global Short Film Project, La Revolución de Iguodala! (2007), about one individual's message as that individual travels through time and becomes embodied in different races.

He also went on to do an independent film, Finishing the Game (2007), a mockumentary on the events surrounding the production of Bruce Lee's final film, Game of Death.

It premiered at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival, and was also selected as the opening night film at a variety of North American film festivals, for instance at the 25th San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival.

Lin returned to direct Fast & Furious, the fourth in the film series, which opened on April 3, 2009.

On its first day of release the movie grossed US$30.6 million, and peaked at the top spot of the weekend box office with $71.0 million.

The film ultimately grossed $359 million worldwide.

Fast Five also broke box office records for being the second highest spring opening weekend, and surpassed Fast & Furious (2009) to become the highest-grossing film in the franchise.

Lin directed the follow-up 2011 film Fast Five, which holds the titles for the highest-grossing opening weekend ever in April (US$84 million), and for any car-oriented film.

It grossed over $625 million worldwide, making it number 63 on the all-time worldwide list of highest-grossing films (in unadjusted dollars), and the seventh highest-grossing film of 2011.

Following the success of Fast Five, Lin and his production company Barnstorm Pictures signed a two-year first-look deal with Universal Pictures, the company that owns the Fast and Furious franchise.

Lin continued with its sixth installment, Fast & Furious 6.

It became the largest Memorial Day Weekend gross for a Universal Pictures film, setting a record of US$120 million and a worldwide total of $317 million.

It also became the highest grossing Universal Pictures film in the UK, with an opening weekend UK gross larger than any other movie in the series.

Specifically, the film took more than US$4.4 million on its opening day, the biggest opening day for both the franchise and the studio in that market, the second-highest opening of 2013 (behind Iron Man 3 at $4.7 million), and the highest-grossing film of the day with 54% of the market.

His films have grossed over $3 billion USD worldwide as of March 2017.

He was given a Distinguished Alumni Award in 2017.