Lee Unkrich

Lee Edward Unkrich (born August 8, 1967) is an American film director, editor and writer.

Unkrich graduated from the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts in 1990.

Unkrich was Vice-President of Editorial and Layout at Pixar.

Before joining the studio, Unkrich worked for several years in television as an editor and director.

He was a longtime member of the creative team at Pixar, where he started in 1994 as a film editor.

In 1994 he was hired by Pixar as a short-term employee for a period of four weeks, but ended up staying for 25 years.

He later began directing, first as co-director of Toy Story 2 (1999).

After co-directing Toy Story 2, Monsters, Inc. (2001) and Finding Nemo (2003), Unkrich made his solo directorial debut with Toy Story 3 (2010), and most recently directed Coco (2017), both of which won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature and the Academy Award for Best Original Song.

He is the 2011 recipient of the University of Southern California's Mary Pickford Distinguished Alumni Award recognizing alumni contributions to the cinematic arts.

After working at Pixar for 25 years, Unkrich retired from the company in January 2019 to spend more time with his family and pursue other interests.

Unkrich was raised in Chagrin Falls, Ohio, the only child of Emilie Unkrich and Robert Unkrich.

His father was a World War II veteran ("He stormed the beach at Normandy") and artist.

Unkrich was raised in the Jewish faith.

He spent his youth acting at The Cleveland Play House.

On January 18, 2019, Unkrich announced he was leaving Pixar to spend time with his family and pursue interests that have "long been back-burnered."

In late 2022 he announced he had completed editing a book about The Shining, written by J. W. Rinzler.

In 2023, Taschen released Unkrich's book "Stanley Kubrick's The Shining" in a limited collector's edition.

The book was edited by Unkrich, and written by J. W. Rinzler and Unkrich.

Unkrich is married to Laura Century and they have three children: Hannah, Alice, and Max.

Unkrich came out as bisexual to his family and friends in 2021 and came out publicly in 2022.