Oliver Stone turns 80. Born in New York on September 15, 1946, he is one of the most acclaimed directors of recent decades. Author of masterpieces that marked an era, often a divisive figure due to the subjects of his works, he won three Oscars (out of 10 nominations). From Platoon to Wall Street, from Born on the Fourth of July to JFK, to Any Given Sunday and Snowden: here are the most important films of his career.
THE BEGINNINGS - After fighting in Vietnam, upon returning to the USA he graduated and dedicated himself to cinema, initially as a screenwriter. In 1979 he won his first Oscar, for the screenplay of Midnight Express, directed by Alan Parker, adapting the essay of the same name for the big screen. Behind the camera, after his debut in 1974 with The Evil Queen, the first film to give him notoriety was The Hand, a 1981 horror film with Michael Caine in the title role.
SALVADOR - At the beginning of the 1980s, Stone wrote two other acclaimed screenplays: Scarface (directed by Brian De Palma) and Year of the Dragon (directed by Michael Cimino). His career as a director then took off in 1986 with Salvador, the story of a war reporter who documents the civil war in El Salvador. The film, starring James Woods, was critically acclaimed but proved to be a box office flop.
PLATOON - In 1986 he also directed Platoon, in which Stone reported his combat experiences in Vietnam. Shot in the Philippines, the film made the director known throughout the world. It received rave reviews, huge commercial success and won 4 Oscars (including Best Picture). Stone won the statuette for best director while he missed out on the one for screenplay (despite having two nominations, including the one for Salvador). Instead he was awarded the Silver Bear in Berlin.
WALL STREET - The following year Stone co-wrote and directed another huge hit, Wall Street, starring Charlie Sheen and Michael Douglas, who received the Oscar for best actor for his role as Gordon Gekko, a ruthless corporate finance shark who takes young broker Bud Fox under his wing. It is the only film for which he made a sequel, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, released in 2010.
BORN ON THE FOURTH OF JULY - After Talk Radio, in 1989 Stone made Born on the Fourth of July, a story based on the autobiography of Ron Kovic (played by Tom Cruise), a marine who became an anti-war activist after being paralyzed in combat in Vietnam. The film, a great success with audiences and critics, won two Oscars (out of 8 nominations) including the second to Stone as best director. At the Golden Globes he managed to win the awards for director, screenplay and film (as producer) for the same film.
JFK - In 1991 Stone co-wrote and directed one of his most ambitious, controversial and successful films, JFK, which depicts the assassination of John F. Kennedy in Dallas and the investigation of Jim Garrison (played by Kevin Costner), who believed the assassination was part of a conspiracy. The film, a huge commercial success, received eight Oscar nominations, including three for Stone for best film, director and screenplay. On the other hand, he won the Golden Globe for directing.
THE DOORS - The same year he made the biopic dedicated to Jim Morrison, filmed twenty years after the death of the leader of The Doors, played by Val Kilmer, who also reinterpreted several of the band's songs for the occasion. Then in 1993 Stone ideally concluded his unofficial Vietnam trilogy with Heaven & Earth, based on the memoirs of a Vietnamese woman whose life was drastically changed by the war and its consequences.
BORN KILLERS - In 1994 he co-wrote and directed Natural Born Killers, a very violent satire of modern media. The film was originally based on a screenplay by Tarantino but underwent a significant rewrite. The exploits of Mickey and Mallory Knox earned the film the Special Jury Grand Prize at the Venice Film Festival. Stone also had a Golden Globe nomination for directing.
NIXON - The following year he made The Intrigues of Power - Nixon, a biographical film about the former president of the United States (played by a masterful Anthony Hopkins). Stone received an Oscar nomination for his original screenplay. Then in 1996 he was credited as co-writer of Evita, which was based on his original adaptation of the stage musical.
ANY GIVEN SUNDAY - Stone ended the decade by making Any Given Sunday, a film that became a small classic for the much-quoted monologue in the locker room of football coach Tony D'Amato (played by a very fit Al Pacino) to his team.
ALEXANDER - His historical epic about Alexander the Great, released in 2004, proved to be a box office flop, despite a stellar cast. In the years that followed, Stone re-edited it into a two-part film, Alexander Revisited: The Final Cut, and then further refined it in 2014 with Alexander: The Ultimate Cut.
WORLD TRADE CENTER - In 2006 Stone directed World Trade Center, based on the true story of two PAPD police officers who were trapped in rubble and later survived the attacks of September 11, 2001. The film was a commercial success.
DOCUMENTARIES - Stone has increasingly focused on documentaries, particularly about controversial political leaders. The trend was inaugurated by Comandante (2003), about the Cuban leader Fidel Castro, with the sequels Looking for Fidel (2004) and Castro in Winter (2012). Then Persona Non Grata, on Israeli-Palestinian relations, South of the Border, on the rise of left-wing governments in Latin America, Mi amigo Hugo (2014), on the late Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez, and the series of interviews The Putin Interviews, carried out over two years of talks with the Russian president.
W. - On the big screen, in 2008 Stone wrote and directed the film W., a biography that tells the life of former US president George W. Bush up until the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
THE BEASTS - In 2012, Oliver Stone directed the crime thriller The Beasts (Savages), based on the novel by Don Winslow.
SNOWDEN - In 2016 he directed Snowden, starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt as the whistleblower Edward Snowden. In 2020 the director announced his semi-retirement from cinema, although he still occasionally makes documentaries (including Nuclear Now, about climate change and nuclear energy). In 2026, Stone completed production on White Lies, described as his final narrative film as writer-director. It is an autobiographical intergenerational family drama starring Josh Hartnett, Willem Dafoe and Michael Douglas.
