A. Scott Frank (born March 10, 1960) is an American film director, producer, screenwriter, and author. Frank has received twoAcademy Award nominations forBest Adapted Screenplay, the first forOut of Sight (1998) and the second forLogan (2017). His film work, credited and uncredited, extends to dozens of films.^[1][2] In recent years, he has worked forNetflix on television miniseries, most prominently writing and directingGodless,The Queen's Gambit andDept. Q.

Frank was born to aJewish family^[3] inFort Walton Beach, Florida, on March 10, 1960.^[4] His family moved toLos Gatos, California where he attended high school while his father worked as a pilot forPan Am.^[5] He attended theUniversity of California, Santa Barbara, graduating in 1982 with a Bachelor of Arts in film studies.^[6][7][8]

While a student at the University of California, Frank first had the idea for what would become the script forLittle Man Tate in 1981, thinking that, in the aftermath of theIran hostage crisis there was "a slight petulance to world events at the time" and envisioning "an eight year old who was making more sense of the world thanTed Koppel."^[9] After graduation he worked as a bartender while attempting to sell the script, which eventually led to his hiring an agent, and subsequently being hired byParamount Pictures in 1984. It would take several years before the script was made, with Frank's first produced screenwriting work in the meantime being the 1987 filmPlain Clothes, which he would later describe as "terrible."Little Man Tate was ultimately made in 1991 as the directorial debut of actressJodie Foster.^[10]

In the years to follow, Frank's filmography included scripts forDead Again,Malice,Heaven's Prisoners, andGet Shorty. The latter earned him his first award nominations with both theWriters Guild and theGolden Globes.^[11] He credited the success ofGet Shorty with reviving his interest in the job after a bad experience onMalice, and was particularly pleased as a longtime fan ofElmore Leonard's novels that he felt had not received satisfactory film adaptations previously. This success led to his being asked to work on another Elmore Leonard adaptation,Steven Soderbergh's 1998 filmOut of Sight starringGeorge Clooney andJennifer Lopez. The film was not a commercial success but earned warm critical plaudits.^[10] Frank won both theWriters Guild of America Award for Best Adapted Screenplay and theEdgar Award from theMystery Writers of America, and was nominated for theAcademy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay.

Frank was recruited bySteven Spielberg to work on the script forMinority Report, aPhilip K. Dick adaptation, which he would later say was "a very difficult screenplay to write because it was loaded with so much technical detail."^[2] He performedsecond unit directing duties for one segment of the film, an area of filmmaking he had contemplated moving into for some time.^[9]Minority Report earned him theSaturn Award for Best Writing and several other nominations, including forHugo andNebula awards. Other credits from this period includedThe Interpreter andMarley & Me, the latter described as a film he would not have imagined himself working on but which he developed "a big soft spot for."^[2] By 2024, Frank had worked on nearly 60 films, including uncredited rewrites on films such asSaving Private Ryan,Entrapment,Dawn of the Dead,Night at the Museum andGravity.^[5][2]

Frank made his directorial debut in 2007 onThe Lookout, whose script he had begun in 1998 and which was originally meant to be directed bySam Mendes, who eventually departed the project to makeRoad to Perdition while encouraging Frank to take on the task himself.^[9] He had also attempted to recruitSydney Pollack, the director ofThe Interpreter whom he considered a mentor, to direct the project.^[2] He won theIndependent Spirit Award for Best First Feature for his work on the film. His second film as a director, 2014'sA Walk Among the Tombstones, had a more mixed reception. In January 2016, Frank published his first novel,Shaker, acrimemystery published byPenguin Random House.^[12][13][14] He also worked in the burgeoningsuperhero genre, making two films with directorJames Mangold,The Wolverine (2013) andLogan (2017). For the latter, he received his second Academy Award nomination.^[10]

Having had previous experience working for network television, Frank had begun to developGodless, previously intended as a film, into a miniseries forHBO. However,Netflix outbid HBO for the project, which Frank wrote and directed.^[10] The miniseries earned Frank numerous award nominations, including from theDirectors Guild and threePrimetime Emmy Awards. The success ofGodless led Frank to pitch further projects to Netflix, several of which were rejected, until they expressed interest inThe Queen's Gambit, an adaptation of aWalter Tevisnovel that Frank had previously attempted to make as a film.^[15][16] Frank said that he viewed the novel as exploring "the cost of genius", a theme that he had first intended to explore inLittle Man Tate but "didn't quite get there with it."^[17]

Frank won the 2021Emmy forOutstanding Directing for a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie.

Screenwriter

Director

Producer

• Scott Frank atIMDb
• Patrick Radden Keefe (December 25, 2023)."How A Script Doctor Found His Own Voice".The New Yorker {subscription reqd}. RetrievedDecember 28, 2023.

• 1960 births
• 20th-century American Jews
• 20th-century American male writers
• 20th-century American screenwriters
• 21st-century American Jews
• 21st-century American male writers
• 21st-century American screenwriters
• AFI Conservatory alumni
• American male screenwriters
• American television directors
• American television writers
• American male television writers
• Directors Guild of America Award winners
• Edgar Award winners
• Film directors from Florida
• Living people
• People from Fort Walton Beach, Florida
• Primetime Emmy Award winners
• Screenwriters from Florida
• University of California, Santa Barbara alumni
• Writers Guild of America Award winners

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