TSPDT

Key Production Country: UK
Key Genres: Drama, Psychological Drama, Short Film, Urban Drama, Road Movie, Crime Drama
Key Collaborators: Alwin H. Küchler (Cinematographer), Lucia Zucchetti (Editor), Lynne Ramsay Jr. (Leading Actress), James Ramsay (Leading Character Actor), Jane Morton (Production Designer), Gavin Emerson (Producer), Joe Bini (Editor), Anne McLean (Leading Character Actress), Alex Manette (Leading Character Actor), Jackie Quinn (Leading Character Actress), Jonny Greenwood (Composer)

"Lynne Ramsay is one of the brightest talents to have appeared in recent British cinema... Her small output to date has already been recognised with a plethora of international awards and her further progress can only be awaited with considerable anticipation." - Robert Shail (British Film Directors: A Critical Guide, 2007)

"Lynne Ramsay's work bears a powerful personal imprint. Her films are marked by a fascination with children and young people and the recurring, unresolvable themes of grief, guilt and, above all, death and its aftermath. They are low on dialogue and explicit story exposition; instead, they look to bold, unusual images, vivid details, an astute use of music and highly wrought sound design to create their unsettling worlds. Bill Douglas and Terence Davies have been cited as points of comparison, but her films are very much the product of an original vision." - Sheila Johnston (BFI Screen Online)

"With only four features and a handful of shorts over a 20-year career, Lynne Ramsay has nevertheless established herself as one of the most compelling and original voices in contemporary international cinema. The infrequency of her films is all the more regrettable considering that she had almost as auspicious a debut as one could hope for. Completed only three years after her graduation from the UK’s National Film and Television School, her first feature, Ratcatcher, screened in the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes and won recognition and critical acclaim worldwide; another three years later, she returned to Cannes with Morvern Callar, which picked up two prizes in the Directors Fortnight category." - Amanda Brason (Toronto International Film Festival, 2019)

"As a writer and director, Ramsay has—since her first Cannes Film Festival award–winning short film, Small Deaths—been interested in exploring those shifts in perception that forever change a person’s relationship to the world and often to themselves. She has a talent for creating and communicating a palpable sense of place, an atmosphere within which complex social relationships play out and the emotional and psychological state of her characters is reflected." - Kate MacKay (BAMPFA, 2024)

"All her movies walk the line between art, film and entertainment. They’re immensely watchable, gripping studies of damaged people; but there’s also an aesthetic, often an intimate focus, a mood painted by the pictures. Each film is a distinct, original work. They remain in your mind for a long time." - Miranda Sawyer (The Observer, 2018)

"Trained as a photographer and cinematographer, Lynne Ramsay’s films all have embedded in them a determination to let the images do all the talking. There’s often an air of magical realism about her work, as strange images puncture sombre tales of people dealing with the aftermath of death, as Ramsay folds poetry and fantasy into even the most meagre of circumstances. Despite the majority of her films being adapted from novels or short stories, the feelings of her characters are rarely conveyed through dialogue. Instead, the editing and the camerawork infer everything we need to know." - Kambole Campbell (Little White Lies, 2018)

"Ramsay's transformation into a bare-bones, shoot-and-run American-style indie director is even more remarkable considering that her early, formative years as a filmmaker were almost entirely conducted within the shelter of Britain's state-funded system." - Andrew Pulver (Directors Guild of America, 2010)

"It’s going beyond the surface that excites me. I think people can sense when something is phoney. That’s what I find so powerful about filmmaking, when you can be transported without really knowing why. It appeals to the senses like music. You just hope you’ve done something that really immerses an audience into the world you’ve created." - Lynne Ramsay (BAFTA, 2020)