Photo: Missy from Brooklyn, New York City / CC BY 2.0 (source: Wikimedia Commons)
My Take
Hal Hartley is one of those filmmakers I genuinely love for refusing to play the game. Coming out of Long Island and Massachusetts College of Art and Design, he carved out his own corner of American independent cinema in the late '80s and '90s with films like The Unbelievable Truth, Trust, and Henry Fool — movies where characters speak in this deliberately flat, almost theatrical cadence that shouldn't work but absolutely does. His deadpan style and philosophical dialogue feel like nothing else from that era, and winning the Best Screenplay award at Cannes for Henry Fool in 1998 was exactly the kind of recognition the art-house crowd had been nodding about for years. He's not a blockbuster name, but if you know, you know.
1. Profile
- Name (English)
- Hal Hartley
- Name (Japanese)
- ハル・ハートリー
- Reading
- はる・はーとりー
- Born
- November 3, 1959 (age 66)
- Zodiac / Chinese zodiac
- Scorpio / Boar
- Origin
- Lindenhurst, New York, United States
- Occupation
- film director / screenwriter / theatre director / author / film producer
2. Background
- University
- Massachusetts College of Art and Design
Awards & achievements
- 1998 Best Screenplay Award
- 2004 Berlin Prize
4. Personality
Motto
Private
6. Links
- Official sitehttps://www.possiblefilms.com
- Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%8F%E3%83%AB%E3%83%BB%E3%83%8F%E3%83%BC%E3%83%88%E3%83%AA%E3%83%BC
Frequently asked questions
When was Hal Hartley born?
Born November 3, 1959 (age 66).
Where is Hal Hartley from?
Hal Hartley is from Lindenhurst, New York, United States.
What does Hal Hartley do?
Hal Hartley works as film director, screenwriter, theatre director, author, film producer.
Film director — see all → · Screenwriter — see all → · More people from United States →
7. About this entry
Tags
- Last updated
- 2026-06-02
Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public or unconfirmed items are omitted. English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.