Michael Figgis (born 28 February 1948) is an English film director, screenwriter, and composer.^[1] He was nominated for two Academy Awards for his work in Leaving Las Vegas (1995). Figgis was the founding patron of the independent filmmakers' online community Shooting People.

Figgis was born in Carlisle, Cumberland, and grew up in Nairobi, Kenya until he was eight. The rest of his childhood was spent in Newcastle upon Tyne, where he was educated at Kenton Comprehensive School (the musicians Ian Carr and John Walters were among his teachers there).^[2][3] He studied music at Trent Park College, then part of the Institute of Education, University of London, where he "lived a lie" for three years – he had, in his words, "bluffed [his] way into the music course without being able to read music", although he later learned how to study harmony, counterpoint and composition.^[4]

Figgis's early interest was in music. He played trumpet and guitar in The People Band and is audible in their first record (produced by Charlie Watts) in 1968. He also played keyboards for Bryan Ferry's first band, The Gas Board. In 1983 he directed a theatre play, produced in Theatre Gerard-Philipe (Saint-Denis, Paris). This play performed with great success at Festival de Grenada and in Theater der Welt (Munich).

After working in theatre (he was a musician and performer in the experimental group People Show)^[1] Figgis made his feature film debut with the low budget Stormy Monday in 1988. The film earned him attention as a director who could get interesting performances from established Hollywood actors. His first American film was Internal Affairs, which helped to revive the career of Richard Gere. His next Hollywood feature, Mr. Jones, was misunderstood by the studio, who attempted to market the downbeat story as a feelgood film, resulting in a box office flop. Figgis poured his disenchantment with the film industry into Leaving Las Vegas, which starred Nicolas Cage and Elisabeth Shue, which earned Figgis Academy Award nominations for Best Directing and Best Screenplay. He followed this up with the romantic drama One Night Stand, starring Wesley Snipes and Nastassja Kinski, but the movie received a poor response from critics and was a commercial failure. His most ambitious film to date is the low-budget film The Loss of Sexual Innocence, a loosely based autobiographical film of the director himself.

In 2007, Figgis shot Love Live Long set between Istanbul and Bratislava on the infamous Gumball 3000 Rally, starring Sophie Winkleman and Daniel Lapaine. In 2008, he was called upon by Transport for London to help shoot a public information film entitled A Little Thought From Each of Us, A Big Difference For Everyone, encouraging more considerate behaviour on London's public transport systems, which was then shown in London cinemas. The ad comprised the screen split into four sections, each section showing one of four scenarios all on the same double-decker bus. At the end of the ad, the friction-creating scenarios were resolved and the ad ended on "A little thought from each of us. A big difference for everyone."

Figgis, since 2008, has been professor of film studies at the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland, where he conducts intensive summer seminars.^[1]

Figgis was made an Honorary Associate of London Film School.

• Mike Figgis: Collected Screenplays 1 – Stormy Monday, Liebestraum, Leaving Las Vegas (2002)
• Digital Filmmaking (2007)
• The Thirty-Six Dramatic Situations (2017): 978-057130504-9