Sonnenfeld was born and raised in New York City. He graduated at New York University of Film School in 1978. After a brief exploit in hardcore cinema, Barry started working as director of photography, in the Oscar-nominated "In Our Water (1982)". Then Joel Coen and Ethan Coen called him to work on "Blood Simple (1984)". With Blood Simple, Barry started his collaboration with the Coen Bros., who us ...
show all Sonnenfeld was born and raised in New York City. He graduated at New York University of Film School in 1978. After a brief exploit in hardcore cinema, Barry started working as director of photography, in the Oscar-nominated "In Our Water (1982)". Then Joel Coen and Ethan Coen called him to work on "Blood Simple (1984)". With Blood Simple, Barry started his collaboration with the Coen Bros., who used him for their next two films, "Raising Arizona (1987)" and "Miller's Crossing (1990)". He also worked with Danny DeVito, for his "Throw Momma from the Train (1987)" and Rob Reiner, for "When Harry Met Sally ... (1989)" and "Misery (1990)". He got his first work as a director from Orion with _The_Addams"Family(1991)", released in November 1991. _The_Addams_Family"Values(1993)" was not so successful at the box-office, but he got critical acclaim for his fourth movie, "Get Shorty(1995)". Produced by Jersey Films and based upon a novel by Elmore Leonard, the film won a Golden Globe for best male performance. In 1996 Steven Spielberg asked him to direct "Men in Black (1997)". Starring Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith , the movie was a big box-office hit and also acclaimed by the critics. Jon Peters asked Sonnenfeld to direct "Wild Wild West(1999)" an adaptation of an old TV series. This was certainbly NOT well received! He also directed the comedy "Big Trouble (2002)" and his most successful film sequel, _Men in Black 2 (2002)_(qv).
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