Ang Lee is a Taiwanese filmmaker. His films are known for their emotional charge and exploration of repressed, hidden emotions. During his career, he has received international critical and popular acclaim and numerous accolades, including two Academy Awards, five BAFTA Awards, and three Golden Globe Awards. In 2003, he was ranked 27th in The Guardian's 40 best directors.
Born in Pingtung County, Lee was educated in Taiwan and later in the United States. He rose to prominence directing films such as Pushing Hands (1991), The Wedding Banquet (1993), and Eat Drink Man Woman (1994), which explored the relationships and conflicts between tradition and modernity, Eastern and Western; the three films are informally known as the Father Knows Best trilogy. The films were critically successful both in Taiwan and internationally.
His breakthrough in Hollywood was the costume drama Sense and Sensibility (1995), which was also his first entirely English-language film. Lee went on to receive the Academy Award for Best Director twice—for the romantic drama Brokeback Mountain (2005) and the survival drama Life of Pi (2012).