Steve McQueen

Deadpan is a four-minute installation film in which McQueen re-stages a death-defying Buster Keaton stunt. The side of a house is filmed toppling again and again from all angles onto an unflinching McQueen, who survives thanks to a carefully positioned window.

Bear (10 minutes, 35 seconds) was Steve McQueen's first major film. Although not an overtly political work, for many viewers it raises sensitive issues about race, homoeroticism and violence. It depicts two naked men – one of whom is the artist – tussling and teasing one another in an encounter which shifts between tenderness and aggression. The film is silent but a series of stares, glances and winks between the protagonists creates an optical language of flirtation and threat.

An in-depth look of the 40 year journey, from post-war Germany to Hollywood royalty, of Hans Zimmer, the man who’s become the dominant force in the world of movie soundtracks. His film credits include The Lion King, Rain Man, Pirates of The Caribbean, Gladiator, The Dark Knight Trilogy, 12 Year A Slave, The Thin Red Line, The Da Vinci Code and Dune.

Cold Breath depicts the artist stroking, pulling and squeezing his nipple. Through a gesture that appears tender one moment and violent the next, the film is an intimate exploration of flesh as material.

McQueen lies in bed in a Paris hotel, watching a dubbed TV programme about American special forces being trained for combat in Afghanistan. Shot using a domestic digital camera, the artist's body is illuminated by the flickering glow of the TV screen.

For her extraordinary film essay, Living the Light, Director and Director of Photography Claire Pijman had access to the thousands of Hi8 video diaries, pictures and Polaroids that Müller photographed while he was at work on one of the more than 70 features he shot throughout his career; often with long term collaborators such as Wim Wenders, Jim Jarmusch and Lars von Trier. The film intertwines these images with excerpts of his oeuvre, thus creating a fluid and cinematic continuum. In his score for Living the Light Jim Jarmusch gives this wide raging scale of life and art an additional musical voice.

The story of Bobby Sands, the IRA member who led the 1981 hunger strike during The Troubles in which Irish Republican prisoners tried to win political status.

The story of Bobby Sands, the IRA member who led the 1981 hunger strike during The Troubles in which Irish Republican prisoners tried to win political status.

An examination of the Black Power movement in the late 1960s in the UK, surveying both the individuals and the cultural forces that defined the era. At the heart of the documentary is a series of astonishing interviews with past activists, many of whom are speaking for the first time about what it was really like to be involved in the British Black Power movement, bringing to life one of the key cultural revolutions in the history of the nation.

Brandon, a thirty-something man living in New York, eludes intimacy with women but feeds his deepest desires with a compulsive addiction to sex. When his younger sister temporarily moves into his apartment, stirring up bitter memories of their shared painful past, Brandon's life, like his fragile mind, gets out of control.

In the pre-Civil War United States, Solomon Northup, a free black man from upstate New York, is abducted and sold into slavery. Facing cruelty as well as unexpected kindnesses Solomon struggles not only to stay alive, but to retain his dignity. In the twelfth year of his unforgettable odyssey, Solomon’s chance meeting with a Canadian abolitionist will forever alter his life.

In the pre-Civil War United States, Solomon Northup, a free black man from upstate New York, is abducted and sold into slavery. Facing cruelty as well as unexpected kindnesses Solomon struggles not only to stay alive, but to retain his dignity. In the twelfth year of his unforgettable odyssey, Solomon’s chance meeting with a Canadian abolitionist will forever alter his life.

Deadpan is a four-minute installation film in which McQueen re-stages a death-defying Buster Keaton stunt. The side of a house is filmed toppling again and again from all angles onto an unflinching McQueen, who survives thanks to a carefully positioned window.

An exploration of the sensory experience of the TauTona gold mine in South Africa, showing migrant labourers working in dark, claustrophobic environments and the ear-splitting noise of drilling. The TauTona mine in South Africa, known as 'Western Deep' is the world's deepest gold mine. Employing more than 5,000 people, it operates twenty-four hours day. The film begins in complete darkness as the miners descend three-and-a-half kilometres underground. McQueen documents an intense work regime where the temperature can reach over ninety degrees celsius. Accompanied by jarring sounds created by the mechanical equipment, Western Deep is a hellish representation of labour that makes the silent resolve of the miners all the more powerful.

Bear (10 minutes, 35 seconds) was Steve McQueen's first major film. Although not an overtly political work, for many viewers it raises sensitive issues about race, homoeroticism and violence. It depicts two naked men – one of whom is the artist – tussling and teasing one another in an encounter which shifts between tenderness and aggression. The film is silent but a series of stares, glances and winks between the protagonists creates an optical language of flirtation and threat.

The UK schools scandal through the eyes of Black parents, teachers, and activists who banded together to expose the injustice and force the education system to change.

In World War II London, nine-year-old George is evacuated to the countryside by his mother, Rita, to escape the bombings. Defiant and determined to return to his family, George embarks on an epic, perilous journey back home as Rita searches for him.

In World War II London, nine-year-old George is evacuated to the countryside by his mother, Rita, to escape the bombings. Defiant and determined to return to his family, George embarks on an epic, perilous journey back home as Rita searches for him.

In World War II London, nine-year-old George is evacuated to the countryside by his mother, Rita, to escape the bombings. Defiant and determined to return to his family, George embarks on an epic, perilous journey back home as Rita searches for him.

Gravesend uses a documentary approach to focus on the mining of coltan, employed in the manufacture of cell phones, laptops and other high-tech apparatus. The film cuts between two sites: a technological, highly automated industrial plant in the West where the precious metal is processed for the final production of microelectronic parts, and the central Congo, where miners use simple shovels or their bare hands to extract, wash and collect the ore on leaves. IThe realism of the film images is intercut with a black-and-white animation of the Congo River. Its sinuous shape conjures associations with networking and the flow of communications, underscored by a murmuring resembling thousands of voices in the cell phone network. In the meantime, coltan, traded at an extremely high price, represents one of the key financial factors in the armed conflict of the militia in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where decades of civil war have cost several million human lives.

Director Steve McQueen films Trip-Hop artist Tricky recording 'Girls' In the tight confines of a recording booth, the musician Adrian Thomas, also known as Tricky, repeatedly performs the song 'girls' from his album Blowback (2001). The intimate and highly charged atmosphere of the studio is complemented by lyrics that explore the relationships between girls, boys and absent fathers.

The film documents two men carrying palm trees through the streets of East London. McQueen tracked the men through a bustling Brick Lane market.

Director Steve McQueen attached three cameras to the front and each end of an oil drum and rolled it through the streets of Manhattan. The results are projected onto three walls of an enclosed space.

Caribs’ Leap / Western Deep comprises two complementary films that are shown together as a three-screen, synchronised colour video projection. The films were originally commissioned for the Documenta 11 exhibition in Kassel, Germany in 2002. They were then screened in London by Artangel in the former Lumiere Cinema on St Martins Lane in the autumn of that same year.

Giardini, a visually sumptuous film of 30 minutes, is composed of two projections set side-by-side, which steadily gather a series of evocative vignettes. As the title suggests, the film is set in the famous exhibitions grounds in Venice – as T.J. Demos writes in his essay in 'Giardini Notebook' "the location of the ageing national pavilions. These otherwise well known monuments are shown here in an unexpected light, during the interim between biennales, in the down-time and during the nights, in the shadows of spectacle."

video, sequence of digitally scanned files, sound video: 12 hours 54 minutes, continuous projection audio: 67 hours 4 minutes 43 seconds

Steve McQueen’s first new artwork since his major commission Year 3 at Tate Britain in 2019, Sunshine State is a two-channel video projection shown on both sides of two screens placed one next to the other. Opening with footage of a burning sun, the work unfolds exploring images from the musical drama The Jazz Singer (1927), starring the famous singer Al Jolson. The film is known as the first "talkie" in the history of cinema that uses synchronised dialogue.

The story of the only three minutes of footage —a home movie shot by David Kurtz in 1938— showing images of the Jewish inhabitants of Nasielsk (Poland) before the beginning of the Shoah.

A police shootout leaves four thieves dead during an explosive armed robbery attempt in Chicago. Their widows have nothing in common except a debt left behind by their spouses' criminal activities. Hoping to forge a future on their own terms, they join forces to pull off a heist.

A police shootout leaves four thieves dead during an explosive armed robbery attempt in Chicago. Their widows have nothing in common except a debt left behind by their spouses' criminal activities. Hoping to forge a future on their own terms, they join forces to pull off a heist.

The artist walks with a stride, his camera pointed up from around his stomach. The sky, some trees and occasionally his head pops up in the lower third. The title is taken from an essay by James Baldwin.

A chronicle of the life of Fela Kuti, the Nigerian musician and political force who invented Afro-beat music and introduced it to the world.

A police shootout leaves four thieves dead during an explosive armed robbery attempt in Chicago. Their widows have nothing in common except a debt left behind by their spouses' criminal activities. Hoping to forge a future on their own terms, they join forces to pull off a heist.

A look at the life and work of actor, singer and activist, Paul Robeson.

A look at the life and work of actor, singer and activist, Paul Robeson.

A look at the life and work of actor, singer and activist, Paul Robeson.

Static was filmed from a helicopter circling around the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbour. It was shot shortly after the monument was fully re-opened following the September 11th attacks. Flying alongside the statue, the camera presents us with startling close-up views of its oxidised copper surface. The continual sense of movement is disorienting, undermining its sense of permanence and stability.

In December 2017 Steve McQueen made an artwork in response to the fire that took place earlier that year on 14 June at Grenfell Tower in North Kensington, West London. 72 people died in the tragedy. Filming the tower before it was covered with hoarding, McQueen sought to create a record so that it would not be forgotten.

Ashes (2002-2015) a double video projection, tells the story of a young Caribbean man known by this name. In 2002 while shooting Caribs' Leap in Grenada, McQueen met and filmed a young man called Ashes, but the footage was not used. Many years later he learned that Ashes had been killed. McQueen decided to create a tribute to him, combining old and new footage. On one side of the screen, Ashes is full of life, his boat moving towards a seemingly unending horizon. The other side shows his tomb being constructed and the etching of a memorial plaque for his grave. Over the soundtrack, two local men tell the story of Ashes's untimely death.

An authorized documentary on the life of Tupac Shakur.

The past collides with the present in this excavation of the Nazi occupation of Amsterdam: a journey from World War II to recent years of pandemic and protest and a provocative, life-affirming reflection on memory, time and what's to come.

Outlines the themes and artistic strategies that have guided McQueen’s work since he emerged in the mid-1990s. Marked by spatial, temporal, and narrative disjointedness and ambiguity, the work’s movements cohere into an orchestrated meditation on film itself. Its five "pieces" are united as experiments in cinematic form—the rhythmic exercises of the bodies throughout it are mirrored by the focus of the camera through formal experiments.

McQueen lies in bed in a Paris hotel, watching a dubbed TV programme about American special forces being trained for combat in Afghanistan. Shot using a domestic digital camera, the artist's body is illuminated by the flickering glow of the TV screen.

McQueen lies in bed in a Paris hotel, watching a dubbed TV programme about American special forces being trained for combat in Afghanistan. Shot using a domestic digital camera, the artist's body is illuminated by the flickering glow of the TV screen.

The past collides with the present in this excavation of the Nazi occupation of Amsterdam: a journey from World War II to recent years of pandemic and protest and a provocative, life-affirming reflection on memory, time and what's to come.

The title refers to the day McQueen's cousin Marcus accidentally shot his brother. On the soundtrack, Marcus tells a story while a single backlit photographic slide shows him lying on his back, the top of his head dominating the frame. The contrast between the still image and the momentum of the narrative emphasises the intimate exchange that takes place when a tale is shared. The scar on Marcus's head, Mc Queen says, 'is another story'.

Cold Breath depicts the artist stroking, pulling and squeezing his nipple. Through a gesture that appears tender one moment and violent the next, the film is an intimate exploration of flesh as material.

A close-up fixes on the eye of British actor Charlotte Rampling. McQueen's finger moves around her eye, pulling the skin and momentarily touching her eyeball. Rampling's eye continually adjusts to the movement of the finger, just as the camera lens goes in and out of focus. Suffused in red, Charlotte is a reflection on the act of looking.

Brandon, a thirty-something man living in New York, eludes intimacy with women but feeds his deepest desires with a compulsive addiction to sex. When his younger sister temporarily moves into his apartment, stirring up bitter memories of their shared painful past, Brandon's life, like his fragile mind, gets out of control.

Director Steve McQueen films Trip-Hop artist Tricky recording 'Girls' In the tight confines of a recording booth, the musician Adrian Thomas, also known as Tricky, repeatedly performs the song 'girls' from his album Blowback (2001). The intimate and highly charged atmosphere of the studio is complemented by lyrics that explore the relationships between girls, boys and absent fathers.

The film documents two men carrying palm trees through the streets of East London. McQueen tracked the men through a bustling Brick Lane market.

The film documents two men carrying palm trees through the streets of East London. McQueen tracked the men through a bustling Brick Lane market.

When Oxford Professor Patricia Kingori travels to Kenya, she uncovers the murky, multi-billion global underworld of essay-writing. Thousands of young and highly educated Kenyans – overqualified and chronically underemployed – have found lucrative work writing essays for students around the globe who are able and willing to pay for them. It’s a complex portrait of an issue that undermines the foundations of a pillar of humanity: education.

Kanye West performs for the camera.

A Black boy’s journey through an ineffectual public school system reveals the racial inequities built into everyday British life. Young Kingsley Smith (Kenyah Sandy) is a spirited aspiring astronaut with a love of drawing whose life is turned upside down when he is thrust into a new school for the “educationally subnormal”—a harrowing experience that gradually awakens his mother (Sharlene Whyte) to the institutional mistreatment of the children of West Indian immigrants. Shot on Super 16 mm to evoke BBC television dramas from the 1970s, the final Small Axe film concludes the pentalogy with a hopeful vision of the power of Black-led collective action.

A Black boy’s journey through an ineffectual public school system reveals the racial inequities built into everyday British life. Young Kingsley Smith (Kenyah Sandy) is a spirited aspiring astronaut with a love of drawing whose life is turned upside down when he is thrust into a new school for the “educationally subnormal”—a harrowing experience that gradually awakens his mother (Sharlene Whyte) to the institutional mistreatment of the children of West Indian immigrants. Shot on Super 16 mm to evoke BBC television dramas from the 1970s, the final Small Axe film concludes the pentalogy with a hopeful vision of the power of Black-led collective action.

In World War II London, nine-year-old George is evacuated to the countryside by his mother, Rita, to escape the bombings. Defiant and determined to return to his family, George embarks on an epic, perilous journey back home as Rita searches for him.