---
name: "Jean Negulesco"
canonical: "https://film.one/person/jean-negulesco"
roles: ["Director"]
born: "26 February 1900"
died: "18 July 1993"
reviewed_on_fi1m: 2
average_fi1m_score: 69
average_as: "director"
average_over: 2
updated: "2026-09-20T02:40:34.855003+00:00"
licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL."
---

# Jean Negulesco

Director. Born 26 February 1900 in Craiova, Dolj, Romania. Died 18 July 1993.

## Details

- **Work:** Director
- **Born:** 26 February 1900, Craiova, Dolj, Romania
- **Died:** 18 July 1993
- **Active:** 1948–1954
- **Also known as:** Ioan Negulescu
- **Academy Awards:** 1 Oscar nomination
- **Average Fi1m score:** 69, as director, over 2 titles
- **Fi1m score by decade:** 1940s 78 (1), 1950s 60 (1)
- **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Negulesco, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q286104, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0624535/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/19606

## Fi1m on Jean Negulesco

> A painter turned studio director, Negulesco was at his best holding the camera on a face and letting it work, as he did for Jane Wyman in *Johnny Belinda*. The wide, glossy films he made later at Fox are handsome and ask little of us.

Watch the moment in *Johnny Belinda* (1948) when Belinda understands that the shapes the doctor's fingers make are words. Jane Wyman has no lines in the film, and Jean Negulesco does not help her with any. He holds on her face and lets us watch the idea arrive. It moved us more than we were prepared for, and most of the credit is Wyman's, but some of it belongs to a director who knew when to do nothing. The censorship of 1948 meant the assault at the centre of the story could not be shown and could barely be named, so what he had instead was a long look at a face, and he trusted it.

He came to that trust from painting. Negulesco studied art in Paris after leaving Romania as a teenager, moved to America in 1927, and spent the 1930s and 1940s at Warner Bros on second units and shorts. His first credited feature, *The Mask of Dimitrios* (1944), was a noir, and the early films are noirs, lit in the deep shadow a painter would recognise. *Johnny Belinda* was the breakthrough, and it is the film of his we would send a stranger to, with the caveat that Max Steiner's score begs on Belinda's behalf whenever Negulesco declines to.

Then he went to 20th Century-Fox in 1948 and became one of the first directors to work in CinemaScope. *How to Marry a Millionaire* (1953), *Titanic* (1953) and, shot on location in Rome, *Three Coins in the Fountain* (1954) are wide, unhurried and full of things to look at; he liked a long take and a broad composition and had little use for fast cutting. He could make the new frame work for two people in a room as well as for a fountain. Critics have called these films glossy and shallow, and we do not much quarrel with that. They were built to be handsome, and they are.

The word that follows him is journeyman, and it is fair, though it is not the insult it is sometimes meant as. He did not have a style you could pick out across a room; he had judgement about where to put the camera and how long to leave it there, and with a subject worth handling carefully, as *Johnny Belinda* was, that judgement looks a great deal like art. With a lesser script it looks like good manners.

His output slowed in the 1960s, and he went to live in Spain and took up his brushes again. In his autobiography he wrote: "I lived three golden periods of my time: Paris in 1920, the Riviera in 1927 and Hollywood from 1930 to 1970." Hollywood comes third. Start with *Johnny Belinda*, and keep a hand near the volume for the Steiner.

## Biography

Jean Negulesco was a Romanian-born American film director and screenwriter. Born in Craiova, Romania, on 26 February 1900, he trained as a painter before moving to the United States in the 1920s. He entered the film industry in 1934, initially working as a sketch artist and second-unit director.

Negulesco directed his first feature, Singapore Woman, in 1941. He gained recognition at Warner Bros. for short subjects and feature films including The Mask of Dimitrios (1944), Humoresque (1947) and Johnny Belinda (1948), for which he received an Academy Award nomination for Best Director. Later credits include How to Marry a Millionaire (1953), Titanic (1953), Three Coins in the Fountain (1954) and Daddy Long Legs (1955). He lived in Marbella, Spain, from the late 1960s and died there on 18 July 1993.

*Sources: en.wikipedia.org, imdb.com, britannica.com.*

## On Fi1m (2)

- *Three Coins in the Fountain* (1954), Fi1m 60, Director — [page](https://film.one/film/three-coins-in-the-fountain.md)
- *Johnny Belinda* (1948), Fi1m 78, Director — [page](https://film.one/film/johnny-belinda.md)

## Complete filmography (78)

Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page.

- *Hello-Goodbye* (1970), Director
- *The Invincible Six* (1970), Director
- *Biganeh Biya* (1969), Editor
- *The Greatest Story Ever Told* (1965), Second Unit Director
- *The Pleasure Seekers* (1964), Director
- *Jessica* (1962), Director, Producer
- *The Best of Everything* (1959), Director
- *Count Your Blessings* (1959), Director
- *A Certain Smile* (1958), Director
- *The Gift of Love* (1958), Director
- *Boy on a Dolphin* (1957), Director
- *The Dark Wave* (1956), Director
- *The Rains of Ranchipur* (1955), Director
- *Daddy Long Legs* (1955), Director
- *Woman's World* (1954), Director
- *Three Coins in the Fountain* (1954), Director — Fi1m 60, [page](https://film.one/film/three-coins-in-the-fountain.md)
- *How to Marry a Millionaire* (1953), Director
- *Scandal at Scourie* (1953), Director
- *Titanic* (1953), Director
- *O. Henry's Full House* (1952), Director
- *Lure of the Wilderness* (1952), Director
- *Lydia Bailey* (1952), Director
- *Phone Call from a Stranger* (1952), Director
- *Take Care of My Little Girl* (1951), Director
- *The Mudlark* (1950), Director
- *Under My Skin* (1950), Director
- *Three Came Home* (1950), Director
- *The Forbidden Street* (1949), Director
- *Road House* (1948), Director
- *Johnny Belinda* (1948), Director — Fi1m 78, [page](https://film.one/film/johnny-belinda.md)
- *Deep Valley* (1947), Director
- *Humoresque* (1947), Director
- *Nobody Lives Forever* (1946), Director
- *Three Strangers* (1946), Director
- *The Conspirators* (1944), Director
- *The Mask of Dimitrios* (1944), Director
- *Roaring Guns* (1944), Director
- *Over the Wall* (1943), Director
- *Food and Magic* (1943), Director
- *The Voice That Thrilled the World* (1943), Director
- *Cavalcade of Dance* (1943), Director
- *Women at War* (1943), Director
- *Hit Parade of the Gay Nineties* (1943), Director
- *All Star Melody Masters* (1943), Director
- *Three Cheers for the Girls* (1943), Director
- *Ozzie Nelson and His Orchestra* (1943), Director
- *The United States Navy Band* (1943), Director
- *The United States Army Band* (1943), Director
- *The United States Service Bands* (1943), Director
- *Borrah Minevitch and His Harmonica School* (1942), Director
- *The United States Marine Band* (1942), Director
- *Six Hits and a Miss* (1942), Director
- *Glen Gray and the Casa Loma Orchestra* (1942), Director
- *The Daughter of Rosie O'Grady* (1942), Director
- *Spanish Fiesta* (1942), Director
- *The United States Army Air Force Band* (1942), Director
- *The Playgirls* (1942), Director
- *Calling All Girls* (1942), Director
- *The Gay Parisian* (1942), Director
- *A Ship Is Born* (1942), Director
- *At the Stroke of Twelve* (1941), Director
- *Those Good Old Days* (1941), Director
- *Hal Kemp and His Orchestra* (1941), Director
- *Singapore Woman* (1941), Director
- *Cliff Edwards and His Buckaroos* (1941), Director
- *Skinnay Ennis and His Orchestra* (1941), Director
- *Henry Busse and His Orchestra* (1940), Director
- *The Flag of Humanity* (1940), Director, Screenplay
- *City for Conquest* (1940), Director
- *The Sea Hawk* (1940), Second Unit Director
- *Alice in Movieland* (1940), Director
- *Rio* (1939), Story
- *Swiss Miss* (1938), Story
- *The Beloved Brat* (1938), Story
- *Expensive Husbands* (1937), Screenplay
- *Fight for Your Lady* (1937), Story
- *Crash Donovan* (1936), Co-Director
- *This Is the Night* (1932), Technical Supervisor

## Gallery

- ![Le réalisateur de cinéma Jean Negulesco au Festival du cinéma américain de Deauville (Normandie, France) en 1986.](https://film.one/media/person/1235957/gallery-41cf1eb4eeb9.jpg) Le réalisateur de cinéma Jean Negulesco au Festival du cinéma américain de Deauville (Normandie, France) en 1986. — Roland Godefroy, CC BY 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/cf/JeanNegulesco14.JPG/1280px-JeanNegulesco14.JPG?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)
- ![Jean Negulesco](https://film.one/media/person/1235957/gallery-9a79c9a0d3a6.jpg) Jean Negulesco — Image via TMDB
- ![Jean Negulesco](https://film.one/media/person/1235957/gallery-965e76b124aa.jpg) Jean Negulesco — Image via TMDB

## Awards

### Academy Awards — 0 won, 1 nominated

- 1949: Best Director (nominated), for *Johnny Belinda*

*From Wikidata, which records wins more completely than nominations.*

---
© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/person/jean-negulesco