--- name: "Jonathan Mostow" canonical: "https://film.one/person/jonathan-mostow" roles: ["Director"] born: "28 November 1961" reviewed_on_fi1m: 1 average_as: "director" average_over: 1 updated: "2026-09-19T17:09:11.322246+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." --- # Jonathan Mostow Director. Born 28 November 1961 in Woodbridge, Connecticut, USA. ## Details - **Work:** Director - **Born:** 28 November 1961, Woodbridge, Connecticut, USA - **Also known as:** Jon Mostow - **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Mostow, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q707494, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0609236/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/7213 ## Fi1m on Jonathan Mostow > Jonathan Mostow makes chase films about people who did not ask to be chased, and he makes them well. His third *Terminator* is the honest, well-built work of a man who knows whose shadow he is standing in. Claire Danes's Kate Brewster is dragged out of a veterinary clinic in *Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines* (2003) with a fiancé at home and no interest whatever in the end of the world, and the film spends most of its running time refusing to let her go back. That is the Mostow situation. Somebody ordinary, or somebody under-prepared, is put in front of something much bigger than them, usually a machine or a system, and made to run. Even his Terminator is treated that way: Schwarzenegger is heavier and slower than he was twelve years earlier, and Mostow uses it rather than hiding it. He came up through shorts, music videos and low-budget work, including *Beverly Hills Bodysnatchers* (1989), before *Breakdown* (1997), a road thriller he wrote himself, made his name. *U-571* (2000) moved him to a submarine and an ensemble; *Terminator 3* moved him to a franchise and a machine. Then a gap, *Surrogates* (2009) with Bruce Willis, *The Hunter's Prayer* (2017), and television, with episodes of *The Last Ship* and *Accused* (2023). The screenwriters Michael Ferris and John Brancato and the producer Hal Lieberman have each worked with him three times, which for a director with so few features is a lot of loyalty. He has said that his films are mostly about rhythm and pace, and that is a fair description of both the virtue and the limit. He likes practical stunts alongside the digital kind, so that even the large sequences have weight and dust in them, and *Terminator 3* has one tremendous set piece to show for it. He casts well against the noise: Nick Stahl's John Connor is pale and twitchy and frightened rather than sulky, Danes plays exasperation better than anyone in the film, and Earl Boen's single scene as Dr Silberman is the best-written thing in it. What got at us was the last reel, which we will not describe: after ninety minutes of a retread that knows it is a retread, the film does something braver than anything around it, and we came away rattled and slightly grateful. The limit is that rhythm and pace are what he offers instead of ideas. *Terminator 3* is a chase built from the same parts as the first film, and its jokes annoyed the people who cared most. *Surrogates* had a premise about identity that most reviewers found the film hurried past on its way to the next sequence. Mostow is not the director you send for when you want a film to think. He is the one you send for when you want it to hold together, get everybody from the clinic to the finish in one piece, and not embarrass the franchise. That is a rarer skill than it sounds, and the third *Terminator* is the clearest argument for it. ## Biography Jonathan Mostow is an American film director, screenwriter and producer. He was born on 28 November 1961 in Woodbridge, Connecticut. He graduated from Harvard University and trained at the American Repertory Company and the Lee Strasberg Institute. Mostow began his career with short films and music videos before directing features including *Beverly Hills Bodysnatchers* (1989) and the television film *Flight of Black Angel* (1991). He established himself in the action genre with *Breakdown* (1997), which he also wrote, followed by *U-571* (2000), which he co-wrote. His subsequent films include *Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines* (2003), *Surrogates* (2009) and *The Hunter's Prayer* (2017). He has also directed episodes of the television series *From the Earth to the Moon* (1998) and *The Last Ship* (2014). *Sources: en.wikipedia.org, imdb.com.* ## On Fi1m (1) - *Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines* (2003), Fi1m 61, Director — [page](https://film.one/film/terminator-3-rise-of-the-machines.md) ## Complete filmography (19) Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page. - *Vidaamuyarchi* (2025), Original Story - *Accused* (2023), series, Director - *The Hunter's Prayer* (2017), Director - *The Last Ship* (2014), series, Director - *Playing for Keeps* (2012), Producer - *House at the End of the Street* (2012), Story - *Surrogates* (2009), Director - *Hancock* (2008), Executive Producer - *Them* (2007), series, Director - *Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines* (2003), Director — Fi1m 61, [page](https://film.one/film/terminator-3-rise-of-the-machines.md) - *U-571* (2000), Director, Story - *From the Earth to the Moon* (1998), series, Director - *The Game* (1997), Executive Producer - *Breakdown* (1997), Director, Screenplay, Story - *Flight of Black Angel* (1991), Director, Story - *Beverly Hills Bodysnatchers* (1989), Director, Story, Producer - *Last Resort* (1986), Location Manager - *Fright Show* (1985), Director, Writer, Producer - *Mr. Dobermind* (1982), Director, Writer --- © 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/jonathan-mostow