---
name: "Len Wiseman"
canonical: "https://film.one/person/len-wiseman"
fi1m_id: "len-wiseman"
imdb_id: "nm0936482"
tmdb_id: 3950
wikidata_id: "Q336099"
roles: ["Director"]
born: "4 March 1973"
reviewed_on_fi1m: 3
average_fi1m_score: 63
average_as: "director"
average_over: 3
updated: "2026-10-01T04:05:30.042619+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."
---

# Len Wiseman

## Identity

Len Wiseman

- **Canonical:** https://film.one/person/len-wiseman
- **Type:** Person
- **Fi1m ID:** len-wiseman
- **IMDb ID:** nm0936482
- **TMDB ID:** 3950
- **Wikidata ID:** Q336099
- **Same entity:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Len_Wiseman, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q336099, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0936482/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/3950

Director. Born 4 March 1973 in Fremont, California, USA.

## Details

- **Work:** Director
- **Born:** 4 March 1973, Fremont, California, USA
- **Active:** 2007–present
- **Also known as:** Len Ryan Wiseman 
- **Frequently works with:** [Brad Tanenbaum](https://film.one/person/brad-tanenbaum.md), [Eagle Egilsson](https://film.one/person/eagle-egilsson.md), [Karen Gaviola](https://film.one/person/karen-gaviola.md), [Matt Earl Beesley](https://film.one/person/matt-earl-beesley.md)
- **Average Fi1m score:** 63, as director, over 3 titles
- **Fi1m score by decade:** 2000s 65 (1), 2010s 65 (1), 2020s 58 (1)
- **Fi1m against the critics:** 63 to 60 across 3 titles
- **Score spread:** 0 at 80+, 2 at 60–79, 1 under 60
- **Genres:** Action 2, Crime 2, Thriller 2, Action & Adventure 1, Drama 1
- **Screen time:** 4 hours of reviewed films
- **Box office:** $521m across 2 films with figures
- **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Len_Wiseman, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q336099, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0936482/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/3950

## Streaming the US now

- **Apple TV:** [*Hawaii Five-0*](https://film.one/tv/hawaii-five-0.md) (65)
- **HBO Max:** [*Ballerina*](https://film.one/film/ballerina.md) (58)

For United States; add `?region=XX` for another country.

## Fi1m on Len Wiseman

> Len Wiseman builds a real set, stands the camera far enough back, and lets us watch something heavy fall. When that is all a scene needs, he is good. When a film needs a person to matter more than the wreckage, he has not yet managed it.

Near the end of *Live Free or Die Hard* (2007), John McClane, out of bullets, sends a police car up a toll-booth ramp and into a hovering helicopter. It is impossible, and it works, because Wiseman showed us the car, the ramp and the helicopter in one shot before he put them together. We laughed out loud, and we were still laughing when Willis explained himself afterwards. That is the Wiseman we like: a man who builds the thing and then trusts us to see it.

He came up through the art department, on Roland Emmerich's *Stargate* (1994), *Independence Day* (1996) and *Godzilla* (1998), and it shows in the best and the worst of him. His debut, *Underworld* (2003), which he also co-wrote, is all blue-black night and wet stone, and the look was strong enough to carry a franchise; he made the sequel, *Underworld: Evolution* (2006), and Kate Beckinsale has now made three films with him, Danny McBride has written two. Then came the *Die Hard*, *Total Recall* (2012), and a long stretch in television before *Ballerina* (2025) brought him back to features.

The habit that serves him is patience with a practical stunt. He storyboards his action heavily and would rather have a real set than a green screen, and when Cyril Raffaelli runs up a wall or Maggie Q fights McClane down a lift shaft, the camera is where it should be and Nicolas De Toth's cutting does not lose us. He has said, "I embrace limitations. The limitations of filmmaking are something that feels real," and in his good sequences you can see the point. The habit that fails him is scale. *Live Free or Die Hard* asks one cop to save the whole eastern seaboard, and the man gets lost in the country.

*Ballerina* is the clearest case. Ana de Armas earns the franchise and the film spends its first hour explaining why, in dialogue, and it is a slog. The idea that dance and killing are the same discipline is said several times and shown never. Set against Chad Stahelski's *John Wick* (2014), which held its shots wide and long so every hit could be counted, Wiseman's first half looks cramped; Stahelski is credited as a producer, and you can feel him in the last hour, once the flamethrowers come out. The night suits Wiseman. The wide shot, held, does not come as naturally to him as it should.

Most critics have him down as competent action product, and on the evidence of the two films we have reviewed we cannot argue hard. He is a reliable builder of the frame who has not yet made a film in which the people inside it matter as much as the set. His films tend to improve once the talking stops, which is a compliment to his stunt teams and a warning about his scripts.

## Biography

Len Wiseman is an American film director, screenwriter and producer. Born in Fremont, California, he began his career in the art department on Roland Emmerich films including *Stargate* (1994), *Independence Day* (1996) and *Godzilla* (1998). He later directed music videos and commercials before making his feature debut with *Underworld* (2003), which he also co-wrote.

Wiseman directed the sequels *Underworld: Evolution* (2006) and *Live Free or Die Hard* (2007). He went on to direct *Total Recall* (2012) and served as producer on further entries in the *Underworld* series through his company Sketch Films. He has also directed television pilots including those for *Hawaii Five-0* (2010), *Sleepy Hollow* (2013) and *Lucifer* (2016), and executive produced several series. In 2025 he directed the *John Wick* spin-off *Ballerina*.

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

## On Fi1m (3)

- *Ballerina* (2025), Fi1m 58, Director — [page](https://film.one/film/ballerina.md)
- *Hawaii Five-0* (2010), Fi1m 65, Director — [page](https://film.one/tv/hawaii-five-0.md)
- *Live Free or Die Hard* (2007), Fi1m 65, Director — [page](https://film.one/film/live-free-or-die-hard.md)

## Complete filmography (17)

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

- *Ballerina* (2025), Director — Fi1m 58, [page](https://film.one/film/ballerina.md)
- *Swamp Thing* (2019), series, Producer, Director
- *The Gifted* (2017), series, Director
- *APB* (2017), series, Executive Producer
- *Underworld: Blood Wars* (2016), Characters, Producer
- *Lucifer* (2016), series, Executive Producer, Director
- *Sleepy Hollow* (2013), series, Director, Story, Executive Producer, Second Unit Director, Creator
- *Max Steel* (2013), series, Creator
- *Total Recall* (2012), Director, Executive Producer
- *Underworld: Awakening* (2012), Characters, Producer, Story, Screenplay
- *Underworld: Endless War* (2011), series, Writer
- *Underworld: Endless War* (2011), Characters
- *Hawaii Five-0* (2010), series, Director — Fi1m 65, [page](https://film.one/tv/hawaii-five-0.md)
- *Underworld: Rise of the Lycans* (2009), Characters, Producer, Story
- *Live Free or Die Hard* (2007), Director — Fi1m 65, [page](https://film.one/film/live-free-or-die-hard.md)
- *Underworld: Evolution* (2006), Director, Executive Producer, Story, Characters
- *Underworld* (2003), Director, Story

## Gallery

- ![Len Wiseman](https://film.one/media/person/8418/gallery-b01210890450.jpg) Len Wiseman — Caroline Bonarde Ucci at https://www.flickr.com/photos/caroline_bonarde/, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/30/LenWisemanJune07.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled)
- ![Len Wiseman, Trey Callaway, Justin Kirk, Ernie Hudson and Caitlin Stasey speaking at the 2017 WonderCon, for "APB", at the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim,](https://film.one/media/person/8418/gallery-72c78843417b.jpg) Len Wiseman, Trey Callaway, Justin Kirk, Ernie Hudson and Caitlin Stasey speaking at the 2017 WonderCon, for "APB", at the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, — Gage Skidmore from Peoria, AZ, United States of America, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e9/Len_Wiseman%2C_Trey_Callaway%2C_Justin_Kirk%2C_Ernie_Hudson_%26_Caitlin_Stasey_%2833689473002%29.jpg/1280px-Len_Wiseman%2C_Trey_Callaway%2C_Justin_Kirk%2C_Ernie_Hudson_%26_Caitlin_Stasey_%2833689473002%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)
- ![Len Wiseman, Trey Callaway, Justin Kirk, Ernie Hudson and Caitlin Stasey speaking at the 2017 WonderCon, for "APB", at the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim,](https://film.one/media/person/8418/gallery-7bb507a008af.jpg) Len Wiseman, Trey Callaway, Justin Kirk, Ernie Hudson and Caitlin Stasey speaking at the 2017 WonderCon, for "APB", at the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, — Gage Skidmore from Peoria, AZ, United States of America, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c8/Len_Wiseman%2C_Trey_Callaway%2C_Justin_Kirk%2C_Ernie_Hudson_%26_Caitlin_Stasey_%28cropped%29.jpg/1280px-Len_Wiseman%2C_Trey_Callaway%2C_Justin_Kirk%2C_Ernie_Hudson_%26_Caitlin_Stasey_%28cropped%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)
- ![Len Wiseman, Trey Callaway, Justin Kirk and Ernie Hudson speaking at the 2017 WonderCon, for "APB", at the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, California. Ple](https://film.one/media/person/8418/gallery-2a1b38a12eb7.jpg) Len Wiseman, Trey Callaway, Justin Kirk and Ernie Hudson speaking at the 2017 WonderCon, for "APB", at the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, California. Ple — Gage Skidmore from Peoria, AZ, United States of America, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c1/Len_Wiseman%2C_Trey_Callaway%2C_Justin_Kirk_%26_Ernie_Hudson_%2833002092114%29.jpg/1280px-Len_Wiseman%2C_Trey_Callaway%2C_Justin_Kirk_%26_Ernie_Hudson_%2833002092114%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)
- ![Len Wiseman](https://film.one/media/person/8418/gallery-4e7e41a46e26.jpg) Len Wiseman — Image via TMDB
- ![If you're wondering what you do at a premiere when you're Kate Beckinsale's husband, you mill around. Len Wiseman at the premiere of Nothing But the Truth, Toro (2007)](https://film.one/media/person/8418/gallery-3be9cd2cb6b5.jpg) If you're wondering what you do at a premiere when you're Kate Beckinsale's husband, you mill around. Len Wiseman at the premiere of Nothing But the Truth, Toro (2007) — GabboT, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/88/Len_Wiseman01_%287066663545%29.jpg/1280px-Len_Wiseman01_%287066663545%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)
- ![Len Wiseman at the premiere of Nothing But the Truth, Toronto Film Festival 2008. (2007)](https://film.one/media/person/8418/gallery-70c84bb783b9.jpg) Len Wiseman at the premiere of Nothing But the Truth, Toronto Film Festival 2008. (2007) — GabboT, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/dc/Len_Wiseman02_%287066663681%29.jpg/1280px-Len_Wiseman02_%287066663681%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)

---
© 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/len-wiseman