---
name: "Mary Harron"
canonical: "https://film.one/person/mary-harron"
fi1m_id: "mary-harron"
imdb_id: "nm0366004"
tmdb_id: 16378
wikidata_id: "Q348868"
roles: ["Director","Writer"]
born: "12 January 1953"
reviewed_on_fi1m: 5
average_fi1m_score: 83
average_as: "director"
average_over: 5
updated: "2026-10-02T21:46:55.860257+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."
---

# Mary Harron

## Identity

Mary Harron

- **Canonical:** https://film.one/person/mary-harron
- **Type:** Person
- **Fi1m ID:** mary-harron
- **IMDb ID:** nm0366004
- **TMDB ID:** 16378
- **Wikidata ID:** Q348868
- **Same entity:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Harron, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q348868, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0366004/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/16378

Director and writer. Born 12 January 1953 in Ontario, Canada.

## Details

- **Work:** Director, Writer
- **Born:** 12 January 1953, Ontario, Canada
- **Active:** 1993–2006
- **Frequently works with:** [Alan Taylor](https://film.one/person/alan-taylor.md), [Daniel Minahan](https://film.one/person/daniel-minahan.md), [Kathy Bates](https://film.one/person/kathy-bates.md), [Adam Bernstein](https://film.one/person/adam-bernstein.md), [Adam Davidson](https://film.one/person/adam-davidson.md), [Alan Poul](https://film.one/person/alan-poul.md), [Barbara Kopple](https://film.one/person/barbara-kopple.md), [Chloë Sevigny](https://film.one/person/chloe-sevigny.md)
- **Average Fi1m score:** 83, as director, over 5 titles
- **Fi1m score by decade:** 1990s 84 (2), 2000s 82 (3)
- **Fi1m against the critics:** 83 to 79 across 5 titles
- **Score spread:** 4 at 80+, 1 at 60–79, 0 under 60
- **Genres:** Drama 5, Crime 3, Mystery 1, Thriller 1
- **Screen time:** 2 hours of reviewed films
- **Box office:** $34m across 1 films with figures
- **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Harron, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q348868, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0366004/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/16378

## Streaming the US now

- **HBO Max:** [*Six Feet Under*](https://film.one/tv/six-feet-under.md) (86), [*Oz*](https://film.one/tv/oz.md) (80), [*Big Love*](https://film.one/tv/big-love.md) (79)
- **Hulu:** [*American Psycho*](https://film.one/film/american-psycho.md) (80)

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

## Fi1m on Mary Harron

> Mary Harron is sharp on male vanity and on the attention paid to notorious people. We value her dry humour and her interest in women others dismiss, though her portraits sometimes leave their subjects’ private thoughts frustratingly out of reach.

In *American Psycho* (2000), male entitlement looks ridiculous even when the men taking it for granted cannot see it. We laughed at that self-importance, because Harron makes the excess of the 1980s look so embarrassing. It is the clearest starting point for her work. Her interest in people who attract attention also takes her towards women whose notoriety has made them easy to dismiss.

Her feature debut, *I Shot Andy Warhol* (1996), centres on Valerie Solanas, establishing an interest in women whose reputations can obscure everything else about them. *The Notorious Bettie Page* (2006) carries that interest into the life of a 1950s pin-up model. Harron gets the period across, but leaves too much of Page’s thinking unexplored. Screenwriter Guinevere Turner is a frequent collaborator across a career that keeps returning to fame, violence and the roles women are expected to play.

Harron’s television work includes *Six Feet Under* (2001), a series we recommend for its ensemble acting and comedy that takes grief seriously. The Fishers are exhausting company, but the series earns the time spent with them by making their difficulties worth caring about. Its tendency to brood beyond the point of usefulness remains a qualification. We cannot sensibly assign either the whole achievement or that weakness to one of its directors. It does offer another way into Harron’s work, particularly for anyone who prefers the complications of an ensemble to a portrait of one notorious person.

Television also gives her *Alias Grace* (2017), the miniseries adapted from Margaret Atwood’s novel. With *Charlie Says* (2019), she returns to the Manson family women and lets their perspective determine which story gets told. She keeps asking us to spend time with women we might otherwise know only by name, although attention alone does not guarantee understanding. Start with *American Psycho* for the satire; approach *The Notorious Bettie Page* with fewer expectations of psychological depth.

## Biography

Mary Harron is a Canadian film director and screenwriter. Born in Bracebridge, Ontario, she studied English at Oxford University before working as a journalist in the New York punk scene and later as a researcher and director for British television documentaries and satirical shorts.

Her feature debut was *I Shot Andy Warhol* (1996), which she also wrote. She subsequently directed and co-wrote *American Psycho* (2000) and *The Notorious Bettie Page* (2005). Later films include *The Moth Diaries* (2011), *Charlie Says* (2018) and *Dalíland* (2022).

Harron has directed episodes of television series including *Oz* (1998), *Six Feet Under* (2005), *The L Word* (2004), *Big Love* (2006), *The Following* (2015) and *Constantine* (2015), as well as the miniseries *Alias Grace* (2017).

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

## On Fi1m (5)

- *Big Love* (2006), Fi1m 79, Director — [page](https://film.one/tv/big-love.md)
- *Six Feet Under* (2001), Fi1m 86, Director — [page](https://film.one/tv/six-feet-under.md)
- *American Psycho* (2000), Fi1m 80, Screenplay, Director — [page](https://film.one/film/american-psycho.md)
- *Oz* (1997), Fi1m 80, Director — [page](https://film.one/tv/oz.md)
- *Homicide: Life on the Street* (1993), Fi1m 89, Director — [page](https://film.one/tv/homicide-life-on-the-street.md)

## Complete filmography (29)

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

- *Mexican Psycho* (2022), Original Film Writer
- *Dalíland* (2022), Director, Writer
- *Killer, Trader and Psychopath: The America of Bret Easton Ellis* (2021), Thanks
- *The Expecting* (2020), series, Director
- *Charlie Says* (2019), Director
- *Alias Grace* (2017), series, Executive Producer, Director
- *The Real American* (2015), Executive Producer
- *Constantine* (2014), series, Director
- *We the Economy: 20 Short Films You Can't Afford to Miss* (2014), Director
- *This Won't Hurt a Bit* (2014), Director
- *Anna Nicole* (2013), Director
- *Graceland* (2013), series, Director
- *The Following* (2013), series, Director
- *The Moth Diaries* (2011), Director, Screenplay
- *The Night Before Christmas* (2008), Director
- *Community* (2008), Director
- *Fear Itself* (2008), series, Director
- *The Nine* (2006), series, Director
- *Six Degrees* (2006), series, Director
- *The Notorious Bettie Page* (2006), Director, Writer, Executive Producer
- *Big Love* (2006), series, Director — Fi1m 79, [page](https://film.one/tv/big-love.md)
- *The L Word* (2004), series, Director
- *Six Feet Under* (2001), series, Director — Fi1m 86, [page](https://film.one/tv/six-feet-under.md)
- *American Psycho* (2000), Screenplay, Director — Fi1m 80, [page](https://film.one/film/american-psycho.md)
- *Oz* (1997), series, Director — Fi1m 80, [page](https://film.one/tv/oz.md)
- *I Shot Andy Warhol* (1996), Director, Writer
- *Homicide: Life on the Street* (1993), series, Director — Fi1m 89, [page](https://film.one/tv/homicide-life-on-the-street.md)
- *How to Make an Oliver Stone Movie* (1992), Director
- *7 Deadly Sins: Stage Acting* (1989), Producer

## Gallery

- ![Guinevere Turner and Mary Harron at the premiere of Charlie Says during the Montclair Film Festival 2019.](https://film.one/media/person/61381/gallery-6f2a748ba5d7.jpg) Guinevere Turner and Mary Harron at the premiere of Charlie Says during the Montclair Film Festival 2019. — Montclair Film, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/23/Charlie_Says_%2846888012355%29.jpg/1280px-Charlie_Says_%2846888012355%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)
- ![Mary Harron and Guinevere Turner at the premiere of Charlie Says during the Montclair Film Festival 2019.](https://film.one/media/person/61381/gallery-1d8d0ef377f3.jpg) Mary Harron and Guinevere Turner at the premiere of Charlie Says during the Montclair Film Festival 2019. — Montclair Film, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ef/Charlie_Says_%2847752272052%29.jpg/1280px-Charlie_Says_%2847752272052%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)
- ![Filmmaker Mary Harron at the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival in 2013](https://film.one/media/person/61381/gallery-bdad6f61558a.jpg) Filmmaker Mary Harron at the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival in 2013 — Dublin International Film Festival, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/18/Mary_Harron%2C_2013_%28ZeJTXgHfJtE%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled)
- ![Mary Harron](https://film.one/media/person/61381/gallery-bae9235b9858.jpg) Mary Harron — Montclair Film, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/60/Mary_Harron%2C_2019_%2840838092713%29_%28cropped%29.jpg/1280px-Mary_Harron%2C_2019_%2840838092713%29_%28cropped%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)
- ![Photography by Frank Schramm (2019)](https://film.one/media/person/61381/gallery-f605027d63f4.jpg) Photography by Frank Schramm (2019) — Montclair Film, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/31/Mary_Harron.jpg/1280px-Mary_Harron.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/mary-harron