--- name: "Nimród Antal" canonical: "https://film.one/person/nimrod-antal" fi1m_id: "nimrod-antal" imdb_id: "nm0030735" tmdb_id: 41671 wikidata_id: "Q771774" roles: ["Director"] born: "30 November 1973" reviewed_on_fi1m: 2 average_fi1m_score: 68 average_as: "director" average_over: 2 updated: "2026-09-19T16:52:09.151600+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." --- # Nimród Antal ## Identity Nimród Antal - **Canonical:** https://film.one/person/nimrod-antal - **Type:** Person - **Fi1m ID:** nimrod-antal - **IMDb ID:** nm0030735 - **TMDB ID:** 41671 - **Wikidata ID:** Q771774 - **Same entity:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nimr%C3%B3d_Antal, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q771774, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0030735/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/41671 Director. Born 30 November 1973 in Los Angeles, California, USA. ## Details - **Work:** Director - **Born:** 30 November 1973, Los Angeles, California, USA - **Active:** 2010–2016 - **Also known as:** Nimród E. Antal, Antal Nimród - **Average Fi1m score:** 68, as director, over 2 titles - **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nimr%C3%B3d_Antal, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q771774, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0030735/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/41671 ## Streaming the US now - **Netflix:** [*Stranger Things*](https://film.one/tv/stranger-things.md) (77) For United States; add `?region=XX` for another country. ## Fi1m on Nimród Antal > Nimród Antal shuts people in and makes them sweat: a metro, a motel, a car, a jungle that turns out to be a cage. He builds tension carefully, and on the evidence we have, he is better at starting a film than at finishing one. The best thing in *Predators* (2010) is its first idea. Soldiers are dropped by parachute into a jungle, and it slowly dawns on them, and on us, that the jungle is not ours and the hunting is what it is for. For an hour Antal keeps the monsters out of sight and lets the strangers size each other up. Then he brings the hunters into daylight and lets them stand there, at length, and a film that had been about not knowing becomes a film about looking. Locking a cast into one place is the whole career. Antal was born in Los Angeles to Hungarian parents, went to Hungary in 1991 to train, and made his debut, *Kontroll* (2003), in the Budapest metro, where it stayed. He came back to Los Angeles in 2005 and made *Vacancy* (2007), a horror film in a motel, and *Armored* (2009), before Robert Rodriguez hired him for *Predators*. Since then the work has scattered: a concert film, *Metallica: Through the Never* (2013); a Hungarian feature, *The Whiskey Bandit* (2017); *Retribution* (2023), which puts Liam Neeson in a car and keeps him there; and television, including episodes of *Wayward Pines*, *Servant* and the fourth run of *Stranger Things*. What he does well is plain. Give him a corridor, a handful of character actors and a reason they cannot leave, and he will get more out of it than most. Gyula Pados, who has shot two of his films, is the collaborator to look for. We were properly tense for the first hour of *Predators*: strangers who might be the next to die, a river that had to be crossed, and nothing shown. We drifted in the last twenty minutes and were a little surprised how little we missed. The reason is the one our review gave at the time. John McTiernan hid his monster for most of *Predator* (1987); Antal has three and cannot stop looking at them. The instinct that makes his openings work, holding back, deserts him when the plot needs paying off. *Stranger Things* is the odd one out, and telling. Our review of the series did not pick out any single director, and we will not pretend to. What it did say is that the later runs get bigger, and not always where it counts. Handing a director whose gift is for small rooms one of the largest programmes on television is the kind of decision that makes sense on paper. He is not a director we would send a stranger to, but he is a reliable one, and reliability is rarer than it sounds. If you want the case for him, watch the first hour of *Predators* with the volume up. If you want the case against, keep watching. ## Biography Nimród E. Antal is a Hungarian-American film director, screenwriter and actor. Born in Los Angeles in 1973 to parents of Hungarian descent, he moved to Hungary in 1991 to study at the Hungarian Film Academy in Budapest. After graduating he worked in the Hungarian film and television industry before returning to Los Angeles in 2005. He wrote and directed the Hungarian-language feature *Kontroll* (2003), which won the Award of the Youth at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival and other prizes. His subsequent feature films include *Vacancy* (2007), *Armored* (2009), *Predators* (2010), *Metallica: Through the Never* (2013) and *Retribution* (2023). On television he has directed episodes of *Wayward Pines* (2015), *Servant* (2019–2023) and two episodes of *Stranger Things* season 4 (2022). *Sources: en.wikipedia.org, imdb.com.* ## On Fi1m (2) - *Stranger Things* (2016), Fi1m 77, Director — [page](https://film.one/tv/stranger-things.md) - *Predators* (2010), Fi1m 60, Director — [page](https://film.one/film/predators.md) ## Complete filmography (16) Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page. - *Afterburn* (2025), Writer - *Retribution* (2023), Director - *Servant* (2019), series, Director - *The Whiskey Bandit* (2017), Director, Idea, Story, Screenplay - *Stranger Things* (2016), series, Director — Fi1m 77, [page](https://film.one/tv/stranger-things.md) - *Wayward Pines* (2015), series, Director - *Metallica: Through the Never* (2013), Director, Writer - *Machete* (2010), as Booth's Bodyguard #1 - *Predators* (2010), Director — Fi1m 60, [page](https://film.one/film/predators.md) - *Armored* (2009), Director - *Vacancy* (2007), Director - *Kontroll* (2003), Director, Screenplay - *Close to Love* (1999), as Gyuri - *Insurance* (1998), Director - *Shooting Clowns* (1994), Director - *Bluefly*, Director ## Gallery - ![Nimród Antal](https://film.one/media/person/23528/gallery-200d1179edf8.jpg) Nimród Antal — Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2a/Nimrod_Antal_by_Gage_Skidmore.jpg/1280px-Nimrod_Antal_by_Gage_Skidmore.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail) - ![Nimród Antal (2013)](https://film.one/media/person/23528/gallery-88f8e8eff3b3.jpg) Nimród Antal (2013) — Anna Hanks from Austin, Texas, USA, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/50/Nimr%C3%B3d_Antal_%2810678780654%29.jpg/1280px-Nimr%C3%B3d_Antal_%2810678780654%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail) - ![Nimród Antal (2013)](https://film.one/media/person/23528/gallery-fa081e5e52a1.jpg) Nimród Antal (2013) — Anna Hanks from Austin, Texas, USA, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d5/Nimr%C3%B3d_Antal_%2810678805246%29.jpg/1280px-Nimr%C3%B3d_Antal_%2810678805246%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail) - ![Nimród Antal (2013)](https://film.one/media/person/23528/gallery-34facbb2e04d.jpg) Nimród Antal (2013) — Anna Hanks from Austin, Texas, USA, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c4/Nimr%C3%B3d_Antal_%2810678805246%29_%28cropped%29.jpg/1280px-Nimr%C3%B3d_Antal_%2810678805246%29_%28cropped%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail) - ![Nimród Antal (2013)](https://film.one/media/person/23528/gallery-09f0bd4a164e.jpg) Nimród Antal (2013) — Anna Hanks from Austin, Texas, USA, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/ab/Nimr%C3%B3d_Antal_%2810678824285%29.jpg/1280px-Nimr%C3%B3d_Antal_%2810678824285%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail) ## Awards ### Other awards — 0 won, 3 nominated - Hungarian Film Award for Best Director 2017: Hungarian Film Award for Best Director (nominated), for *The Whiskey Bandit* - Hungarian Film Award for Best Screenwriter (Feature Film) 2017: Hungarian Film Award for Best Screenwriter (Feature Film) (nominated), for *The Whiskey Bandit* - European Film Award for Best Director 2004: European Film Award for Best Director (nominated), for *Kontroll* *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/nimrod-antal