Billy Ray (born 1962) is an American screenwriter and film director. He began writing for television and movies in 1994 with Color of Night. He has written numerous successful films, including the first Hunger Games movie (2012), Captain Phillips (2013), and Richard Jewell (2019), earning an Oscar nomination for the second film.
Biography Ray was born in Los Angeles, and raised in Encino, Los Angeles, California. He is from a Jewish family, and attended Steven Wise Temple and Birmingham High School. Starting in 2003, he began to direct as well as write; his first film was Shattered Glass, inspired by the true story of Stephen Glass, a journalist who fabricated a majority of his stories. He was nominated for Most Promising Filmmaker by the Chicago Film Critics Association and an Independent Spirit Award for Best Screenplay for his work on this film. Breach (2007), which Ray co-wrote and directed, tells a similar story about Robert Hanssen, an FBI agent convicted of spying for the Soviet Union and later, Russia, for more than two decades, and Eric O'Neill, who worked as his assistant and helped bring about his downfall.
He is perhaps best known for writing the screenplay to the 2012 blockbuster, The Hunger Games, and his Academy Award-nominated screenplay for the 2013 film, Captain Phillips. Ray also worked with the advertising agency Barkley to help write the AMC Theatres 2021 "We Make Movies Better" campaign starring Nicole Kidman.
In 2026, Scholastic published Ray's first young adult novel, Burn the Water.
Filmography Films Year Title Director Writer Producer1994Color of Night 1995The Shooter1997 Volcano 2002Hart's War 2003Shattered Glass 2004Suspect Zero 2005Flightplan 2007Breach 2009State of Play 2012The Hunger Games 2013Captain Phillips2015The Breakup GirlSecret in Their Eyes 2018Overlord 2019Gemini Man Terminator: Dark FateRichard Jewell2026AnimalsThe Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping
Television Year Title Director Writer Executiveproducer Notes1994–1995Earth 2Co-creator1998Legalese Television film2016–2017The Last TycoonAlso developer2020The Comey Rule Miniseries
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