How Did 'Drive Find that Higher Gear? The Director Says It Was Thanks to 'Sixteen Candles'

How did 'Drive find that higher gear? The director says it was thanks to 'Sixteen Candles'

For its 15th anniversary, 'Drive' director Nicolas Winding Refn looks back on working with Ryan Gosling, shooting in L.A. and some surprising influences.

"I'd been given this gift of dying": Nicolas Winding Refn on his operatic return to the big screen

Contrary to the internet’s belief, filmmaker Nicolas Winding Refn’s career did not begin with 2011’s Drive, the Los Angeles getaway driver thriller starring Ryan Gosling as an asocial aura-farming antihero. In truth, Drive marked the halfway point of Refn’s career; the Danish provocateur had already explored the dark psychological side of Copenhagen crime in his Pusher trilogy, given Tom Hardy his breakout role as England’s most violent offender…

Movie review: Nicolas Winding Refn's 'Her Private Hell' an experience of pure sensation

By the end of “Her Private Hell,” Nicolas Winding Refn’s maximalist meditation on death, sex and daddy issues, I had to grin. Maybe it was Pino Donaggio’s swooning score, the fog billowing among the pastel pink sets of oversized crystals ...

Nicholas Winding Refn: I Died for 25 Minutes Before Making Her Private Hell

Nicholas Winding Refn was done.  He learned, three years ago, that he had a medical condition known as a leaking heart — “which means that my blood was running backwards.” It was a sudden diagnosis, and potentially fatal. The surgery to save him required that his heart be separated from the rest of his body for 25 minutes, a time in which, he says, he was essentially dead. “But it came at the right time in my life, because I had come to the crea…

Nicolas Winding Refn Says HBO “Started To Have A Heart Attack” Over ‘Maniac Cop’ Series; Film Version Shoots Soon: “Now Is The Time”

Provocative Danish filmmaker Nicolas Winding Refn has been trying to resurrect “Maniac Cop” for roughly 16 years, which is fitting for a franchise built around a murderous policeman who refuses to stay dead. The remake first took shape as a film for John Hyams, then mutated into an HBO series before the network finally read Refn’s scripts and, in his words, “started to have a heart attack.” READ MORE: ‘Her Private Hell’ Director Nicolas Winding …

Listen to Pino Donaggio's Haunting Score in a New Clip from Nicolas Winding Refn's 'Her Private Hell'

One of the year’s most intriguing horror releases arrives in theaters this Friday, and a newly released clip puts the spotlight on one of its biggest draws: the music. Ahead of its theatrical debut, a new clip from Nicolas Winding Refn‘s Her Private Hell showcases the film’s original score by legendary composer Pino Donaggio, whose unforgettable work on films like Carrie, Dressed to Kill, Body Double, and Don’t Look Now helped define an era of p…