David O. Russell
David O. Russell (born 1958) is an American director, producer, and screenwriter, one of the most commercially successful figures of post-1990s American independent cinema. Trained in literature and political science at Amherst, he made his feature debut with the dark independent comedy Spanking the Monkey and has since alternated between modestly budgeted independent features and large studio prestige films built around dense ensemble casts and rapid overlapping dialogue. His acclaimed films include Spanking the Monkey, Flirting with Disaster, Three Kings, I Heart Huckabees, The Fighter, Silver Linings Playbook, American Hustle, and Joy.