Julius Onah
Birthdate: February 10, 1983 (43 Years Old)
Birthplace: Makurdi, Benue State, Nigeria
Julius Onah is an acclaimed director/writer/producer with roots in Nigeria and a key filmmaking role in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Onah’s feature filmmaking debut was his thesis film in New York University’s graduate film program, The Girl Is in Trouble (2015), executive-produced by Spike Lee and with Columbus Short, Alicja Bachleda, Wilmer Valderrama, Paz de la Huerta and Jesse Spencer, and released by Entertainment One.
Onah’s first studio-backed movie was as director only of the third feature in the Paramount Pictures-produced Cloverfield franchise, The Cloverfield Paradox (2018), produced by J.J. Abrams and Lindsey Weber and co-starring Daniel Brühl, Elizabeth Debicki, Ansel Hennie, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Chris O’Dowd, John Ortiz, David Oyewolo and Zhang Ziyi, and which was sold by Paramount to Netflix for $50 million.
Onah had his filmmaking breakthrough as director/writer/producer of the acclaimed drama, Luce (2019), starring Naomi Watts, Octavia Spencer, Kelvin Harrison Jr., and Tim Roth, premiering at the Sundance Film Festival and released by Neon, and earning three Independent Spirit Awards nominations.
Julius Onah (with director and Onah’s regular collaborator, J.C. Lee) co-wrote the acclaimed English-language remake of Nattawut Poonpiriya’s 2017 Thai heist thriller, Bad Genius (2024), co-starring Callina Liang, Benedict Wong, Jabari Banks and Taylor Hickson, and released in a limited pattern by Vertical.
Onah entered the Marvel Cinematic Universe as director/co-writer of the sequel, Captain America: Brave New World (2025), starring Anthony Mackie in the title role, with Danny Ramirez, Shira Haas, Carl Lumbly, Giancarlo Esposito, Tim Blake Nelson, and Harrison Ford, produced by Marvel Studios for a $180 million budget and released by Walt Disney Studios.
Onah as director/producer/co-writer (with Peter Glanz) reunited with actor/executive producer Kelvin Harrison Jr., portraying the late artist Jean-Michel Basquiat in the biopic Samo Lives (date to be announced), and produced by Fifth Season.
Personal life
Julius Onah was born in Makurdi, Nigeria, and was raised in Nigeria, the Philippines, Togo, the U.K., and the U.S. by his father, Nigerian diplomat Adoga Onah, and his mother. Onah has an identical twin brother, filmmaker Anthony. Onah attended and graduated from Washington-Lee High School and then attended and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Theater from Wesleyan University. Onah then received the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation Scholarship and attended New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, where he earned an M.F.A. in filmmaking and was selected a Dean’s Fellow.
Julius Onah Movies
Director
Producer
Writer
Collapse
Previous (2)
- 2024 |
Bad Genius
A group of seniors of an entrepreneurial high school team up to take down a rigged college admissions system.
- 2019 |
Facts About Julius Onah
World Class: Julius Onah owns and manages a global media project, Open Continents, that produces his short films, features, television projects, and music video productions.
New Face: Onah was selectedas one of the “New Faces of Independent Film” by Filmmaker Magazine in 2010.
