Stephen Quay
Known for: Directing
Born: June 17, 1947
Place of birth: Norristown, Pennsylvania, USA
Stephen Quay was born in 1947 in Norristown, Pennsylvania, USA. He studied illustration at the Philadelphia College of Art and later continued his education at the Royal College of Art in London, where he met his twin brother Timothy and began collaborating in animation. Together, they founded Atelier Koninck and produced their first experimental short films in the late 1970s. Throughout his career, Stephen has directed and co-directed short films, feature films, and stop-motion projects, including Nocturna Artificialia (1979), Street of Crocodiles (1986), Institute Benjamenta (1995), and The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes (2005). His work is characterized by dreamlike, detailed, and symbolic worlds, often using dolls and carefully crafted objects to create surreal and unsettling atmospheres.
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Filmography
58 movies · 0 TV shows, newest first
NR
Sledgehammer Revealed
2026
5.8
Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass
20256.0
The Art Teacher from Drohobycz: Bruno Schulz
2022
NR
Ghosts and Whispers
2022
6.0
11 Preliminary Orbits Around Planet Lem
2021
7.0
VadeMecum
2021
6.0
The Doll's Breath
20196.0
The Music of Zdeněk Liška
2017
6.0
The 1000 Eyes of Dr Maddin
2015
6.0
Quay
2015
6.1
Unmistaken Hands: Ex Voto F.H.
2013
NR
Behind the Scenes with the Quay Brothers
2011
6.4
Through the Weeping Glass: On the Consolations of Life Everlasting (Limbos & Afterbreezes in the Mütter Museum)
2011
6.0
Wonderwood: Comme des garçons
2010
7.0
Maska
2010
NR
Inside The Institute
2010
NR
The Art of Time
2009
NR
Kinoteka Ident
2009
4.0
The Bug Trainer
20095.0
Inventorium of Traces
2009
5.6
Eurydice: She, So Beloved
2007
6.3
Alice in Not So Wonderland
2007
9.0
Phantom Museums: The Short Films of the Quay Brothers
2007
NR
The Making of "The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes"
2006
6.3
The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes
2005
6.0
Quay Brothers: The Short Films 1979-2003
2004
6.3
The Phantom Museum: Random Forays Into the Vaults of Sir Henry Wellcome's Medical Collection
2003
5.2
Songs for Dead Children
2003
6.0
Sonic Cinema: Sparklehorse
2001
5.8
Stille Nacht V: Dog Door
2001
6.3
The Sandman
2000
6.5
In Absentia
2000
6.0
The Brothers Quay Collection: Ten Astonishing Short Films 1984-1993
2000
7.6
Institute Benjamenta, or This Dream People Call Human Life
1995
5.3
The Summit
1995
6.9
Stille Nacht IV: Can't Go Wrong Without You
1993
6.1
Stille Nacht III: Tales from Vienna Woods
1993
6.6
Anamorphosis
1993
6.1
Stille Nacht II: Are We Still Married?
1992
6.7
The Comb
1991
6.4
The Calligrapher
1991
4.0
Ex Voto
1989
5.0
Rain Dance
1988
6.6
Rehearsals for Extinct Anatomies
1988
6.4
Stille Nacht I: Dramolet
1988
6.9
Tales of the Brothers Quay
1987
6.6
Street of Crocodiles
1986
6.2
This Unnameable Little Broom
1985
6.9
The Cabinet of Jan Švankmajer
1984
6.0
The Cabinet of Jan Švankmajer: Prague's Alchemist of Film
19845.8
Janáček: Intimate Excursions
1983
7.3
The Falls
19826.2
Igor Stravinsky: The Paris Years Chez Pleyel 1920-1929
19829.0
A Fratricide
1981
6.3
Punch and Judy: Tragical Comedy or Comical Tragedy
1981
6.7
The Eternal Day of Michel de Ghelderode
1981
5.9
Nocturna Artificialia
1979NR
Kieślowski by Quays
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