is an American filmmaker. He first came to public attention as the director of the action-adventure romantic comedy Romancing the Stone (1984), the science-fiction comedy Back to the Future trilogy (1985–1990), and the live-action/animated comedy Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988). He subsequently directed the satirical black comedy Death Becomes Her (1992) and then diversified into more dramatic fare, including Forrest Gump (1994),^[4] for which he won the Academy Award for Best Director. The film also won the Best Picture.

Zemeckis is regarded as an innovator in visual effects.^[5][6] His exploration of state-of-the-art special effects includes the early use of computer graphics inserted into live-action footage in Back to the Future Part II (1989) and Forrest Gump, the insertion of hand-drawn animation into live-action footage in Who Framed Roger Rabbit, and the performance capture techniques seen in The Polar Express (2004), Beowulf (2007), A Christmas Carol (2009), and Welcome to Marwen (2018).