Guy Stuart Ritchie (born 10 September 1968) is an English filmmaker known for his crime films. He left secondary school and got entry-level jobs in the film industry in the mid-1990s. He eventually graduated to directing commercials. He directed his first film in 1995, a 20-minute short which impressed investors who backed his first feature film, the crime comedy
Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998). He then directed another crime comedy,
Snatch (2000). His next two films, the romantic comedy
Swept Away (2002) and the crime drama
Revolver (2005) were not commercial or critical successes. The next crime drama,
RocknRolla (2008), received mixed reviews and a modest box office return. In 2009, he directed his first films in the action mystery genre, with
Sherlock Holmes (2009) and its sequel
Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011). Both films were major box office successes, and the two films received positive, and moderately positive reviews, respectively.