“I try to tell the best story, and the story that has some heart and some genuine terror and some social commentary and some comedy and some romance and some sex and some violence.”

American writer and director, contemporary

Alan Erwin Ball is an American writer and director for film and television. He is best known for writing the screenplay for American Beauty (1999), which earned him the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. Ball also created the HBO series Six Feet Under and True Blood, and served as an executive producer on Banshee. In addition to television, he wrote and directed the films Towelhead and Uncle Frank, showing a career that moves between sharp drama, dark humor, and family-centered stories.