Alexandre Aja

Aja was born and raised in Paris. He is the son of film director Alexandre Arcady and journalist Marie-Jo Jouan. His professional surname, Aja, is derived from his given name and his parents' surnames.^[1]

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Aja acted at a very young age in minor roles in his father's films such as Le Grand Carnaval [fr], and the two Le Grand Pardon [fr] films.

He made his directorial debut at the age of eighteen with the short film Over the Rainbow, which was selected for the short-film competition at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival.^[2] In 1999 he directed Furia, a film based on Julio Cortázar's short story Graffiti. From Furia and his next features, he frequently works with Grégory Levasseur as writers such as in The Hills Have Eyes, Mirrors, P2, and Piranha 3D. Levasseur also made his works as production designer too.

Aja directed Haute Tension, which was released in France in 2003 and in the United States in 2005. The French slasher, though sticking to horror conventions, pushed the envelope of gore and tension. Favouring make-up effects over computer-generated imagery, the film quickly found respect among horror fans. It was released in the US as High Tension, after some editing. The film was nominated for the grand prize at the Amsterdam Fantastic Film Festival, and earned Aja awards for Best Direction and Best Fantasy Film at the Sitges Film Festival.

After seeing High Tension, Wes Craven asked Aja to develop a concept for a remake of his 1977 film The Hills Have Eyes, which Aja subsequently directed.^[3]

His next project was a horror film entitled Mirrors, about a mysterious mirror that brings out the worst aspects of people whenever they look at themselves in it. The film is a remake of the K-Horror film Into the Mirror. Aja directed Piranha 3D, a horror movie about prehistoric piranhas in Arizona.^[4] It is a remake of the 1978 film Piranha.^[5]

Because Aja was working on Mirrors, he did not direct The Hills Have Eyes 2, which was released on 10 March 2007.^{[6][failed verification]}

In 2004, Aja was named by Variety on the Ten Directors to Watch list. He is a member of the so-called Splat Pack, a term coined by film historian Alan Jones in Total Film magazine for a new wave of directors making brutally violent horror films. The other Splat Pack members are Darren Lynn Bousman, Neil Marshall, Greg McLean, Eli Roth, James Wan, Leigh Whannell, and Rob Zombie.

Aja has been associated with the New French Extremity and the resurgence of French horror cinema in the early twenty-first century.^[7]

Aja produced a remake of the 1980 horror slasher Maniac, starring Elijah Wood.^[8] The film was released in 2012. In 2013, he directed the dark fantasy thriller Horns, starring Daniel Radcliffe, Juno Temple, Joe Anderson, James Remar, Kelli Garner and Max Minghella. He also produced the 2014 horror film The Pyramid directed by Grégory Levasseur and starring Ashley Hinshaw, Denis O'Hare, and James Buckley. Aja produced and directed the 2016 psychological thriller film The 9th Life of Louis Drax, which is based on a novel by Liz Jensen.^[9]

Aja is set to direct a live action adaptation of the manga series Space Adventure Cobra,^[10] and the Mice and Mystics film for DreamWorks Animation.^[11] In 2019, Aja directed Crawl.

On 6 February 2026, it was announced that Aja would direct a sequel to the action horror film Under Paris for Netflix.^[12]

On 13 February 2026, it was announced that Aja would co-write a film adaptation of Dead by Daylight with David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick for Blumhouse Productions, Atomic Monster and Behaviour Interactive.^[13][14]

Other credits

• Furia (album)