Penn, Arthur (1922– )

US film director. His films reveal character by physical gesture and show his absorption in instinctive, even impulsive, behaviour. They include The Miracle Worker (1962), Bonnie and Clyde (1967), Little Big Man (1970), and The Missouri Breaks (1976).

Penn spent the early 1950s working in television and theatre, before making The Left-Handed Gun (1957), a psychological Western that established his individualist style. Among subsequent films are Mickey One (1964), The Chase (1965), Alice's Restaurant (1969), Night Moves (1975), Target (1985), Lumière et compagnie (1995), and the television movies The Portrait (1993) and Inside (1996).