Michael Mann is a film director, screen writer and producer and is best known for his movie Heat back in 1995.
After three years out of the director's chair he returns this week with gangster movie Public Enemies, which sees Johnny Depp take on the role of American bank robber John Dillinger.
After studying English at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Mann moved to London in the sixties to study at the London Film School before moving into working on adverts.
After moving back to America at the beginning of the seventies it was television that was to be the big breakthrough for the filmmaker with Starsky and Hutch, where he wrote the first four episodes of the hit cop show.
In 1978 he went on to create detective television drama series Vega$, which ran until 1981, and was filmed entirely in Las Vegas.
His first movie, which also was for television, came a year later when he made The Jericho Mile, which won an Emmy later that same year.
He moved back to television to become executive producer for cop show Miami Vice as well as Crime Story. But into the eighties it was movies all the way.
His big screen debut came in 1981 with Thief, an adaptation of the novel The Home Invaders by Frank Hohimer, starring James Caan and Willie Nelson.
But it was a rough ride for the filmmaker in the early stages of his cinema career as The Keep and Manhunter both struggled at the box office.
It was 1992 and the release of historical epic The Last of the Mohicans that brought Mann real critical and commercial success.
Starring Daniel Day Lewis the movie was set in 1757 during the French and Indian war it was a critical hit. It went on to be a success at the box office grossing in excess of $75 million.
However it was his 1995 movie Heat, that brought Al Pacino and Robert De Niro face to face, that remains the director's most famous movie.
Director, writer and producer on the film Heat followed veteran LAPD homicide detective Vincent Hanna who is hot on the heels of career thief Neil McCauley.
Despite being a lengthy 171 minutes it was well received by the critics and all did very well at the box office. Today, nearly fifteen years after it's release, Heat still remains one of the best movies in the crime genre.
Mann took a four year break from the big screen returning in 1999 with The Insider, which reunited him with Al Pacino.
Based on the article "The Man Who Knew Too Much," The Insider depicts the true story of Jeffrey Wigand (Russell Crowe), a successful scientist who is fired from the Brown & Williamson tobacco company for objecting to certain lab tests.
He signs a confidentiality agreement to ease the company's nervousness, but when hotshot 60 Minutes producer Lowell Bergman (Pacino) recruits Wigand to help him decipher some technical documents, he realizes that there's a bigger story hiding inside Wigand.
Despite struggling somewhat at the box office The Insider was a critical hit and it went on to be nominated for seven Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director.
It was the biopic picture next for Mann as he teamed up with Will Smith to tell the story of boxing legend Muhammad Ali and despite failing to make back it's budget it too did well with the critics.
Smith went on to pick up a Best Actor Academy award nomination for his performance.
It was back to the crime drama in 2004 with Collateral, which starred Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx before taking a producing role for a couple of years working in the likes of The Aviator.
After serving as executive producer on television series Miami Vice he moved that iconic show onto the big screen in 2006 as Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx took over the roles of Crockett and Tubbs.
The film received a mix to a poor response and while it managed a respectable $163.7 million gross it wasn't perhaps the big success that everyone was expecting.
For the last few years he has focused on his producing work with the likes of The Kingdom and Hancock under his belt. But this week he's back in the director's chair with Public Enemies.
Starring Johnny Depp as John Dillinger the movie follows the criminal career of the bank robber who stole from the banks that had pushed the country into Depression, becoming a national hero.
Public Enemies is out now
FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw
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