He is a director and writer known for 12 Years a Slave (2013), Shame (2011) and Hunger (2008). The popular film 12 Years a Slave is based on the 1853 autobiography of the same name by Solomon Northup. The film tells the story of a free black man who is kidnapped in 1841 and sold into slavery, working on plantations in the state of Louisiana for twelve years before being released. The film won the Academy Award for Best Picture in March 2014, becoming the first Best Picture winner to have a black director or producer.

Bear (1993) was McQueen's first major film, presented at the Royal College of Art in London. Although not an overtly political piece, for many it raised questions about race, sexual attraction to men, and violence. It shows a wrestling match between two men who alternate ambiguous relations and gestures of aggression and erotic attraction. Like all McQueen's early films, Bear is black-and-white, and was shot on 16-millimetre film.

McQueen was born in London and is of Grenadian descent. He grew up in West London and went to Drayton Manor High School. He stated in a 2014 interview that he had a very bad experience in school, where he had been placed into a class for students believed best suited for "manual labour...". Later, the new head of the school would admit that there had been "institutional" racism at the time. McQueen added that he was dyslexic and had to wear an eye patch due to a lazy eye, and reflected this may be why he was "put to one side very quickly".

He was a keen football player, turning out for the St. Georges Colts football team. He took A-level Art at Hammersmith and West London College; Art and Design at Chelsea College of Art and Design and; Fine Art at Goldsmiths College, University of London, where he first became interested in film. He left Goldsmiths and studied briefly at New York University's Tisch School in the United States. He found the approach there too stifling and insufficiently experimental, complaining that "they wouldn't let you throw the camera up in the air". His artistic influences include Andy Warhol, Sergei Eisenstein, Dziga Vertov, Jean Vigo,Buster Keaton among others.

McQueen is also developing a drama for HBO, which he has co-written with Matthew Michael Carnahan and intends to direct. He is working on a BBC drama about the lives of black Britons, which follows the lives of a group of friends and their families from 1968 to 2014.  

 

In addition to London, since 1997 McQueen has a home in Amsterdam with his family. Already having been appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 2002, he was made Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2011 New Year Honours for services to the visual arts.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_McQueen_(director)