Ruben Östlund

Ruben Östlund (b. April 13, 1974) is a Swedish writer-director acclaimed for his razor-sharp, satirical black comedies that dissect social mores and group behavior. Educated at Gothenburg film school and co-founder of Plattform Produktion, his early works—Involuntary (2008), Force Majeure (2014)—displayed his gift for tense tableaux and social fables, the latter winning Cannes’ Un Certain Regard Jury Prize . His Palme d’Or winners The Square (2017) and Triangle of Sadness (2022) skewered art-world elitism and class division with formal rigor and absurdist wit . Currently in production, his upcoming satirical black-comedy The Entertainment System Is Down (2026), starring Keanu Reeves and Kirsten Dunst, explores boredom and human behavior aboard a disabled jumbo jet.