Guy Stuart Ritchie, born on September 10, 1968, in Hatfield, Hertfordshire, England, is a renowned English film director, producer, and screenwriter. Known for his distinctive style in British gangster films and the Sherlock Holmes series starring Robert Downey Jr., Ritchie has made a significant mark in the film industry.

He left school at the age of 15 and worked in various entry-level jobs in the film industry before directing television commercials. His career took off with the short film The Hard Case in 1995, followed by his feature-length directorial debut, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, in 1998. This film gained him recognition and was followed by the critically and commercially successful Snatch in 2000.

His career has seen its ups and downs. After the success of Snatch, he directed Swept Away in 2002, a box-office bomb starring Madonna, to whom he was married from 2000 to 2008. He continued with films like Revolver in 2005 and RocknRolla in 2008, which received mixed reviews. However, he bounced back with the box-office hits Sherlock Holmes in 2009 and its sequel, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows in 2011.

His other notable works include The Man from U.N.C.L.E. in 2015, King Arthur: Legend of the Sword in 2017, and Disney's live-action adaptation of Aladdin in 2019, which grossed over $1 billion worldwide, becoming the highest-grossing film of his career. In 2019, he returned to crime comedy with The Gentlemen, which was well-received and a commercial success. He has since worked on action films like Wrath of Man in 2021 and Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre in 2023, and his second film of 2023, The Covenant, received generally positive reviews.

His personal life has been as eventful as his career. He was married to pop superstar Madonna from 2000 to 2008, and they have two children together, Rocco Ritchie and David Banda, whom they adopted.

In 2015, he married model Jacqui Ainsley, and they have three children together: Rafael, Rivka, and Levi. The couple is known for their private lifestyle, often sharing rare glimpses of their family life on social media. They have been living in Turkey for the past two months while Ritchie films his latest project. He is also known for his love of the English countryside, fishing, and clay-pigeon shooting.

Throughout his career, Guy Ritchie has received several awards and nominations. He won the Edgar Award for Best Motion Picture Screenplay for Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels in 2000 and the MTV Movie Award for Best New Filmmaker in 1999.

He has also been nominated for the Saturn Award for Best Director for Aladdin in 2019 and Sherlock Holmes in 2010.