Alejandro Amenábar's Real Name: Alejandro Fernando Amenábar Cantos

Quick answer: Alejandro Amenábar's full name is Alejandro Fernando Amenábar Cantos. He was born on March 31, 1972, in Santiago, Chile, and is credited as Alejandro Amenábar as a film director, screenwriter, and composer.

[IMAGE: credited festival portrait of Alejandro Amenábar, with credit]

Full name and background

Library of Congress and film biographies list Alejandro (Fernando) Amenábar Cantos, born in Santiago, Chile, March 31, 1972 (LOC; Wikidata; TV Guide). His family moved to Spain when he was an infant; he grew up and studied in Madrid. The "real name" lookup typically returns the fuller Spanish naming (given names + paternal Amenábar + maternal Cantos) rather than a Hollywood alias.

Career highlights

Amenábar drew attention with Tesis (1996) and Abre los ojos (Open Your Eyes, 1997), later remade in Hollywood as Vanilla Sky. His English-language ghost story The Others (2001) starring Nicole Kidman was an international hit. Mar adentro (The Sea Inside, 2004) won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Later work includes Agora (2009), Regression (2015), and While at War (Mientras dure la guerra, 2019). He often composes music for his own films (IMDb bio overview; El País career profiles).

[IMAGE: credited still from The Others or The Sea Inside, with credit]

Amazon note (tag realname1-20): The Others and The Sea Inside Blu-rays/DVDs are natural slots.

Amenábar's habit of scoring his own films links him to a small group of writer-directors who treat music as part of authorship. Spanish Goya Awards piled up alongside the Oscar for The Sea Inside, and While at War revisited the Spanish Civil War through Miguel de Unamuno's story ([career surveys]; LOC name file). Alejandro Fernando Amenábar Cantos is the full Spanish name form behind the shorter international credit.