This hip, intelligent director makes films--with the exception of the incoherent and unwatchable "Straight to Hell" (1987)--that seem destined for instant cult status. Liverpudlian Alex Cox had originally intended to pursue a career in law when he caught the showbiz bug at Oxford. He went on to study film at Bristol University and UCLA before making an assured feature debut with the self-evidently postmodern thriller "Repo Man" (1984). Cox later expertly engineered a harrowing portrait of addiction with "Sid and Nancy" (1986), his portrait of punk rocker Sid Vicious and his doomed affair with groupie Nancy Spungen, and garnered mixed reviews for his ambitious, allegorical biopic "Walker" (1987), about William Walker, the would-be American dictator of Nicaragua in the 1850s.

After an absence of several years, Cox returned to filmmaking with "El Patrullero/Highway Patrolman" (1993), a modestly-budgeted story of an exiled survivor filmed in Spanish. For much of the 90s, Cox worked as an actor in bit roles in independent features while nurturing a dream project. a screen adaptation of Hunter S Thompson's "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas". Just before shooting was to begin in April 1997, however, Cox dropped out of the project over "creative differences". Terry Gilliam went on to helm what was essentially unfilmable material, but Cox remained as one of four writers credited with the script. He disowned "The Winner" (1997), a character study of a gambler in Las Vegas, after it was taken away from him and re-edited and re-scored but had better luck with "Three Businessmen" (1998), about two Liverpudlians who encounter a mysterious stranger. Cox has also been shepherding several features through the development process, including "Waldo's Hawaiian Holiday", a sequel to "Repo Man" and a biopic of acclaimed surrealist Luis Bunuel.