Jon M. Chu
Jon M. Chu is a director, born 1979.
Jon M. Chu directed dancing before he directed anything else. Step Up 2: The Streets in 2008 and Step Up 3D in 2010 are not good films by conventional measures, but they were shot by someone who knows exactly where a camera has to sit for a body in motion to read clearly, and that single skill has paid for everything since. The web series The Legion of Extraordinary Dancers came out of the same years, along with two Justin Bieber concert films, Never Say Never in 2011 and Believe in 2013.
The middle stretch is work for hire and it shows. G.I. Joe: Retaliation in 2013, Jem and the Holograms in 2015 and Now You See Me 2 in 2016 are competent and anonymous, and the common factor is that none of them contain anything moving that he could actually organise.
Crazy Rich Asians changed the terms in 2018. It was among the first films from a major Hollywood studio built on a majority Asian cast, and it made enough money to alter what he was permitted to attempt next. In the Heights followed in 2021, then the two-part Wicked in 2024 and 2025, which is where the first career pays off in full: he stages musical numbers as events happening in a real space, rather than assembling them out of coverage in an edit. For Wicked he won Best Director from the National Board of Review and at the Critics' Choice Awards.
Movies (15)
- Wicked (2024)
- Wicked: For Good (2025)
- Now You See Me 2 (2016)
- G.I. Joe: Retaliation (2013)
- Crazy Rich Asians (2018)
- Step Up 2: The Streets (2008)
- Step Up 3D (2010)
- In the Heights (2021)
- Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché (2018)
- Justin Bieber: Never Say Never (2011)
- Justin Bieber's Believe (2013)
- Justin Bieber's Believe (2013)
- Jem and the Holograms (2015)
- Defying Gravity: The Curtain Rises on Wicked (2024)
- Wicked: One Wonderful Night (2025)
TV (3)
Where to start with Jon M. Chu
Crazy Rich Asians is the place to start, because it is the film where his instincts and his material finally agree. It is a romantic comedy with an unusually good sense of scale, and it is the hinge the rest of the career turns on.
Then Wicked, which is the fullest expression of what he does, and Wicked: For Good if the first one holds you. In the Heights is the underrated one, a musical shot in real streets with a generosity that the box office did not reward. If you want the origin story, Step Up 3D is gloriously silly and better directed than it has any need to be, and Justin Bieber: Never Say Never is a concert film made with more care than its subject usually gets. G.I. Joe: Retaliation and Jem and the Holograms are the ones to skip.