Although he considers himself to be Swiss, Marc Forster was born 1969 in Ulm, Germany. He was born the son of a Swiss doctor and a German architect and grew up in Davos, a winter resort in eastern Switzerland. He didn't seea movie until he was 12 years old but that film (Apocalypse Now by Francis Ford Coppola) so inspired him that he decided that he was going to be a film director.

In 1990, when he was 20 years old, Marc Forster moved to New York where he attended New York University's film school. In 1995 he moved to Hollywood shot a low budget film called Loungers which won the Audience Award for Best Feature at the 1996 Slamdance Festival.

Marc Forster's first motion picture was the haunting psychological drama Everything Put Together, which told the tale of a mother who struggles to maintain her sanity following the tragic and unexpected death of her infant son. This earned Forster a nomination for the Grand Jury Prize at the 2000 Sundance Film Festival in addition to taking home the "Someone to Watch" award at the 2001 Independent Spirit Awards.

In 2001 Marc Forster got his major breakthrough as a director with Monster's Ball. Halle Berry won the Academy Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role for her performance in this film.

His latest film, Finding Neverland (2004), a film which served to detail author J.M. Barrie's motivation behind the penning of his children's classic Peter Pan, was nominated for five Golden Globe Awards and was nominated for seven Academy Awards, including the Academy Award for Best Picture and Best Actor in a Leading Role for Johnny Depp.

Even before Finding Neverland hit the theatres, Forster was in post-production on Stay, a thriller starring Ewan McGregor that tells the dark tale of an Ivy League professor who attempts to alter the tragic fate of one of his students.

In 2006 Marc Forster plans to start production on the life story of the ancient Egyptian queen, Nefertiti. This film will see him reunited with Halle Berry who has agreed to play the title role.

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