Celine Song Bio
Celine Song (born Song Ha-Young on 19 September 1988) is a Canadian director, playwright, and screenwriter based in New York City. She first gained wide recognition as the writer of the plays Endlings and The Seagull on The Sims 4, and later became internationally known for her directorial film debut, Past Lives (2023), which earned nominations for Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay at the Academy Awards. Her second feature, Materialists, was released in theaters on 13 June 2025. With a background that bridges theatre and cinema, Song has become one of the most talked-about new filmmakers of her generation.
Working across stage and screen, Celine Song writes intimate stories that explore identity, migration, love, and the choices that shape a life. Her work frequently draws on her own experience growing up between South Korea and Canada, and she is recognized for a careful, precise directing style that puts language and emotion at the center of every scene.
Early Life and Background
Celine Song was born in South Korea and spent her childhood there before her family relocated to Markham, Ontario, Canada, when she was 12 years old. Both of her parents worked as artists; her father, Song Neung-han, is a filmmaker, and her mother is an illustrator and graphic designer. Growing up in a creative household helped shape her early interest in storytelling, performance, and visual art.
After moving to Canada, Song chose a new forename for herself, settling on Celine in place of her given Korean name. Family members believe she took the name from the 1974 film Céline and Julie Go Boating, although Song has said she associates it with a Céline Dion album she saw as a child. In Markham, she attended Markham District High School, where she wrote her first play, an adaptation of the Prometheus myth, for an Ontario Student Classics Conference.
Song went on to study psychology with a minor in philosophy at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, graduating in 2010. Although she once considered a career in clinical psychology, a German literature course introducing her to the work of Bertolt Brecht pushed her toward writing instead. She later earned a Master of Fine Arts in playwriting from Columbia University in 2014, choosing the program in part because of a professor who encouraged her to move to New York.
Path to Playwriting and Directing
During her undergraduate years, Celine Song wrote and directed a student play titled Sound Utterly Serious, which was praised by The Queen’s Journal as an innovative gem. Her time at Queen’s also included founding an atheist club, an experience that reflected her willingness to build communities around her interests. These early campus projects marked the beginning of a steady commitment to theatre and writing.
After completing her MFA at Columbia University, Song immersed herself in the New York playwriting scene. From 2014 to 2015, she was part of Ars Nova’s Play Group, and she attended the Great Plains Theatre Conference as a playwright in 2014 and 2016. She was also selected for the Public Theater’s Emerging Writers Group from 2016 to 2017, and held a writing fellowship with Playwrights Realm during the 2017 to 2018 season. These residencies and fellowships helped her develop a distinctive voice grounded in language, identity, and cultural translation.
Song’s first major recognition came with the play Endlings, which was selected for the 2018 O’Neill Playwrights Conference, included on the 2017 Kilroy’s List, and named a finalist for the 2020 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. In November 2020, she directed a live, Twitch-streamed staging of Chekhov’s The Seagull using The Sims 4, a project produced with New York Theatre Workshop that was widely praised for its inventive mix of theatre and video games.
Celine Song Career
Early Career (2014–2020)
Celine Song’s earliest professional years were devoted almost entirely to playwriting. Her body of work during this period included the plays Tom and Eliza, which became a semifinalist for the American Playwriting Foundation’s 2016 Relentless Award, as well as Family and The Feast. She was also granted residencies, fellowships, and commissions from organizations such as MTC/Sloan, Sundance, the Millay Colony for the Arts, the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, and the Edward F. Albee Foundation.
Her growing reputation in the New York theatre scene led to her Off-Broadway work with Endlings, which premiered at the American Repertory Theater in 2019 and had its New York Theatre Workshop run cut short by the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020. The following year, her inventive digital staging of The Seagull on The Sims 4 expanded her audience and showcased her interest in experimenting with form and technology.
Breakthrough (2021–2025)
Celine Song’s first screenwriting job in television came in 2021, when she worked as a staff writer on the first season of Amazon’s The Wheel of Time. The opportunity came about after the showrunner, Rafe Judkins, read a script she had written. The experience helped her transition from theatre to film and television, sharpening her skills in dialogue-driven storytelling.
Her feature breakthrough arrived with Past Lives (2023), a film she wrote and directed about two childhood friends, played by Greta Lee and Teo Yoo, who reunite as adults in New York. Partly inspired by a real dinner Song shared with her husband and a Korean-speaking friend, the film explored themes of language, memory, and the immigrant experience. Produced by A24 and premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2023, Past Lives earned critical praise and was compared to the work of Richard Linklater, Woody Allen, and Noah Baumbach. The film received nominations for Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay at the 96th Academy Awards, and Song became the first Asian woman to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay.
Song’s second feature, Materialists, was released in theaters on 13 June 2025. Starring Dakota Johnson, Pedro Pascal, and Chris Evans, the film follows a New York matchmaker caught in a love triangle and drew on Song’s own past experience as a matchmaker. Within a few months of its release, Materialists earned more than $100 million worldwide.
Notable Works and Milestones
Celine Song is best known for Past Lives and Materialists, two A24 features that established her as a major new voice in cinema. She received the Directors Guild of America award for outstanding directorial achievement in a first-time feature film for Past Lives, and in 2026 she was announced as the recipient of the Whiting Award in Drama.
Celine Song Award Nominations
Celine Song has received nominations at the highest levels of the film industry, including two nominations at the 96th Academy Awards in 2023. Past Lives was nominated for Best Picture and for Best Original Screenplay, with Song receiving the screenplay nomination personally. She was also the first Asian woman to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay.
Celine Song Awards Won
Celine Song has earned recognition from major American institutions for her work as a writer and director. For Past Lives, she received the Directors Guild of America award for outstanding directorial achievement in a first-time feature film, highlighting her confident handling of a delicate, deeply personal story. She was later named a recipient of the 2026 Whiting Award in Drama, an honor given to emerging writers of exceptional talent.
Celine Song Family
Celine Song was born into an artistic family in South Korea. Her father, Song Neung-han, is a filmmaker, and her mother is an illustrator and graphic designer. Both parents pursued creative careers, an environment that encouraged Song’s early interest in storytelling and visual art before the family moved to Canada.
Personal Life
Celine Song lives in New York City with her husband, writer Justin Kuritzkes, whom she married in 2016. The couple met at an artist residency hosted by the Edward F. Albee Foundation, and Song has said that Kuritzkes is always the first person to read her scripts.