Lee Tamahori, born 1950 in Wellington, New Zealand, is best known as a film director although he got his start as a commercial artist and photographer in the late 1970s.

Tamahori is of Maori ancestry, and his break as a filmmaker came with Once Were Warriors, a gritty depiction of urban Maori life that was phenomenally successful in New Zealand. He then moved to Hollywood and is best known as the director of Mulholland Falls (1996) and Die Another Day, the twentieth James Bond movie. He also directed numerous episodes of television shows, in particular an episode of The Sopranos during its second season.

Tamahori's next film was the sequel to the 2002 film XXX, entitled XXX: State of the Union starring Ice Cube and Willem Dafoe; he replaced the original director, Rob Cohen.

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