Ronald F. Maxwell

Who is Ronald F. Maxwell?

Ronald F. Maxwell is an independent film director and writer from Clifton, New Jersey. He is most famous for writing and directing the American Civil War epics Gettysburg, 1993 and Gods and Generals, 2003.

According to the Los Angeles Times, "Ron Maxwell probably created the most ambitious Civil War movies ever made. The Battle of Little Round Top, in which Jeff Daniels plays Col. Joshua Chamberlain fighting off the Confederates, is viscerally one of the most amazing combat sequences ever done of any war film -- the brutality, the whole scope of it, the sense of time and place and the physicality of the battle...The performances are marvelous."

In 2007, Maxwell optioned the film rights to novelist Speer Morgan's 1979 book Belle Starr about the legendary female outlaw of the Old West.

A native of New Jersey, Maxwell attended Clifton High School. He graduated from New York University Institute of Film 1970. Maxwell is a member of the Writers Guild of America, Directors Guild of America and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

In May 2011, Warner Bros. released director's cuts of Gods and Generals and Gettysburg.