Charles Stuart Kaufman (/ˈkɔːfmən/; born November 19, 1958) is an American screenwriter, producer, director and novelist.

He made his directorial debut with Synecdoche, New York (2008), which film critic Roger Ebert called "the best movie of the decade" in 2009.

[1] Further directorial work include the stop motion animated film Anomalisa (2015) and I'm Thinking of Ending Things (2020).

One of the most celebrated screenwriters of his era,[2][3][4][5] Kaufman has been nominated for four Academy Awards: twice for Best Original Screenplay for Being John Malkovich and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (winning for the latter), Best Adapted Screenplay (with his fictional brother) for Adaptation, and Best Animated Feature for Anomalisa.

Three of Kaufman's scripts appear in the Writers Guild of America's list of the 101 greatest movie screenplays ever written.