汤姆·提克威是当前德国影坛的新希望，从第一部剧情长片《垂死的玛丽亚》(Deadly Maria)开始，他就让观众看到与以往沉闷又自虐的德国片截然不同的风格，那便是速度与节奏感。从他97年的作品《冬日恋曲》(Winter Sleepers)来看就知道，其他导演拍冰雪纷飞的寒冬，多半会采取压抑沉缓的调性，他却完全反其道而行，像滑雪般的速度与流畅，让多条故事线的发展时放时收，最后演变出教人惊讶又爆笑的结尾。1998年他拍出一部与基耶斯洛夫斯基《机遇之歌》结构类似的三段式电影《疾走罗拉》(Run Lola Run)，以节奏强烈的电子音乐搭配十万火急的奔跑，加上卡通化的角色，风靡了全世界。2000年他又再以风格类似的《飘流两颗心》(The Princess and the Warrior)，赢得持续的好评与商业成绩。2002年的《天堂》是他第一部英语片，也是他第一部走入国际制作的电影。2006年导演了话题之作《香水》。最新作品是由克里夫·欧文和娜奥米·沃茨主演的《国际组织》。

Tom Tykwer (born 23 May 1965 in Wuppertal, Germany) is a German film director best known internationally for directing Run Lola Run (1998).
Tykwer was fascinated by film from an early age. He started making amateur Super 8 films at the age of eleven and later helped out at a local arthouse cinema to see more movies, including those he was too young to buy tickets for. After graduating from high school, he unsuccessfully applied to numerous film schools around Europe and moved to Berlin, where he worked as a projectionist. In 1987, at the age of 22, he became the programmer of the Moviemento cinema and was known to German directors as a highly respected film buff.
In Berlin, Tykwer met and befriended the filmmaker Rosa von Praunheim, who urged him to create stories from his own experience and suggested that Tykwer record arguments with his girlfriend at the time, and turn them into a short film. Because (1990) was screened at the Hof Film Festival and well-received by the audience, which inspired Tykwer to continue pursuing filmmaking. He made a second short film, Epilog (1992), that plunged him into personal financial debt, but gained him valuable technical filmmaking experience.
Tykwer wrote the screenplay for -and directed- his first feature film, Deadly Maria, which aired on German television and saw a limited theatrical release in Germany and the international film festival circuit.
In 1994, Tykwer founded the production company X Filme Creative Pool with Stefan Arndt, Wolfgang Becker and Dani Levy. Tykwer and Becker wrote the screenplay for Life Is All You Get while working on Tykwer's second feature, Wintersleepers (1997), a much bigger and complex production than Deadly Maria. Wintersleepers brought Tykwer to the attention of German cineastes and film festivals, but Tykwer was struggling financially. He knew he needed a new film, and the result was Run Lola Run (1998), which became the most successful German film of 1998, scored $7 million at the US box office, and elevated Tykwer to international fame.
As Lola was becoming a success worldwide, Tykwer was already at work on his next film, The Princess and the Warrior, shot in his hometown of Wuppertal. He had meanwhile started dating Franka Potente, the star of Run Lola Run, and she appeared in The Princess and the Warrior as well. The movie centered on a love story between a nurse and a former soldier.
Miramax produced his next film, Heaven (2002), based on a screenplay by the late Polish filmmaker, Krzysztof Kielowski. It was shot in English, starred Cate Blanchett and Giovanni Ribisi, and filmed in Turin and Tuscany.
After Heaven, Tykwer felt creatively exhausted and personaly adrift, having broken up with Franka Potente. He was approached by French producers to film a short contribution to Paris, je t'aime (2006), a film comprising 20 short films by many famous directors depicting love in Paris. Tykwer shot the 10-minute short film, True, with Natalie Portman and Melchior Beslon. He shot the film quickly with almost no pre-production, and the result was a tiny masterpiece that Tykwer later said, "symbolises an entire life for me, in just ten minutes."
Tykwer's next film was an adaptation of the novel Perfume by the German novelist Patrick Süskind, and was filmed in the Spanish cities of Figueras, Girona and Barcelona.