Strickland was born to a Greek mother and British father, both teachers, and grew up in
Reading, Berkshire, where he was a member of
Progress Theatre, directing his own adaptation of
The Metamorphosis by
Franz Kafka. In 1997, his short film
Bubblegum was entered in the
Berlin Film Festival. It won the
European Film Award for European Discovery of the Year in 2009. His second,
Berberian Sound Studio, is a psychological thriller set in a 1970s Italian horror film studio and starring
Toby Jones. It was previewed at
London FrightFest Film Festival in August 2012 and at the 2012
Edinburgh International Film Festival, where
Robbie Collin of
The Daily Telegraph described it as the "stand-out movie". In 2013, the film obtained the Best International Film Award at
BAFICI.
Peter Bradshaw of
The Guardian described
Berberian Sound Studio as marking Strickland's emergence as "a key British film-maker of his generation". His third feature, the chamber drama
The Duke of Burgundy, was an homage to
Jess Franco starring
Sidse Babett Knudsen and
Chiara D'Anna. It received overwhelming praise from critics, and appeared on
The A.V. Club and
Indiewire best film lists for 2015. In 2018, Strickland released
In Fabric, a psychological horror film about a haunted dress purchased in a London department store. Like his previous film, it received universal critical acclaim. It appeared in multiple best of the year critics' polls, including those of
The Playlist and
Sight & Sound. ==Filmography==