Burton was born in 1958, in Burbank, California, the son of Jean Burton (née Erickson) (1933–2002), later the owner of a cat-themed gift shop, and William “Bill” Burton (1930–2000), a former minor league baseball player who was working for the Burbank Parks and Recreation Department. As a preteen, Burton would make short films in his backyard on Evergreen Street using crude stop motion animation techniques or shooting on 8 mm film without sound (one of his oldest known juvenile films is The Island of Doctor Agor, which he made when he was 13 years old). Burton attended Providencia Elementary School in Burbank. Burton went to Burbank High School but was not a particularly good student. He played on the water polo team at Burbank High. Burton was an introspective person and found pleasure in painting, drawing, and watching movies. His future work would be heavily influenced by the works of such childhood heroes as Dr. Seuss and Roald Dahl. After graduating from Burbank High School, Burton attended the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, California, to study character animation. As a student at CalArts, Burton made the shorts Stalk of the Celery Monster and King and Octopus.

The DreamWorks/Warner Bros. production Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, based on the 1979 Broadway musical, was released on December 21, 2007. Burton’s work on Sweeney Todd won the National Board of Review Award for Best Director, received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Director, and won an Academy Award for Best Art Direction. The film blends explicit gore and Broadway tunes, and was well received by critics. Johnny Depp’s performance as Sweeney Todd was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor.

While at Disney in 1982, Burton made his first short, Vincent, a six-minute black-and-white stop motion film based on a poem written by Burton, which depicts a young boy who fantasizes that he is his hero Vincent Price, with Price himself providing narration. The film was produced by Rick Heinrichs, whom Burton had befriended while working in the concept art department at Disney. The film was shown at the Chicago Film Festival and released, alongside the teen drama Tex, for two weeks in one Los Angeles cinema. This was followed by Burton’s first live-action production, Hansel and Gretel, a Japanese-themed adaptation of the Brothers Grimm fairy tale for the Disney Channel, which climaxes in a kung fu fight between Hansel and Gretel and the witch. Having aired once in 1983 at 10:30 pm on Halloween and promptly shelved, prints of the film are extremely difficult to locate, fueling rumors that the project did not exist. The short would finally go on public display in 2009 at the Museum of Modern Art, and again in 2011 as part of the Tim Burton art exhibit at LACMA. It was again shown at the Seoul Museum of Art in 2012.

Burton’s next live-action short film, Frankenweenie, was released in 1984. It tells the story of a young boy who tries to revive his dog after it is run over by a car. Filmed in black-and-white, it stars Barret Oliver, Shelley Duvall (with whom he would work again in 1986, directing an episode of her television series Faerie Tale Theatre), and Daniel Stern. After Frankenweenie was completed, Disney fired Burton, under the pretext of him spending the company’s resources on a film that would be too dark and scary for children to see.

Burton’s ability to produce hits with low budgets impressed studio executives, and he received his first big budget film, Batman. The production was plagued with problems. Burton repeatedly clashed with the film’s producers, Jon Peters and Peter Guber, but the most notable debacle involved casting. For the title role, Burton chose to cast Michael Keaton as Batman following their previous collaboration in Beetlejuice, despite Keaton’s average physique, inexperience with action films, and reputation as a comic actor. Although Burton won in the end, the furor over the casting provoked enormous fan animosity, to the extent that Warner Brothers’ share price slumped. Burton had considered it ridiculous to cast a “bulked-up” ultra-masculine man as Batman, insisting that Batman should be an ordinary man who dressed up in an elaborate bat costume to frighten criminals. Burton cast Jack Nicholson as The Joker (Tim Curry being his second choice) in a move that helped assuage fans’ fears, as well as attracting older audiences not as interested in a superhero film. When the film opened in June 1989, it was backed by the biggest marketing and merchandising campaign in film history at the time, and became one of the biggest box office hits of all time, grossing over $250 million in the U.S. and $400 million worldwide (numbers not adjusted for inflation) and earning critical acclaim for the performances of both Keaton and Nicholson, as well as the film’s production aspects, which won the Academy Award for Best Art Direction. The success of the film helped establish Burton as a profitable director, and it proved to be a huge influence on future superhero films, which eschewed the bright, all-American heroism of Richard Donner’s Superman for a grimmer, more realistic look and characters with more psychological depth. It also became a major inspiration for the successful 1990s cartoon Batman: The Animated Series, as the darkness of Burton’s film and its sequel allowed for a darker Batman on television.

In 1990, Burton co-wrote (with Caroline Thompson) and directed Edward Scissorhands, re-uniting with Winona Ryder from Beetlejuice. His friend Johnny Depp, a teen idol at the end of the 1980s due primarily to his work on the hit TV series 21 Jump Street, was cast in the title role of Edward, who was the creation of an eccentric and old-fashioned inventor (played by Vincent Price in one of his last screen appearances). Edward looked human, but was left with scissors in the place of hands due to the untimely death of his creator. Set in suburbia (and shot in Land o’ Lakes, Florida), the film is largely seen as Burton’s autobiography of his childhood in Burbank. Burton’s idea for the character of Edward Scissorhands came from a drawing he created in high school. Depp wrote a similar comment in the foreword to Mark Salisbury’s book, Burton on Burton, regarding his first meeting with Burton over the casting of the film. Edward Scissorhands is considered one of Burton’s best movies by some critics. Burton has stated that this is his most personable and meaningful film because it’s a representation of him not being able to communicate effectively with others as a teenager.

Burton was married to Lena Gieseke, a German-born artist. Their marriage ended in 1991 after four years. He went on to live with model and actress Lisa Marie; she acted in the films he made during their relationship from 1992 to 2001, most notably in Sleepy Hollow, Ed Wood, and Mars Attacks!. Burton developed a romantic relationship with English actress Helena Bonham Carter, whom he met while filming Planet of the Apes. Marie responded in 2005 by holding an auction of personal belongings that Burton had left behind, much to his dismay.

After the success of Batman, Burton agreed to direct the sequel for Warner Bros. on the condition that he would be granted total control. The result was Batman Returns, which featured Michael Keaton returning as Batman, and a new triad of villains: Danny DeVito (as the Penguin), Michelle Pfeiffer (as Catwoman) and Christopher Walken (as Max Shreck, an evil corporate tycoon and original character created for the film). Darker and considerably more personal than its predecessor, concerns were raised that the film was too scary for children. Audiences were more uncomfortable at the film’s overt sexuality, personified by the sleek, fetish-inspired styling of Catwoman’s costume. Burton made many changes to the Penguin which would subsequently be applied to the character in both comics and television. While in the comics, he was an ordinary man, Burton created a freak of nature resembling a penguin with webbed, flipper-like fingers, a hooked, beak-like nose, and a penguin-like body (resulting in a rotund, obese man). Released in 1992, Batman Returns grossed $282.8 million worldwide, making it a financial success, though not to the extent of its predecessor.

In 1994, Burton and frequent co-producer Denise Di Novi produced the 1994 fantasy-comedy Cabin Boy, starring comedian Chris Elliott and directed/written by Adam Resnick. Burton was originally supposed to direct the film after seeing Elliott perform on Get a Life, but he handed the directing responsibility to Resnick once he was offered Ed Wood. Burton’s next film, Ed Wood (1994), was of a much smaller scale, depicting the life of infamous director Ed Wood. Starring Johnny Depp in the title role, the film is an homage to the low-budget science fiction and horror films of Burton’s childhood and handles its comical protagonist and his motley band of collaborators with surprising fondness and sensitivity. Owing to creative squabbles during the making of The Nightmare Before Christmas, Danny Elfman declined to score Ed Wood, and the assignment went to Howard Shore. While a commercial failure at the time of its release, Ed Wood was well received by critics. Martin Landau received the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of Bela Lugosi, and the film received the Academy Award for Best Makeup.

Despite Burton’s intention to still lead the Batman franchise, Warner Bros. considered Batman Returns too dark and unsafe for children. To attract the young audience, it was decided that Joel Schumacher, who had directed films like The Client, would lead the third film, while Burton would only produce it in conjunction with Peter MacGregor-Scott. Following this change and the changes made by the new director, Michael Keaton resigned from the lead role and was replaced by Val Kilmer. Filming for Batman Forever began in late 1994 with new actors: Tommy Lee Jones as Harvey Dent/Two-Face, Nicole Kidman as Dr. Chase Meridian, Chris O’Donnell as Dick Grayson/Robin and Jim Carrey as Edward Nygma/The Riddler; the only two actors who returned after Batman Returns were Pat Hingle as Commissioner Gordon and Michael Gough as Alfred Pennyworth. The film, a combination of the darkness that characterized the saga and colors and neon signs proposed by Schumacher, was a huge box office success, earning $336 million. Warner Bros. demanded that Schumacher delete some scenes so the film did not have the same tone as its predecessor, Batman Returns (later they were added as deleted scenes on the 2005 DVD release).

In 1996, Burton and Selick reunited for the musical fantasy James and the Giant Peach, based on the book by Roald Dahl which contains magical elements and references to drugs and alcohol. The film, a combination of live action and stop motion footage, starred Richard Dreyfuss, Susan Sarandon, David Thewlis, Simon Callow and Jane Leeves among others, with Burton producing and Selick directing. The film was mostly praised by critics and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Musical or Comedy Score (by Randy Newman).

After Kevin Smith had been hired to write a new Superman film, he suggested Burton to direct. Burton came on and Warner Bros. set a theatrical release date for the summer of 1998, the 60th anniversary of the character’s debut in Action Comics. Nicolas Cage was signed on to play Superman, Burton hired Wesley Strick to rewrite Smith’s script, and the film entered pre-production in June 1997. For budgetary reasons, Warner Bros. ordered another rewrite from Dan Gilroy, delayed the film, and ultimately put it on hold in April 1998. Burton then left to direct Sleepy Hollow. Burton has depicted the experience as a difficult one, citing differences with producer Jon Peters and the studio, stating, “I basically wasted a year. A year is a long time to be working with somebody that you don’t really want to be working with.”

Sleepy Hollow, released in late 1999, had a supernatural setting and starred Johnny Depp as Ichabod Crane, a detective with an interest in forensic science rather than the schoolteacher of Washington Irving’s original tale. With Sleepy Hollow, Burton paid homage to the horror films of the English company Hammer Films. Christopher Lee, one of Hammer’s stars, was given a cameo role. A host of Burton regulars appeared in supporting roles (Michael Gough, Jeffrey Jones, and Christopher Walken, among others), and Christina Ricci was cast as Katrina van Tassel. A well-regarded supporting cast was headed by Miranda Richardson, Michael Gambon, Richard Griffiths and Ian McDiarmid. Mostly well received by critics, and with a special mention to Elfman’s gothic score, the film won an Academy Award for Best Art Direction, as well as two BAFTAs for Best Costume Design and Best Production Design. A box office success, Sleepy Hollow was also a turning point for Burton. Along with change in his personal life (separation from actress Lisa Marie), Burton changed radically in style for his next project, leaving the haunted forests and colorful outcasts behind to go on to directing Planet of the Apes which, as Burton had repeatedly noted, was “not a remake” of the earlier film.

In 2001, The Walt Disney Company began to consider producing a sequel to The Nightmare Before Christmas, but rather than using stop motion, Disney wanted to use computer animation. Burton convinced Disney to drop the idea. “I was always very protective of [‘Nightmare’], not to do sequels or things of that kind,” Burton explained. “You know, ‘Jack visits Thanksgiving world’ or other kinds of things, just because I felt the movie had a purity to it and the people that like it… Because it’s a mass-market kind of thing, it was important to kind of keep that purity of it.” Regardless, in 2009, Henry Selick stated that he could make a sequel to Nightmare if he and Burton could create a good story for it.

Planet of the Apes was a commercial success, grossing $68 million in its opening weekend. The film has received mixed reviews and is widely considered inferior to the first adaptation of the novel. In 2003, Burton directed Big Fish, based on the novel Big Fish: A Novel of Mythic Proportions by Daniel Wallace. The film is about a father telling the story of his life to his son using exaggeration and color. Starring Ewan McGregor as young Edward Bloom and Albert Finney as an older Edward Bloom, the film also stars Jessica Lange, Billy Crudup, Danny DeVito, Alison Lohman and Marion Cotillard. Big Fish received four Golden Globe nominations as well as an Academy Award nomination for Elfman’s score. The film was also the second collaboration between Burton and Helena Bonham Carter, who played the characters of Jenny and the Witch.

Burton and Bonham Carter have two children: a son, William Raymond, named after his and Bonham Carter’s fathers, born in 2003; and a daughter, Nell, born in 2007. Bonham Carter’s representative said in December 2014 that she and Burton had broken up amicably earlier that year. It is unclear whether or not they were married; Bonham Carter has used the word divorce when discussing the end of their relationship while other news outlets state that they never married.

In 2005, filmmaker Shane Acker released his short film 9, a story about a sentient rag doll living in a post-apocalyptic world who tries to stop machines from destroying the rest of his eight fellow rag dolls. The film won numerous awards and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film. After seeing the short film, Tim Burton and Timur Bekmambetov, director of Wanted, showed interest in producing a feature-length adaptation of the film. Directed by Acker, the full-length film was produced by Burton, written by Acker (story) and Pamela Pettler (screenplay, co-writer of Corpse Bride), and featured the voice work of Elijah Wood, John C. Reilly, Jennifer Connelly, Christopher Plummer, Martin Landau, and Crispin Glover, among others.

In a 2005 interview with the Evening Standard, Bonham Carter speculated that Burton might have traits of Asperger syndrome.

Burton directed his first music video, “Bones”, in 2006. “Bones” is the sixth overall single by American indie rock band The Killers and the second released from their second studio album, Sam’s Town. Starring in this video were actors Michael Steger and Devon Aoki. Burton went to direct a second music video for The Killers, “Here with Me”, starring Winona Ryder, released in 2012.

Tim Burton appeared at the 2009 Comic-Con in San Diego, California, to promote both 9 and Alice in Wonderland; the latter won two Academy Awards, for Best Art Direction and Best Costume Design. In Burton’s version of Alice in Wonderland, the story is set 13 years after the original Lewis Carroll tales. Mia Wasikowska was cast as Alice. The original start date for filming was May 2008. Torpoint and Plymouth were the locations used for filming from September 1 – October 14, and the film remains set in the Victorian era. During this time, filming took place in Antony House in Torpoint. 250 local extras were chosen in early August. Other production work took place in London. The film was originally to be released in 2009, but was pushed to March 5, 2010. Johnny Depp plays the Mad Hatter; Matt Lucas is both Tweedledee and Tweedledum; Helena Bonham Carter portrays the Red Queen; Stephen Fry is the Cheshire Cat; Anne Hathaway stars as the White Queen; Alan Rickman voices Absolem the Caterpillar, Michael Sheen voices McTwisp the White Rabbit, and Crispin Glover’s head and voice were added onto a CGI body to play the Knave of Hearts. Burton produced the film’s sequel, Alice Through the Looking Glass (2016).

On January 19, 2010, it was announced that after Dark Shadows, Burton’s next project would be Maleficent, a Wicked-like film that showed the origin and the past of Sleeping Beauty’s antagonist Maleficent. In an interview with Fandango published February 23, 2010, however, Burton denied he was directing any upcoming Sleeping Beauty film. However, on November 23, 2010, in an interview with MTV, Burton confirmed that he was indeed putting together a script for Maleficent. It was announced by The Hollywood Reporter on May 16, 2011, that Burton was no longer attached to Maleficent.

On March 15, 2010, Burton received the insignia of Chevalier of Arts and Letters from then-Minister of Culture Frédéric Mitterrand. The same year, Burton was the President of the Jury for the 63rd annual Cannes Film Festival, held from May 12 to 24 in Cannes, France.

From MoMA, the “Tim Burton” exhibition traveled directly to Australian Centre for the Moving Image in Melbourne. Running from June 24 to October 10, 2010, the ACMI exhibition incorporated additional material from Burton’s Alice in Wonderland, which was released in March 2010.

In 2011, it was reported that Burton was working on a live-action adaptation of The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, featuring Josh Brolin, who would also be co-producing. The project did not move forward.

Dark Shadows once again saw the collaboration of Burton with actors Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter, composer Danny Elfman, and costume designer Colleen Atwood. The film was released on May 11, 2012, and received mixed reviews from critics. Burton co-produced Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter with Timur Bekmambetov, who also served as director (they previously worked together in 9). The film, released on June 22, 2012, was based on the novel by Seth Grahame-Smith, who wrote the film’s screenplay and also authored Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. The film starred Benjamin Walker as Abraham Lincoln, Anthony Mackie as William H. Johnson, Joseph Mawle as Lincoln’s father Thomas, Robin McLeavy as Lincoln’s mother, Nancy, and Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Lincoln’s love interest (and later wife), Mary Ann Todd. The film received mixed reviews. He then remade his 1984 short film Frankenweenie as a feature-length stop motion film, distributed by Walt Disney Pictures. Burton has said, “The film is based on a memory that I had when I was growing up and with my relationship with a dog that I had.” The film was released on October 5, 2012, and met with positive reviews.

In 2012, Shane Acker confirmed that Burton would work with Valve to create his next animated feature film, Deep. Like 9, the film would take place in a post-apocalyptic world (although set in a different universe). Deep would be another darker animated film, as Shane Acker has expressed his interest in creating more PG-13 animated films. Since then, there have been no further mentions of Deep, with Acker focusing on another project announced in 2013 (Beasts of Burden).

In July 2012, following the release of both Dark Shadows and Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, it was announced that screenwriter and novelist Seth Grahame-Smith was working alongside Burton on a potential Beetlejuice sequel. Actor Michael Keaton has also expressed interest in reprising his role as the title character along with Winona Ryder. In October 2017, Deadline Hollywood reported that Mike Vukadinovich was hired to write a script in time for the film’s 30th anniversary. In April 2019, Warner Bros. stated the sequel had been shelved.

It was reported that Burton would direct a 3D stop motion animation adaptation of The Addams Family, which was confirmed by Christopher Meledandri, but the project was scrapped on July 17, 2013. On July 19, 2010, Burton was announced as the director of the upcoming film adaptation of Monsterpocalypse.

Burton directed the 2014 biographical drama film Big Eyes about American artist Margaret Keane (Amy Adams), whose work was fraudulently claimed in the 1950s and 1960s by her then-husband, Walter Keane (Christoph Waltz), and their heated divorce trial after Margaret accused Walter of stealing credit for her paintings. The script was written by the screenwriters behind Burton’s Ed Wood, Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski. Filming began in Vancouver, British Columbia, in mid-2013. The film was distributed by The Weinstein Company and released in U.S. theaters on December 25, 2014. It received generally positive reviews from critics. In September 2016, an adaptation of Ransom Riggs’s novel Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, directed by Burton, was released, starring Asa Butterfield and Eva Green. Burton also directed a live-action adaptation of Dumbo, released in 2019, with Colin Farrell, Danny DeVito, Eva Green, and Michael Keaton starring.

“Tim Burton and His World” was exhibited at the Stone Bell House from March 3 to August 8, 2014, in Prague, Czech Republic. The exhibition later premiered at the Museu da Imagem e do Som in São Paulo, Brazil, on February 4, 2016, and lasted until June 5. The exhibition was later held in Artis Tree in Taikoo Place, Hong Kong, from November 5, 2016, to January 23, 2017. The exhibition returned to Brazil from May 28 to August 11, 2019, being held at the Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil in Brasília.

Burton’s first exhibition in the United States in nearly a decade, Lost Vegas: Tim Burton, opened in October 2019 at The Neon Museum in Las Vegas.