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Drew Barrymore

Drew Blythe Barrymore (born February 22, 1975) is an American actress, producer, talk show host and author. A member of the Barrymore family of actors, she has received several awards and nominations, including a Golden Globe Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award, in addition to nominations for nine Emmy Awards and a British Academy Film Award. She received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2004. She is also the Chief Gifting Officer for Etsy as of January 2024.

Barrymore achieved fame as a child actress with her breakout role in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. Following a highly publicized childhood marked by drug and alcohol abuse, she released an autobiography Little Girl Lost, which became a New York Times best seller. She starred in a string of successful films during the 1990s and 2000s, including Poison Ivy, Boys on the Side, Mad Love, Batman Forever, Scream, Ever After, and Charlie's Angels. Barrymore starred with Adam Sandler in the films The Wedding Singer, 50 First Dates, and Blended. Her other films include Firestarter, Donnie Darko, Riding in Cars with Boys, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, Fever Pitch, Music and Lyrics, Going the Distance, Big Miracle, and Miss You Already. She also starred in her directorial debut film Whip It. She won a Screen Actors Guild Award and a Golden Globe Award for her role in Grey Gardens. She starred in the Netflix series Santa Clarita Diet and currently hosts her syndicated talk show The Drew Barrymore Show. In September 2023, she announced she would return to the show without writers during the then-ongoing WGA strike, but after backlash, she reversed the decision the same month.

Barrymore is the founder of the production company Flower Films. It produced several projects in which she has starred. She launched a range of cosmetics under the Flower banner in 2013, which has grown to include lines in perfume, hair products and eyewear. Her other business ventures include a range of wines, homeware and clothing. In 2014, Barrymore released the New York Times bestselling photobook Find It in Everything of photographs she had taken over the span of a decade of everyday situations in the shape of a heart, including a discarded straw wrapper, a hole in a T-shirt, and a scallion in a bowl of miso soup. E. P. Dutton published a collection of Barrymore's autobiographical essays in her New York Times bestselling book Wildflower in 2015, for which she also narrated the audiobook version.

Ancestry

Drew Blythe Barrymore was born on February 22, 1975, in Culver City, California, to actor John Drew Barrymore and aspiring actress Jaid Barrymore (born Ildikó Jaid Makó), who was born in a displaced persons camp in Brannenburg, West Germany, to Hungarian World War II refugees. Through her father, Barrymore has three older half-siblings, including actor John Blyth Barrymore. Her parents divorced in 1984.

In 2023, Barrymore displayed an AncestryDNA test onscreen on her talk show, which showed that her genetic ancestry is primarily European, with 6% Northern Indian.

Barrymore was born into an acting family. All of her paternal great-grandparents, Maurice and Georgie Drew Barrymore, Maurice and Mae Costello (née Altschuk), and her paternal grandparents, John Barrymore and Dolores Costello, were actors, with John being arguably the most acclaimed actor of his generation. Barrymore is a niece of Diana Barrymore, a grandniece of Lionel Barrymore, Ethel Barrymore and Helene Costello, and a great-great-granddaughter of Irish-born John and English-born Louisa Lane Drew, all of whom were also actors. She is a great grandniece of Broadway idol John Drew Jr. and silent film actor, writer and director Sidney Drew.

Barrymore's godmothers are actress Sophia Loren and Lee Strasberg's widow, Anna Strasberg; Barrymore described her relationship with the latter as one that "would become so important to me as a kid because she was so kind and nurturing." Her godfather is filmmaker Steven Spielberg.

Barrymore's first name, Drew, was the maiden name of her paternal great-grandmother Georgie Drew, and her middle name, Blythe, was derived from the birth surname (Blyth) of her great-grandfather who later took the stage name of Maurice Barrymore. In her 1991 autobiography Little Girl Lost, Barrymore recounted early memories of her abusive father, who left the family when she was six months old. She and her father never had a significant relationship and seldom spoke.

Childhood
Barrymore grew up on Poinsettia Place in West Hollywood, until she moved to Sherman Oaks at the age of seven. In her 2015 memoir Wildflower, she says she spoke "like a valley girl" because she grew up in Sherman Oaks. She moved back to West Hollywood on becoming emancipated at age 14. She attended elementary school at Fountain Day School in West Hollywood and Country School. In the wake of her sudden stardom, Barrymore endured a notoriously troubled childhood. She was a regular at Studio 54 as a young girl, and her nightlife and constant partying became a popular subject with the media. She was placed in rehab at 13, and spent 18 months in an institution for the mentally ill. A suicide attempt at 14 put her back in rehab, followed by a three-month stay with singer David Crosby and his wife. The stay was precipitated, Crosby said, because she "needed to be around some people that were committed to sobriety." Barrymore described this period of her life for Little Girl Lost. After a successful juvenile court petition for emancipation, she moved into her own apartment at the age of 15.

1970s–1980s: Established child actress
Barrymore's career began when she was eleven months old, when she appeared in a dog food commercial. After her film debut with a small role in Altered States, she played Gertie in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. Director Steven Spielberg felt she had the right imagination for the role after she impressed him with a story that she led a punk rock band. E.T. was the highest-grossing film of the 1980s, and made Barrymore one of the most famous child actors of the time. She won the Young Artist Award for Best Young Supporting Actress and was nominated for the Rising Star Award at the British Academy Film Awards. In the eighth season of Saturday Night Live, she became the youngest person to guest-host the series.

In the 1984 film adaptation for Stephen King's 1980 novel Firestarter, Barrymore played a girl with pyrokinesis, and the target of a secret government agency known as The Shop. That year, she also played a young girl divorcing her famous parents in Irreconcilable Differences, and was nominated for her first Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress. In his review in the Chicago Sun-Times, Roger Ebert wrote: "Barrymore is the right actress for this role precisely because she approaches it with such grave calm."

Barrymore endured a troubled youth and continued acting during the decade. She starred in the anthology horror film Cat's Eye, also written by King. It received positive reviews and Barrymore was nominated for a Young Artist Award for Best Leading Young Actress. For Dangerous Liaisons, Barrymore declined the role of Cecile, which went to Uma Thurman. Barrymore starred in the romance film See You in the Morning. Vincent Canby of The New York Times criticized the "fashionable phoniness" of the film, but positively singled out Barrymore. In Far from Home, she played a teenager who gets stranded with her father in a small, remote desert town. The film went largely unnoticed by audiences and received negative reviews from critics, who dismissed the sexual portrayal of her role.

1990s: Transition to adult roles
Barrymore's rebelliousness played itself out on screen and in print. She played a poor teenage girl in Poison Ivy, which was a box-office bomb, but was popular on video and cable. Her character "Ivy" was ranked at #6 on the list of the top 26 "bad girls" of all time by Entertainment Weekly. Barrymore was seventeen when she posed nude with her then-fiancé, actor Jamie Walters, for the cover of the July issue of Interview magazine; she also appeared nude in pictures inside the issue.

In Guncrazy, Barrymore played a teenager who kills her abusive stepfather. Variety remarked that she "pulls off impressively" her character, and Barrymore was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Miniseries or Television Film. Barrymore played the younger sister of a murdered ballerina in No Place to Hide and a writer followed by what is apparently her evil twin in Doppelganger. Both films were panned by critics and failed to find an audience. She appeared in the western film Bad Girls, which follows four former prostitutes on the run following a justifiable homicide and prison escape. Roger Ebert, in his review for the film, wrote for Chicago Sun-Times: "What a good idea, to make a Western about four tough women. And what a sad movie."

Barrymore posed nude for the January 1995 issue of Playboy. Soon after, her godfather Steven Spielberg gave her a quilt for her 20th birthday with a note that read, "Cover yourself up." Enclosed in the quilt were copies of her Playboy pictures which had been altered by Spielberg's art department so that she appeared fully clothed. Barrymore later said that she would not let her own child make the same choice she did.

While appearing on the Late Show with David Letterman, Barrymore climbed onto the desk, flashed her breasts to David Letterman and gave him a kiss on the cheek as a birthday gift. She modeled in a series of Guess? jeans ads during this time.

In the late 1990s, Barrymore re-established her image and continued to be a highly bankable star.

In Boys on the Side, Barrymore played a pregnant girl attempting to escape from her abusive boyfriend. It was a box office success and was positively received by critics. In the superhero film Batman Forever, she played one of the two female assistants for Two-Face (Tommy Lee Jones).

Barrymore made a brief but notable appearance in Wes Craven's 1996 slasher film Scream. She read the film's script and was interested in being involved, approaching the production team herself to request a role. The producers were quick to take advantage of her unexpected interest and signed her to play the lead role of Sidney Prescott. However, after unexpected commitments, Barrymore played Casey Becker in a minor role, and Neve Campbell took the leading one. Scream was released to critical acclaim and made $173 million worldwide.

In The Wedding Singer (1998), Barrymore played a waitress in love with the titular character, played by Adam Sandler. Variety found the film to be a "spirited, funny and warm saga" that serves them up "in a new way that enhances their most winning qualities". Budgeted at $18 million, the film grossed $123.3 million internationally. In Home Fries (1998), Barrymore played a pregnant woman unknowingly falling for the stepson of the late father of her baby. She starred in the historical drama film Ever After (1998), which made $98 million and was inspired by the fairy tale Cinderella. Roger Ebert said about Barrymore and the film: "she can hold the screen and involve us in her characters".

Barrymore voiced the titular anthropomorphic Jack Russell terrier in the Christmas television film Olive, the Other Reindeer and was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award. After establishing Flower Films, Barrymore and Nancy Juvonen produced the company's first film, Never Been Kissed, in which Barrymore played an insecure copy editor for the Chicago Sun-Times and a high school student. While reviews from critics were mixed, CNN noted: "There are two words which describe why this film works: Drew Barrymore. Her comedic timing and willingness to go all out in her quest for a laugh combine to make Never Been Kissed a gratifying movie-going experience". The film was a commercial success, grossing $84.5 million.

2000s: Charlie's Angels and continued success in romantic comedies
In Charlie's Angels, Barrymore, Cameron Diaz and Lucy Liu played the trio of investigators in Los Angeles. The film was a major box office success and helped solidify Barrymore's standing in her production company as one of the film's producers. Barrymore starred in Riding in Cars with Boys, as a teenage mother in a failed marriage with the drug-addicted father (based on Beverly Donofrio's real-life story). When the production of Donnie Darko was threatened, Barrymore stepped forward with financing from the company, and played the title character's English teacher. Although the film was less than successful at the box office in the wake of 9/11, it reached cult status after the DVD release, inspiring numerous websites devoted to unraveling the plot twists and meanings.

Barrymore starred in George Clooney's directorial debut Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, based on the autobiography of television producer Chuck Barris. Barrymore reprised her role in Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle and starred with Ben Stiller in Duplex. Flower Films and Happy Madison Productions produced the film 50 First Dates, in which Barrymore played an amnesiac woman and Sandler played a marine veterinarian. Summing up Barrymore's appeal, Roger Ebert, in his review for the film, remarked that Barrymore displayed a "smiling, coy sincerity", in what he described as an "ingratiating and lovable" film. 50 First Dates was a commercial success; it made US$120.9 million in North America and US$196.4 million worldwide.

In the 2005 American remake adaptation of the 1997 British film Fever Pitch, Barrymore played the love interest of an immature schoolteacher (Jimmy Fallon). The film grossed a modest US$50 million worldwide and had generally favorable reviews by critics who felt it "has enough charm and on-screen chemistry between [Fallon and Barrymore] to make it a solid hit". Barrymore starred in the 2006 animated film Curious George, based on the book series of the same name. She and Hugh Grant starred in Music and Lyrics, which focuses on the relationship that evolves between a former pop music idol and an aspiring writer as they struggle to compose a song for a reigning pop diva. The romantic comedy, released in February 2007, received largely positive reviews, with The Washington Post finding the two to be "great together" in it. The film was a commercial success, grossing US$145 million globally.

In Curtis Hanson's poker film Lucky You, Barrymore played an aspiring singer and the subject of the affections of a talented player. In Raja Gosnell's film Beverly Hills Chihuahua, Barrymore voiced the titular character, a richly pampered pet who gets dognapped in Mexico and has to escape from an evil Doberman.

Barrymore starred in the ensemble comedy He's Just Not That Into You, which received mixed reviews, partly due to her limited time on screen,  while it grossed US$178 million worldwide. She played Edith Bouvier Beale, the daughter of Edith Ewing Bouvier Beale (Jessica Lange) in the HBO film Grey Gardens, which is based on the 1975 documentary film. The television film was a huge success, winning five Primetime Emmy Awards and two Golden Globe Awards. Rolling Stone writer Peter Travers found Barrymore to be a "revelation" in her role. Barrymore was nominated for the Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie, and won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Miniseries or Television Film and the Screen Actors Guild for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Television Movie or Miniseries.

Barrymore starred in her directorial debut film Whip It. It follows a high-schooler (Elliot Page) ditching the teen beauty pageant scene and participating in an Austin roller derby league. Barrymore worked with screenwriter Shauna Cross for months on script revisions, with Barrymore pushing her to "avoid her story's tidier prospects, to make things 'more raw and open ended.'" While the film found limited box office receipts, it was favorably received; according to review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, critics agreed that her "directorial debut has enough charm, energy, and good-natured humor to transcend its many cliches". For her venture, Barrymore garnered nominations for a Bronze Horse at the Stockholm Film Festival and for the EDA Female Focus Award at the 2009 Alliance of Women Film Journalists. In Everybody's Fine, Barrymore played the daughter of a recently widowed retiree (Robert De Niro). The drama flopped at the box office, but Stephen Holden for The New York Times considered Barrymore "as ingenuous as ever" in what he described as a "small role."

2010s: Producing and Santa Clarita Diet
Barrymore starred with Justin Long in Nanette Burstein's film Going the Distance. It follows a couple dealing the ups and downs of a long-distance relationship, while commuting between New York City and San Francisco. It garnered generally mixed reviews by critics, who summed it as "timelier and a little more honest than most romantic comedies", and budgeted at US$32 million, the film made US$40 million at the worldwide box office.

On August 2, 2011, Barrymore directed the music video for the song "Our Deal," for the band Best Coast, which features Chloë Grace Moretz, Miranda Cosgrove, Tyler Posey, Donald Glover, Shailene Woodley and Alia Shawkat. Barrymore starred in the biopic film Big Miracle, which covers Operation Breakthrough, the 1988 international effort to rescue gray whales from being trapped in ice near Point Barrow, Alaska. Her character, Rachel Kramer, is based on Greenpeace activist Cindy Lowry. Despite a positive critical reception, the film flopped at the box office.

In Blended, Barrymore played a recently divorced woman ending up on a family resort with a widower (Sandler). Film critic James Berardinelli dismissed the "hit-and-miss humor" of the story and wrote that "as [Sandler and Barrymore] are concerned, the third time is definitely not the charm", as part of an overall lukewarm critical response. The film ultimately grossed US$128 million worldwide. She and Toni Collette starred in Miss You Already (2015), as two long-time friends whose relationship is put to the test when one starts a family and the other becomes ill. Reviewers embraced the film, while it received a limited theatrical release.

In the Netflix original television series Santa Clarita Diet, Barrymore played a real estate agent who, after experiencing a physical transformation into a zombie, starts craving human flesh. Along with co-star Timothy Olyphant, Barrymore served as an executive producer on the single-camera series, which was favorably received upon its premiere;  Rolling Stone felt that "much of [the series' laughs] comes down to the uncrushable Drew Barrymore charm" and furthermore remarked: "The show is a welcome comeback for Barrymore, the eternally beloved grunge-era wild thing—it's not just her big move into TV, but her first high-profile performance anywhere in years. In a way, it circles back to the roles she was doing in the early [90s], playing deadly vixens in flicks like Guncrazy or Doppelganger".

2020s: The Drew Barrymore Show
Barrymore starred in Jamie Babbit's film The Stand In. It was set to premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in April 2020, but was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. On September 14, 2020, Barrymore launched a syndicated daytime talk show, The Drew Barrymore Show, which is also available on Spotify in a podcast format. On December 4, 2020, she appeared as a guest star on Martha Knows Best. On March 11, 2021, Barrymore said she was taking an indefinite hiatus from acting. She wrote a cookbook with chef Pilar Valdes entitled Rebel Homemaker, which was a New York Times bestseller. In June 2021, she launched Drew Magazine, a quarterly released lifestyle magazine by publisher Bauer Media USA. Barrymore was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine in 2023.

In September 2023, Barrymore announced she would continue her syndicated TV talk show despite the ongoing WGA strike, writing “I own this choice” when explaining her reasoning via social media. While SAG had stated that as the host of the show she was not under any obligation to strike, her show continued without unionized writing staff. Audience members showing support for the Writer's Guild were kicked out of the studio, and had any WGA pins confiscated. Due to these events, the National Book Foundation removed Barrymore from being the host of the then upcoming 74th National Book Awards. Barrymore apologized for her actions later that week in a video on Instagram, claiming that, "I believe there’s nothing I can do or say in this moment to make it OK." Barrymore deleted the apology video from her account following criticism. On the 17th, Barrymore announced on her Instagram account that she would be postponing production of her talk show until the strike ends due to the backlash, writing "I have listened to everyone, and I am making the decision to pause the show’s premiere until the strike is over”. She also adds “I have no words to express my deepest apologies to anyone I have hurt, and, of course, to our incredible team who works on the show and has made it what it is today”. A spokesperson for CBS Media Ventures said, "We support Drew’s decision to pause the show’s return and understand how complex and difficult this process has been for her."

Image and fashion
Barrymore became a CoverGirl Cosmetics' model and spokeswoman in 2007. In February 2015, she became one of the faces of CoverGirl, alongside Queen Latifah and Taylor Swift. The company partnered with her because "she emulates the iconic image of CoverGirl with her fresh, natural beauty and energetic yet authentic spirit," said Esi Eggleston Bracey, vice president and general manager of CoverGirl Cosmetics North America. She brought not only her personality into this endorsement but also her creative side, as she also helped create the ads. She was No. 1 on People's annual 100 Most Beautiful People list in 2007. She was named the new face for the Gucci jewelry line. Barrymore signed a contract with IMG Models New York City. She is a spokeswoman for Crocs.

In May 2007, Barrymore was named Ambassador Against Hunger for the United Nations World Food Programme and later donated $1 million to the cause. As a guest photographer for a magazine series called "They Shoot New York", she appeared on the cover holding a Pentax K1000 film camera. She expressed hopes of exposing her work in a gallery one day, as she had documented the most recent decade of her life with a Pentax camera.

Barrymore launched a women's fashion line in fall 2017 in conjunction with Amazon.com called Dear Drew, which featured a pop-up shop in New York City that opened in November.

Personal life
In 1991, Barrymore was engaged to Leland Hayward's grandson, Leland III. The engagement was called off a few months later. She was engaged to Jamie Walters from 1992 to 1993.

Barrymore married Welsh-born Los Angeles bar owner Jeremy Thomas on March 20, 1994. She filed for divorce from him less than two months later.

In late 1994, Barrymore began dating Hole guitarist Eric Erlandson. Barrymore began dating with MTV host and comedian Tom Green in 1999. They were engaged in July 2000 and married a year later. Together, they starred in Charlie's Angels and Green's directorial film debut, Freddy Got Fingered. Green filed for divorce in December 2001, which was finalized on October 15, 2002.

In 2002, Barrymore began dating The Strokes drummer Fabrizio Moretti shortly after they met at a concert. Their relationship ended in January 2007. She began dating Justin Long, but they broke up in July 2008.

In early 2011, Barrymore began dating art consultant Will Kopelman, the son of former Chanel COO Arie L. Kopelman. The couple announced their engagement in January 2012, and married on June 2, 2012, in Montecito, California. Four days later, the couple's wedding image appeared on the cover of People magazine. They have two daughters, born in 2012 and 2014. On April 2, 2016, Barrymore and Kopelman released a statement about their separation. On July 15, 2016, Barrymore officially filed for divorce, which was finalized on August 3, 2016.

In an interview with Contactmusic.com in 2003, Barrymore said: "Do I like women sexually? Yeah, I do. Totally. I have always considered myself bisexual. I love a woman's body. I think a woman and a woman together are beautiful, just as a man and a woman together are beautiful. Being with a woman is like exploring your own body, but through someone else".

Barrymore is the godmother of Frances Bean Cobain, the daughter of Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love.

Barrymore eats a plant-based diet, and reportedly convinced Cardi B to try veganism. Since 2023, she resides in Manhattan.

Awards, honors, and nominations
In 1999, Barrymore was honored by the Young Artist Foundation with its Former Child Star "Lifetime Achievement" Award commemorating her outstanding achievements within the film industry as a child actress. For her contributions to the film industry, Barrymore received a motion pictures star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2004. It is located at 6925 Hollywood Boulevard.

Her films compiled a worldwide box office gross that stood at over US$2.3 billion. According to The Hollywood Reporter's annual Star Salary Top 10, she was tied for eighth place on the top ten list of actresses' salaries, commanding 10 to 12 million dollars per film in 2006. Barrymore became the youngest person to host Saturday Night Live, having hosted on November 20, 1982 at seven years of age, a record that remains unbroken. On February 3, 2007, Barrymore hosted SNL for the fifth time, becoming the second female host (after Candice Bergen) in the show's history to do so. She hosted again on October 10, 2009, becoming the first woman to host six times.

title: Drew Barrymore


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D. W. Griffith

David Wark Griffith (January 22, 1875 – July 23, 1948) was an American film director. Considered one of the most influential figures in the history of the motion picture, he pioneered many aspects of film editing and expanded the art of the narrative film.

To modern audiences, Griffith is known primarily for directing the 1915 film The Birth of a Nation. One of the most financially successful films of all time and considered a landmark by film historians, it has attracted much controversy for its degrading portrayals of African Americans, its glorification of the Ku Klux Klan and support for the Confederacy. The film led to riots in several major cities all over the United States, and the NAACP attempted to have it banned. Griffith made his next film Intolerance (1916) as an answer to critics, who he felt unfairly maligned his work.

Together with Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, and Douglas Fairbanks, Griffith founded the studio United Artists in 1919 with the goal of enabling actors and directors to make films on their own terms as opposed to the terms of commercial studios. Several of Griffith's later films were successful, including Broken Blossoms (1919), Way Down East (1920), and Orphans of the Storm (1921), but the high costs he incurred for production and promotion often led to commercial failure. He had made roughly 500 films by the time of The Struggle (1931), his final feature, and all but three were completely silent.

Early life
Griffith was born on January 22, 1875, on a farm in Oldham County, Kentucky, the son of Jacob Wark "Roaring Jake" Griffith, a Confederate Army colonel in the American Civil War who was elected as a Kentucky state legislator, and Mary Perkins (née Oglesby). Griffith was raised as a Methodist, and he attended a one-room schoolhouse, where he was taught by his older sister Mattie. His father died when he was 10, and the family struggled with poverty.

When Griffith was 14, his mother abandoned the farm and moved the family to Louisville, Kentucky; there she opened a boarding house, which was unsuccessful. Griffith then left high school to help support the family, taking a job in a dry goods store and later in a bookstore. He began his creative career as an actor in touring companies. Meanwhile, he was learning how to become a playwright, but he had little success. Only one of his plays was accepted for a performance. He traveled to New York City in 1907 in an attempt to sell a script to Edison Studios producer Edwin Porter; although Porter rejected the script, he gave Griffith an acting part in Rescued from an Eagle's Nest instead. As a result of this experience, Griffith decided to try his luck as an actor, and he appeared in many films as an extra.

Early film career
In 1908, Griffith accepted a role as a stage extra in Professional Jealousy for the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company, where he met cameraman Billy Bitzer. In 1908, Biograph's main director Wallace McCutcheon Sr. fell ill, and his son Wallace McCutcheon Jr. took his place. McCutcheon Jr. did not bring the studio success; Biograph co-founder Harry Marvin then gave Griffith the position, and he made the short The Adventures of Dollie. He directed a total of 48 shorts for the company that year.

Among the films he directed in 1909 was The Cricket on the Hearth, an adaptation of Charles Dickens' novel. Showing the influence of Dickens on his own film narrative, Griffith employed the technique of cross-cutting—where two stories run alongside each other, as seen in Dickens' novels such as Oliver Twist. When criticized by a cameraman for doing this technique in a later film, Griffith was said to have replied "Well, doesn't Dickens write that way?".

His short In Old California (1910) was the first film shot in Hollywood, California. Four years later, he produced and directed his first feature film Judith of Bethulia (1914), one of the early films to be produced in the U.S. Biograph believed that longer features were not viable at this point. According to Lillian Gish, the company thought that "a movie that long would hurt [the audience's] eyes".

Griffith left Biograph because of company resistance to his goals and his cost overruns on the film. He took his company of actors with him and joined the Mutual Film Corporation. There he co-produced The Life of General Villa, a silent biographical-action movie starring Pancho Villa as himself, shot on location in Mexico during a civil war. He formed a studio with Majestic Studios manager Harry Aitken, which became known as Reliance-Majestic Studios and later was renamed Fine Arts Studios. His new production company became an autonomous production unit partner in the Triangle Film Corporation along with Thomas H. Ince and Keystone Studios' Mack Sennett. The Triangle Film Corporation was headed by Aitken, who was released from the Mutual Film Corporation, and his brother Roy.

Griffith directed and produced The Clansman through Reliance-Majestic Studios in 1915. The film later became known as The Birth of a Nation. It is one of the early feature length American films. The film was a success, but it aroused much controversy due to its depiction of slavery, the Ku Klux Klan, race relations in the American Civil War, and the Reconstruction era of the United States. It was based on Thomas Dixon Jr.'s 1905 novel The Clansman: A Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan; it depicts Southern slavery as benign, the enfranchisement of freedmen as a corrupt plot by the Republican Party, and the Ku Klux Klan as a band of heroes restoring the rightful order. This view of the era was popular at the time and was endorsed for decades by historians of the Dunning School, but it met with strong criticism from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and other groups.

The NAACP attempted to stop showings of the film. This ban was successful in some cities, but nonetheless it was shown widely and became the most successful box-office attraction of its time. It is considered among the first "blockbuster" motion pictures, and it broke all box-office records that had been established until then. "They lost track of the money it made", Lillian Gish remarked in a Kevin Brownlow interview.

Audiences in some major northern cities rioted over the film's racial content and the violence. Griffith's indignation at efforts to censor or ban the film motivated him the following year to produce Intolerance, in which he portrayed the effects of intolerance in four different historical periods: the Fall of Babylon; the Crucifixion of Jesus; the events surrounding the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre (during religious persecution of French Huguenots); and a modern story. Intolerance was not a financial success; it did not bring in enough profits to cover the lavish road show that accompanied it. Griffith put a huge budget into the film's production that could not be recovered in its box office. He mostly financed Intolerance himself, which contributed to his financial ruin for the rest of his life.

Griffith's production partnership was dissolved in 1917, and he went to Artcraft, part of Paramount Pictures, and then to First National Pictures (1919–1920). At the same time, he founded United Artists together with Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, and Douglas Fairbanks; the studio was based on allowing actors to control their own interests rather than being dependent upon commercial studios. He continued to make films, but he never again achieved box-office grosses as high as either The Birth of a Nation or Intolerance.

Later film career
Although United Artists survived as a company, Griffith's association with it was short-lived. While some of his later films did well at the box office, commercial success often eluded him. Griffith features from this period include Broken Blossoms (1919), Way Down East (1920), Orphans of the Storm (1921), Dream Street (1921), One Exciting Night (1922), The White Rose (1923), America (1924) and Isn't Life Wonderful (1924). Of these, the first three were successes at the box office. Griffith was forced to leave United Artists after Isn't Life Wonderful (1924) failed at the box office.

He made Lady of the Pavements (1929), a part sound film, and only two full-sound films: Abraham Lincoln (1930) and The Struggle (1931). Neither was successful, and after The Struggle, he never made another film.

In 1936, director Woody Van Dyke, who had worked as Griffith's apprentice on Intolerance, asked Griffith to help him shoot the famous earthquake sequence for San Francisco, but Griffith was not given any film credit. Starring Clark Gable, Jeanette MacDonald and Spencer Tracy, it was the top-grossing film of the year.

In 1939, the producer Hal Roach hired Griffith to produce Of Mice and Men (1939) and One Million B.C. (1940). He wrote to Griffith: "I need help from the production side to select the proper writers, cast, et cetera, and to help me generally in the supervision of these pictures."

Although Griffith eventually disagreed with Roach over the production and departed, Roach later insisted that some of the scenes in the completed film were directed by Griffith. This movie was the final production in which Griffith was involved. However, cast members' accounts recall Griffith directing only the screen tests and costume tests. When Roach advertised the film in late 1939 with Griffith listed as producer, Griffith asked that his name be removed.

Griffith was for decades held in awe by many members of the film industry. He was presented a special Oscar by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in the mid-1930s. In 1946, he made an impromptu visit to the film location of David O. Selznick's epic western Duel in the Sun, where some of his veteran actors—Lillian Gish, Lionel Barrymore and Harry Carey—were cast members. Gish and Barrymore found their mentor's presence distracting, and they became self-conscious; in response, Griffith hid behind the scenery when the two were filming their scenes.

Death
On the morning of July 23, 1948, Griffith was discovered unconscious in the lobby at the Knickerbocker Hotel in Los Angeles, where he had been living alone. He died of a cerebral hemorrhage at 3:42 PM on the way to a Hollywood hospital. A public memorial service was held in his honor at the Hollywood Masonic Temple. He is buried at Mount Tabor Methodist Church Graveyard in Centerfield, Kentucky. In 1950, The Directors Guild of America provided a stone and bronze monument for his grave site.

Legacy

Griffith has a controversial legacy. Despite criticism, he was a widely celebrated and respected public figure during his life, and modern film historians continue to recognize him for his contributions to the craft of filmmaking. Nevertheless, many critics during his lifetime, as well as in the decades since his death, have characterized him and his work (most notably The Birth of a Nation) as upholding white supremacist ideals. Historians frequently cite The Birth of a Nation as a major factor in the KKK's revival in the 20th century, and it remains controversial to this day.

Performer and director Charlie Chaplin called Griffith "The Teacher of Us All". Filmmakers such as Alfred Hitchcock, Lev Kuleshov, Jean Renoir, Cecil B. DeMille, King Vidor, Victor Fleming, Raoul Walsh, Carl Theodor Dreyer, and Stanley Kubrick have praised Griffith. Sergei Eisenstein expressed his admiration for Griffith as an "outstanding master", but criticized Birth of a Nation, calling it "disgraceful propaganda of racial hatred towards the colored people".

Griffith seems to have been the first to understand how certain film techniques could be used to create an expressive language; it gained popular recognition with the release of his The Birth of a Nation (1915). His early shorts —such as Biograph's The Musketeers of Pig Alley (1912), show that Griffith's attention to camera placement and lighting heightened mood and tension. In making Intolerance, Griffith opened new possibilities for the medium, creating a form that seems to owe more to music than to traditional narrative.

 * In the 1951 Philco Television Playhouse episode "The Birth of the Movies", events from Griffith's film career were depicted. Griffith was played by John Newland.
 * In 1953 the Directors Guild of America (DGA) instituted the D. W. Griffith Award, its highest honor. However, on December 15, 1999, then DGA President Jack Shea and the DGA National Board announced that the award would be renamed as the "DGA Lifetime Achievement Award". They stated that, although Griffith was extremely talented, they felt his film The Birth of a Nation had "helped foster intolerable racial stereotypes", and that it was thus better not to have the top award in his name.
 * On February 8, 1960, Griffith was posthumously awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, which is located at 6535 Hollywood Boulevard.
 * In 1975, Griffith was honored on a 10-cent postage stamp by the United States.
 * The 1976 American comedy film Nickelodeon in part pays homage to silent film makers, and includes footage from The Birth of a Nation.
 * D.W. Griffith Middle School in Los Angeles is named after Griffith.
 * In 2008 the Hollywood Heritage Museum hosted a screening of Griffith's early films to commemorate the centennial of his start in film.
 * On January 22, 2009, the Oldham History Center in La Grange, Kentucky, opened a 15-seat theatre in Griffith's honor. The theatre features a library of available Griffith films.

Film preservation
Griffith has six films preserved on the United States National Film Registry deemed as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant": Lady Helen's Escapade, A Corner in Wheat (both 1909), The Musketeers of Pig Alley (1912), The Birth of a Nation (1915), Intolerance (1916) and Broken Blossoms (1919).

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title: D. W. Griffith


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Dune

A dune is a landform composed of wind- or water-driven sand. It typically takes the form of a mound, ridge, or hill. An area with dunes is called a dune system   or a dune complex. A large dune complex is called a dune field, while broad, flat regions covered with wind-swept sand or dunes, with little or no vegetation, are called ergs or sand seas. Dunes occur in different shapes and sizes, but most kinds of dunes are longer on the stoss (upflow) side, where the sand is pushed up the dune, and have a shorter slip face in the lee side. The valley or trough between dunes is called a dune slack.

Dunes are most common in desert environments, where the lack of moisture hinders the growth of vegetation that would otherwise interfere with the development of dunes. However, sand deposits are not restricted to deserts, and dunes are also found along sea shores, along streams in semiarid climates, in areas of glacial outwash, and in other areas where poorly cemented sandstone bedrock disintegrates to produce an ample supply of loose sand. Subaqueous dunes can form from the action of water flow (fluvial processes) on sand or gravel beds of rivers, estuaries, and the sea-bed.

Some coastal areas have one or more sets of dunes running parallel to the shoreline directly inland from the beach. In most cases, the dunes are important in protecting the land against potential ravages by storm waves from the sea. Artificial dunes are sometimes constructed to protect coastal areas. The dynamic action of wind and water can sometimes cause dunes to drift, which can have serious consequences. For example, the town of Eucla, Western Australia, had to be relocated in the 1890s because of dune drift.

The modern word "dune" came into English from French around 1790, which in turn came from Middle Dutch dūne.

Formation

A universally precise distinction does not exist between ripples, dunes, and draas, which are all deposits of the same type of materials. Dunes are generally defined as greater than 7 cm tall and may have ripples, while ripples are deposits that are less than 3 cm tall. A draa is a very large aeolian landform, with a length of several kilometers and a height of tens to hundreds of meters, and which may have superimposed dunes.

Dunes are made of sand-sized particles, and may consist of quartz, calcium carbonate, snow, gypsum, or other materials. The upwind/upstream/upcurrent side of the dune is called the stoss side; the downflow side is called the lee side. Sand is pushed (creep) or bounces (saltation) up the stoss side, and slides down the lee side. A side of a dune that the sand has slid down is called a slip face (or slipface).

The Bagnold formula gives the speed at which particles can be transported.

Aeolian dune shapes
Five basic dune types are recognized: crescentic, linear, star, dome, and parabolic. Dune areas may occur in three forms: simple (isolated dunes of basic type), compound (larger dunes on which smaller dunes of same type form), and complex (combinations of different types).

Barchan or crescentic
Barchan dunes are crescent-shaped mounds which are generally wider than they are long. The lee-side slipfaces are on the concave sides of the dunes. These dunes form under winds that blow consistently from one direction (unimodal winds). They form separate crescents when the sand supply is comparatively small. When the sand supply is greater, they may merge into barchanoid ridges, and then transverse dunes (see below).

Some types of crescentic dunes move more quickly over desert surfaces than any other type of dune. A group of dunes moved more than 100 metres per year between 1954 and 1959 in China's Ningxia Province, and similar speeds have been recorded in the Western Desert of Egypt. The largest crescentic dunes on Earth, with mean crest-to-crest widths of more than three kilometres, are in China's Taklamakan Desert.

Transverse dunes
Abundant barchan dunes may merge into barchanoid ridges, which then grade into linear (or slightly sinuous) transverse dunes, so called because they lie transverse, or across, the wind direction, with the wind blowing perpendicular to the ridge crest.

Seif or longitudinal dunes
Seif dunes are linear (or slightly sinuous) dunes with two slip faces. The two slip faces make them sharp-crested. They are called seif dunes after the Arabic word for "sword". They may be more than 160 kilometres (100 miles) long, and thus easily visible in satellite images (see illustrations).

Seif dunes are associated with bidirectional winds. The long axes and ridges of these dunes extend along the resultant direction of sand movement (hence the name "longitudinal"). Some linear dunes merge to form Y-shaped compound dunes.

Formation is debated. Ralph Bagnold, in The Physics of Blown Sand and Desert Dunes, suggested that some seif dunes form when a barchan dune moves into a bidirectional wind regime, and one arm or wing of the crescent elongates. Others suggest that seif dunes are formed by vortices in a unidirectional wind. In the sheltered troughs between highly developed seif dunes, barchans may be formed, because the wind is constrained to be unidirectional by the dunes.

Seif dunes are common in the Sahara. They range up to 300 m in height and 300 km in length. In the southern third of the Arabian Peninsula, a vast erg, called the Rub' al Khali or Empty Quarter, contains seif dunes that stretch for almost 200 km and reach heights of over 300 m.

Linear loess hills known as pahas are superficially similar. These hills appear to have been formed during the last ice age under permafrost conditions dominated by sparse tundra vegetation.

Star
Star dunes are pyramidal sand mounds with slipfaces on three or more arms that radiate from the high center of the mound. They tend to accumulate in areas with multidirectional wind regimes. Star dunes grow upward rather than laterally. They dominate the Grand Erg Oriental of the Sahara. In other deserts, they occur around the margins of the sand seas, particularly near topographic barriers. In the southeast Badain Jaran Desert of China, the star dunes are up to 500 metres tall and may be the tallest dunes on Earth.

Dome
Oval or circular mounds that generally lack a slipface. Dome dunes are rare and occur at the far upwind margins of sand seas.

Lunettes
Fixed crescentic dunes that form on the leeward margins of playas and river valleys in arid and semiarid regions in response to the direction (s) of prevailing winds, are known as lunettes, source-bordering dunes, bourrelets and clay dunes. They may be composed of clay, silt, sand, or gypsum, eroded from the basin floor or shore, transported up the concave side of the dune, and deposited on the convex side. Examples in Australia are up to 6.5 km long, 1 km wide, and up to 50 metres high. They also occur in southern and West Africa, and in parts of the western United States, especially Texas.

Parabolic
U-shaped mounds of sand with convex noses trailed by elongated arms are parabolic dunes. These dunes are formed from blowout dunes where the erosion of vegetated sand leads to a U-shaped depression. The elongated arms are held in place by vegetation; the largest arm known on Earth reaches 12 km. Sometimes these dunes are called U-shaped, blowout, or hairpin dunes, and they are well known in coastal deserts. Unlike crescent shaped dunes, their crests point upwind. The bulk of the sand in the dune migrates forward.

In plan view, these are U-shaped or V-shaped mounds of well-sorted, very fine to medium sand with elongated arms that extend upwind behind the central part of the dune. There are slipfaces that often occur on the outer side of the nose and on the outer slopes of the arms.

These dunes often occur in semiarid areas where the precipitation is retained in the lower parts of the dune and underlying soils. The stability of the dunes was once attributed to the vegetative cover but recent research has pointed to water as the main source of parabolic dune stability. The vegetation that covers them—grasses, shrubs, and trees—help anchor the trailing arms. In inland deserts, parabolic dunes commonly originate and extend downwind from blowouts in sand sheets only partly anchored by vegetation. They can also originate from beach sands and extend inland into vegetated areas in coastal zones and on shores of large lakes.

Most parabolic dunes do not reach heights higher than a few tens of metres except at their nose, where vegetation stops or slows the advance of accumulating sand.

Simple parabolic dunes have only one set of arms that trail upwind, behind the leading nose. Compound parabolic dunes are coalesced features with several sets of trailing arms. Complex parabolic dunes include subsidiary superposed or coalesced forms, usually of barchanoid or linear shapes.

Parabolic dunes, like crescent dunes, occur in areas where very strong winds are mostly unidirectional. Although these dunes are found in areas now characterized by variable wind speeds, the effective winds associated with the growth and migration of both the parabolic and crescent dunes probably are the most consistent in wind direction.

The grain size for these well-sorted, very fine to medium sands is about 0.06 to 0.5 mm. Parabolic dunes have loose sand and steep slopes only on their outer flanks. The inner slopes are mostly well packed and anchored by vegetation, as are the corridors between individual dunes. Because all dune arms are oriented in the same direction, and, the inter-dune corridors are generally swept clear of loose sand, the corridors can usually be traversed in between the trailing arms of the dune. However to cross straight over the dune by going over the trailing arms, can be very difficult. Also, traversing the nose is very difficult as well because the nose is usually made up of loose sand without much if any vegetation.

A type of extensive parabolic dune that lacks discernible slipfaces and has mostly coarse grained sand is known as a zibar. The term zibar comes from the Arabic word to describe "rolling transverse ridges ... with a hard surface". The dunes are small, have low relief, and can be found in many places across the planet from Wyoming (United States) to Saudi Arabia to Australia. Spacing between zibars ranges from 50 to 400 metres and they do not become more than 10 metres high. The dunes form at about ninety degrees to the prevailing wind which blows away the small, fine-grained sand leaving behind the coarser grained sand to form the crest.

Reversing dunes
Occurring wherever winds periodically reverse direction, reversing dunes are varieties of any of the above shapes. These dunes typically have major and minor slipfaces oriented in opposite directions. The minor slipfaces are usually temporary, as they appear after a reverse wind and are generally destroyed when the wind next blows in the dominant direction.

Draas
Draas are very large-scale dune bedforms; they may be tens or a few hundreds of metres in height, kilometres wide, and hundreds of kilometres in length. After a draa has reached a certain size, it generally develops superimposed dune forms. They are thought to be more ancient and slower-moving than smaller dunes, and to form by vertical growth of existing dunes. Draas are widespread in sand seas and are well-represented in the geological record.

Dune complexity
All these dune shapes may occur in three forms: simple (isolated dunes of basic type), compound (larger dunes on which smaller dunes of same type form), and complex (combinations of different types). Simple dunes are basic forms with the minimum number of slipfaces that define the geometric type. Compound dunes are large dunes on which smaller dunes of similar type and slipface orientation are superimposed. Complex dunes are combinations of two or more dune types. A crescentic dune with a star dune superimposed on its crest is the most common complex dune. Simple dunes represent a wind regime that has not changed in intensity or direction since the formation of the dune, while compound and complex dunes suggest that the intensity and direction of the wind has changed.

Dune movement
The sand mass of dunes can move either windward or leeward, depending on if the wind is making contact with the dune from below or above its apogee. If wind hits from above, the sand particles move leeward; the leeward flux of sand is greater than the windward flux. Conversely, if sand hits from below, sand particles move windward. Further, if the wind is carrying sand particles when it hits the dune, the dune's sand particles will saltate more than if the wind had hit the dune without carrying sand particles.

Coastal dunes

Coastal dunes form when wet sand is deposited along the coast and dries out and is blown along the beach. Dunes form where the beach is wide enough to allow for the accumulation of wind-blown sand, and where prevailing onshore winds tend to blow sand inland. The three key ingredients for coastal dune formation are a large sand supply, winds to move said sand supply, and a place for the sand supply to accumulate. Obstacles—for example, vegetation, pebbles and so on—tend to slow down the wind and lead to the deposition of sand grains. These small "incipient dunes or "shadow dunes" tend to grow in the vertical direction if the obstacle slowing the wind can also grow vertically (i.e., vegetation). Coastal dunes expand laterally as a result of lateral growth of coastal plants via seed or rhizome. Models of coastal dunes suggest that their final equilibrium height is related to the distance between the water line and where vegetation can grow. Coastal dunes can be classified by where they develop, or begin to take shape. Dunes are commonly grouped into either the Primary Dune Group or the Secondary Dune Group. Primary dunes gain most of their sand from the beach itself, while secondary dunes gain their sand from the primary dune. Along the Florida Panhandle, most dunes are considered to be foredunes or hummocks.  Different locations around the globe have dune formations unique to their given coastal profile.

Coastal sand dunes can provide privacy and/or habitats to support local flora and fauna. Animals such as sand snakes, lizards, and rodents can live in coastal sand dunes, along with insects of all types. Often the vegetation of sand dunes is discussed without acknowledging the importance that coastal dunes have for animals. Further, some animals, such as foxes and feral pigs can use coastal dunes as hunting grounds to find food. Birds are also known to utilize coastal dunes as nesting grounds. All these species find the coastal environment of the sand dune vital to their species' survival.

Over the course of time coastal dunes may be impacted by tropical cyclones or other intense storm activity, dependent on their location. Recent work has suggested that coastal dunes tend to evolve toward a high or low morphology depending on the growth rate of dunes relative to storm frequency. During a storm event, dunes play a significant role in minimizing wave energy as it moves onshore. As a result, coastal dunes, especially those in the foredune area affected by a storm surge, will retreat or erode. To counteract the damage from tropical activity on coastal dunes, short term post-storm efforts can be made by individual agencies through fencing to help with sand accumulation.

How much a dune erodes during any storm surge is related to its location on the coastal shoreline and the profile of the beach during a particular season. In those areas with harsher winter weather, during the summer a beach tends to take on more of a convex appearance due to gentler waves, while the same beach in the winter may take on more of a concave appearance. As a result, coastal dunes can get eroded much more quickly in the winter than in the summer. The converse is true in areas with harsher summer weather.

There are many threats to these coastal communities. Some coastal dunes, for example ones in San Francisco, have been completely altered by urbanization; reshaping the dune for human use. This puts native species at risk. Another danger, in California and places in the UK specifically, is the introduction of invasive species. Plant species, such as Carpobrotus edulis, were introduced from South Africa in an attempt to stabilize the dunes and provide horticultural benefits, but instead spread taking land away from native species. Ammophila arenaria, known as European beachgrass, has a similar story, though it has no horticulture benefits. It has great ground coverage and, as intended, stabilized the dunes but as an unintended side effect prevented native species from thriving in those dunes. One such example is the dune field at Point Reyes, California. There are now efforts to get rid of both of these invasive species.

Ecological succession on coastal dunes
As a dune forms, plant succession occurs. The conditions on an embryo dune are harsh, with salt spray from the sea carried on strong winds. The dune is well drained and often dry, and composed of calcium carbonate from seashells. Rotting seaweed, brought in by storm waves adds nutrients to allow pioneer species to colonize the dune. For example, in the United Kingdom these pioneer species are often marram grass, sea wort grass and other sea grasses. These plants are well adapted to the harsh conditions of the foredune, typically having deep roots which reach the water table, root nodules that produce nitrogen compounds, and protected stoma, reducing transpiration. Also, the deep roots bind the sand together, and the dune grows into a foredune as more sand is blown over the grasses. The grasses add nitrogen to the soil, meaning other, less hardy plants can then colonize the dunes. Typically these are heather, heaths and gorses. These too are adapted to the low soil water content and have small, prickly leaves which reduce transpiration. Heather adds humus to the soil and is usually replaced by coniferous trees, which can tolerate low soil pH, caused by the accumulation and decomposition of organic matter with nitrate leaching. Coniferous forests and heathland are common climax communities for sand dune systems.

Young dunes are called yellow dunes and dunes which have high humus content are called grey dunes. Leaching occurs on the dunes, washing humus into the slacks, and the slacks may be much more developed than the exposed tops of the dunes. It is usually in the slacks that more rare species are developed and there is a tendency for the dune slacks' soil to be waterlogged where only marsh plants can survive. In Europe these plants include: creeping willow, cotton grass, yellow iris, reeds, and rushes. As for vertebrates in European dunes, natterjack toads sometimes breed here.

Coastal dune floral adaptations
Dune ecosystems are extremely difficult places for plants to survive. This is due to a number of pressures related to their proximity to the ocean and confinement to growth on sandy substrates. These include: Plants have evolved many adaptations to cope with these pressures:
 * Little available soil moisture
 * Little available soil organic matter/nutrients/water
 * Harsh winds
 * Salt spray
 * Erosion/shifting and sometimes burial or exposure (from shifting)
 * Tidal influences
 * Deep taproot to reach water table (Pink Sand Verbena)
 * Shallow but extensive root systems
 * Rhizomes
 * Prostrate growth form to avoid wind/salt spray (Abronia spp., Beach Primrose)
 * Krummholz growth form (Monterrey Cypress-not a dune plant but deals with similar pressures)
 * Thickened cuticle/Succulence to reduce moisture loss and reduce salt uptake (Ambrosia/Abronia spp., Calystegia soldanella)
 * Pale leaves to reduce insolation (Artemisia/Ambrosia spp.)
 * Thorny/Spiky seeds to ensure establishment in vicinity of parent, reduces chances of being blown away or swept out to sea (Ambrosia chamissonis)

Gypsum dunes
In deserts where large amounts of limestone mountains surround a closed basin, such as at White Sands National Park in south-central New Mexico, occasional storm runoff transports dissolved limestone and gypsum into a low-lying pan within the basin where the water evaporates, depositing the gypsum and forming crystals known as selenite. The crystals left behind by this process are eroded by the wind and deposited as vast white dune fields that resemble snow-covered landscapes. These types of dune are rare, and only form in closed arid basins that retain the highly soluble gypsum that would otherwise be washed into the sea.

Nabkha dunes
A nabkha, or coppice dune, is a small dune anchored by vegetation. They usually indicate desertification or soil erosion, and serve as nesting and burrow sites for animals.

Sub-aqueous dunes
Sub-aqueous (underwater) dunes form on a bed of sand or gravel under the actions of water flow. They are ubiquitous in natural channels such as rivers and estuaries, and also form in engineered canals and pipelines. Dunes move downstream as the upstream slope is eroded and the sediment deposited on the downstream or lee slope in typical bedform construction. In the case of sub-aqueous barchan dunes, sediment is lost by their extremities, known as horns.

These dunes most often form as a continuous 'train' of dunes, showing remarkable similarity in wavelength and height. The shape of a dune gives information about its formation environment. For instance, rivers produce asymmetrical ripples, with the steeper slip face facing downstream. Ripple marks preserved in sedimentary strata in the geological record can be used to determine the direction of current flow, and thus an indication of the source of the sediments.

Dunes on the bed of a channel significantly increase flow resistance, their presence and growth playing a major part in river flooding.

Lithified dunes
A lithified (consolidated) sand dune is a type of sandstone that is formed when a marine or aeolian sand dune becomes compacted and hardened. Once in this form, water passing through the rock can carry and deposit minerals, which can alter the colour of the rock. Cross-bedded layers of stacks of lithified dunes can produce the cross-hatching patterns, such as those seen in Zion National Park in the western United States.

A slang term, used in the southwest US, for consolidated and hardened sand dunes is "slickrock", a name that was introduced by pioneers of the Old West because their steel-rimmed wagon wheels could not gain traction on the rock.

Desertification
Sand dunes can have a negative impact on humans when they encroach on human habitats. Sand dunes move via a few different means, all of them helped along by wind. One way that dunes can move is by saltation, where sand particles skip along the ground like a bouncing ball. When these skipping particles land, they may knock into other particles and cause them to move as well, in a process known as creep. With slightly stronger winds, particles collide in mid-air, causing sheet flows. In a major dust storm, dunes may move tens of metres through such sheet flows. Also as in the case of snow, sand avalanches, falling down the slipface of the dunes—that face away from the winds—also move the dunes forward.

Sand threatens buildings and crops in Africa, the Middle East, and China. Drenching sand dunes with oil stops their migration, but this approach uses a valuable resource and is quite destructive to the dunes' animal habitats. Sand fences might also slow their movement to a crawl, but geologists are still analyzing results for the optimum fence designs. Preventing sand dunes from overwhelming towns, villages, and agricultural areas has become a priority for the United Nations Environment Programme. Planting dunes with vegetation also helps to stabilise them.

Conservation
Dune habitats provide niches for highly specialized plants and animals, including numerous rare species and some endangered species. Due to widespread human population expansion, dunes face destruction through land development and recreational usages, as well as alteration to prevent the encroachment of sand onto inhabited areas. Some countries, notably the United States, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Netherlands, and Sri Lanka have developed significant programs of dune protection through the use of sand dune stabilization. In the U.K., a Biodiversity Action Plan has been developed to assess dunes loss and to prevent future dunes destruction.

Africa

 * Alexandria Coastal Dunefields, in the Eastern Cape, South Africa
 * Witsand Nature Reserve in the Kalahari Desert, South Africa
 * The white dunes of De Hoop Nature Reserve, South Africa
 * The dunes of the Suguta Valley, a desert part of the Great Rift Valley in northwestern Kenya
 * The dunes of the Danakil Depression, northeastern Ethiopia toward the border with Eritrea
 * The dunes of Sossusvlei in the greater Namib-Naukluft National Park, Namibia
 * Chad Basin National Park in northern Nigeria
 * The coastal dunes of Iona National Park in the southwesternmost part of Angola
 * Khawa dunes in the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park, the southwesternmost part of Botswana
 * La Dune Rose in the city of Gao in northern Mali near the Niger River
 * Erg Aoukar in southeastern Mauritania extending into Mali
 * Erg Chech in southwestern Algeria and northern Mali
 * Erg Chebbi and Erg Chigaga in southern Morocco
 * Grand Erg Oriental in northeastern Algeria and southern Tunisia
 * Grand Erg Occidental in western Algeria
 * The Idehan Ubari and the Idehan Murzuq in southwestern Libya
 * The Corralejo dunes in the Canary Islands, Spain
 * The Rebiana Sand Sea in southeastern Libya
 * The Great Sand Sea in southeastern Libya and southwestern Egypt
 * The Selima Sand Sheet in northwestern Sudan
 * The dunes of the Bayuda Desert in northern Sudan
 * The dunes of the Lompoul Desert in northwestern Senegal
 * The coastal dunes of Bazaruto Island, Mozambique
 * Erg du Djourab in northern Chad
 * The dunes of the Mourdi Depression in northeastern Chad
 * The dunes of Tin Toumma Desert, in southeastern Niger
 * Grand Erg de Bilma in the Ténéré, in northern Niger
 * The dunes of Oursi in the Sahel Region, northern Burkina Faso
 * Tanzania's Shifting Sands near Olduvai Gorge

Asia

 * Sunset view dunes in the Alankuda village on Kalpitiya peninsula in Sri Lanka.
 * The dunes in the Thar Desert in India and Pakistan
 * Tottori Sand Dunes, Tottori Prefecture, Japan
 * Rig-e Jenn in the Central Desert of Iran.
 * Rig-e Lut in the Southeast of Iran.
 * The Ilocos Norte Sand Dunes in the Philippines, particularly Paoay Sand Dunes.
 * Moreeb Dune in Liwa Oasis, United Arab Emirates, used as an arena for drag motor sports and Sandboarding.
 * Gumuk Pasir Parangkusumo near Parangtritis beach in Yogyakarta, Indonesia.
 * Mui Ne, Vietnam.
 * Wahiba Sands, Oman
 * Teri, red dune complex in southern India
 * The dunes of the Taklamakan Desert in southwest Xinjiang in Northwest China
 * Tukulans of the Central Yakutian Lowland, Russia

Europe

 * The Dunes of Dyuni, near Pomorie, Bulgaria, vast area of sand dunes in the Burgas Province
 * The Dune of Pilat, not far from Bordeaux, France, is the largest known sand dune in Europe
 * The Dunes of Piscinas, in the south west of Sardinia island.
 * Sands of Forvie within the Ythan Estuary complex, Aberdeenshire, Scotland.
 * Oxwich Dunes, near Swansea, is on the Gower Peninsula in Wales.
 * Winterton Dunes – Norfolk, England
 * Słowiński National Park, Poland
 * Siedlec Desert, Poland
 * Starczynów Desert, now mostly forested dunes, Poland
 * Sand dunes of Lemnos, Lesbos Prefecture, Greece
 * Akrotiri Sand Dune, Lemesos, Cyprus
 * Råbjerg mile, Northern Jutland, Denmark
 * Thy National Park, North Denmark Region, Denmark
 * Dunes of Corrubedo, Spain
 * Cresmina Dune, Portugal
 * Northern Littoral Natural Park, Portugal
 * Dune of Salir, Portugal
 * São Jacinto Dunes Natural Reserve, Portugal
 * Rëra e Hedhur in Shëngjin, Albania
 * De Hoge Veluwe National Park, Veluwe, Netherlands
 * Kootwijkerzand, Veluwe, Netherlands, 7 km2
 * Dunes of Texel National Park, Texel, Netherlands
 * Zuid-Kennemerland National Park, North Holland, Netherlands
 * Berkheide, Netherlands
 * Ammothines Lemnou, Lemnos, Greece
 * Dunes of the Curonian Spit, Lithuania and Russia
 * Parnidis Dune, Vecekrugas Dune - Curonian Spit, Lithuania
 * Oleshky Sands, Ukraine
 * Ullahau, Sweden, Big Parabel Dune and dune system

North America

 * Victoria Island Sand Dunes,160 km North West of Cambridge Bay, Nunavut, Canada. Approximately 600 square kilometers, the largest in Canada, third largest in North America and the largest in the Arctic. There are two lakes with direct access to the Dunes from float planes.
 * Herring Cove, Race Point and The Province Lands bicycle path in Provincetown, Massachusetts as part of the US National Park Service of the Cape Cod National Seashore.
 * Great Kobuk Sand Dunes, Kobuk Valley National Park, Alaska
 * The Athabasca Sand Dunes, located in the Athabasca Sand Dunes Provincial Park, Saskatchewan.
 * The Cadiz Dunes in the Mojave Trails National Monument in California.
 * The Kelso Dunes in the Mojave Desert of California.
 * Eureka Valley Sand Dunes and Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes in Death Valley National Park, California.
 * Great Sand Dunes National Park, Colorado.
 * White Sands National Park, New Mexico.
 * Little Sahara Recreation Area, Utah.
 * Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, Michigan, on the east shore of Lake Michigan.
 * Indiana Dunes National Park, Indiana, on the south shore of Lake Michigan.
 * Warren Dunes State Park, Michigan, on the east shore of Lake Michigan.
 * Grand Sable Dunes, in the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, Michigan.
 * Samalayuca Dunes, in the state of Chihuahua, Mexico
 * Algodones Dunes near Brawley, California.
 * Guadalupe-Nipomo Dunes, on the central coast of California.
 * Monahans Sandhills State Park near Odessa, Texas.
 * Beaver Dunes State Park near Beaver, Oklahoma.
 * The Killpecker sand dunes of the Red Desert in southwestern Wyoming.
 * Jockey's Ridge State Park – on the Outer Banks, North Carolina.
 * The Great Dune found in Cape Henlopen State Park in Lewes, Delaware.
 * Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area near Florence, Oregon, on the Pacific Coast.
 * Bruneau Dunes State Park – Owyhee Desert, Idaho
 * Hoffmaster State Park – Muskegon, Michigan
 * Silver Lake State Park — a sand dunes that allows off-road vehicle use located near Mears, Michigan.
 * Carcross Desert near Carcross, Yukon
 * Grey Cloud Dunes- Minnesota

South America

 * Lençóis Maranhenses National Park in the state of Maranhão, Brazil
 * Jericoacoara National Park, in the state of Ceará, Brazil
 * Genipabu in Natal, Brazil
 * Medanos de Coro National Park near the town of Coro, in Falcón State, Venezuela
 * Duna Federico Kirbus in Catamarca Province, Argentina
 * Villa Gesell in Buenos Aires Province, Argentina
 * Cerro Blanco in Nazca Province, Peru
 * Huacachina in Ica Region, Peru
 * Cerro Medanoso in Atacama Region, Chile
 * Colún Beach, Valdivian Coastal Reserve in Chile
 * Dunas de Concón, Chile
 * Cerro Dragón (Chile), urban dune in Iquique, Chile

Oceania

 * Simpson Desert sand dunes in the Northern Territory, Queensland and South Australia, Australia
 * Coorong National Park in South Australia, Australia
 * Lincoln National Park in South Australia, Australia
 * Coffin Bay National Park in South Australia, Australia
 * Fraser Island in Queensland, Australia
 * Cronulla sand dunes in New South Wales, Australia
 * Stockton Beach in New South Wales, Australia
 * Lancelin sand dunes in Western Australia, Australia
 * Te Paki sand dunes near Cape Reinga, New Zealand

Sand dune systems

 * Sleeping Bear Dunes Wilderness (886c714f-8cf1-4a2a-ad85-c05e8dce5642).jpg in Michigan]](coastal dunes featuring succession)

 * Athabasca Sand Dunes Provincial Park, Alberta and Saskatchewan
 * Ashdod Sand Dune, Israel
 * Bamburgh Dunes, Northumberland, England
 * Bradley Beach, New Jersey
 * Circeo National Park, a Mediterranean dune area on the southwest coast of the Lazio region of Italy
 * Cronulla sand dunes, NSW, Australia
 * Crymlyn Burrows, Wales
 * Dawlish Warren, Devon, England
 * Fraser Island, Queensland Australia, largest sand island in the world
 * Indiana Dunes National Park, Indiana
 * Kenfig Burrows, Wales
 * Margam burrows, Wales
 * Murlough Sand Dunes, Newcastle, Co Down, Northern Ireland
 * Morfa Harlech sand dunes, Gwynedd, Wales
 * Newborough Warren, North Wales
 * Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area, near North Bend, Oregon
 * Penhale Sands, Cornwall, England
 * Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, Michigan
 * Sandy Island Beach State Park, Richland, New York
 * Studland, Dorset, England
 * Thy National Park, North Denmark Region, Denmark
 * Winterton, Norfolk, England
 * Woolacombe, Devon, England
 * Ynyslas Sand Dunes, Wales

Extraterrestrial dunes

Dunes can likely be found in any environment where there is a substantial atmosphere, winds, and dust to be blown. Dunes are common on Mars and in the equatorial regions of Titan.

Titan's dunes include large expanses with modal lengths of about 20–30 km. The regions are not topographically confined, resembling sand seas. These dunes are interpreted to be longitudinal dunes whose crests are oriented parallel to the dominant wind direction, which generally indicates west-to-east wind flow. The sand is likely composed of hydrocarbon particles, possibly with some water ice mixed in.

Dunes are a popular theme in science fiction, featuring in depictions of dry Desert planets appearing as early as the 1956 film Forbidden Planet and Frank Herbert's 1965 novel Dune. The environment of the desert planet Arrakis (also known as Dune) in the Dune franchise Dune in turn inspired the Star Wars franchise, which includes prominent theme of dunes on fictional planets such as Tatooine, Geonosis, and Jakku.

title: Dune