Born in Styrsö, Sweden, in 1974. He made his directorial debut in feature films with The Guitar Mongoloid (2004). His short movie Incident by the Bank (2009) won a Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival. Östlund is also the director of the features Involuntary (2008, 32nd Mostra), Play (2011), Force Majeure (2014, 38th Mostra), winner of the Jury Prize at Un Certain Regard section at Cannes, and The Square (2017, 41st Mostra), winner of the Golden Palm at the Cannes Film Festival.