E. Francis Thompson (January 3, 1908 – December 26, 2003) was an influential American film director, producer, and writer. Thompson was born Ebenezer Francis Thompson on January 3, 1908, in Titusville, Pennsylvania, and commenced his career as a painter and art teacher before he directed his first film Evolution of a Skyscraper. He is best known for the films, N.Y., N.Y. (1957) and To Be Alive! (1964), and is credited with making the first IMAX film, To Fly (1976). Thompson died on December 26, 2003 in New York at the age of 95.