Anno Hideaki (庵野 秀明, born May 22, 1960 in Ube, Yamaguchi) is a Japanese animator and film director. Anno is best known for his work on the popular anime series Neon Genesis Evangelion.

Anno was born in Ube City; he attended Wakō Kindergarten, Unoshima Municipal Elementary School, Fujiyama Municipal Junior High School, and Yamaguchi Prefectural Ube High School where he was noted for his interest in artwork and making short films for Japanese Cultural Festivals.

Anno began his career after attending Osaka University of Arts as an animator for the anime series The Super Dimension Fortress Macross (1982–1983). Wrapped up in producing the DAICON III and DAICON IV Opening Animations with his fellow students, he was eventually expelled from Osaka.

However, he was not recognized as talented until the release of his work on Miyazaki Hayao's 1984 film Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. Running short on animators, the film's production studio posted an ad in the famous Japanese animation magazine Animage, announcing that they were in desperate need of more animators. Anno, in his early twenties at the time, read the ad and headed down to the film's studio, where he met with Miyazaki and showed him some of his drawings. Impressed with Anno's work, Miyazaki hired him to draw some of the most complicated scenes near the end of the movie, and regarded his work highly.

Anno went on to become one of the co-founders of Gainax in December 1984. He worked as an animation director for their first feature-length film, Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honneamise (1987), and ultimately became Gainax's premiere anime director, helming the majority of the studio's projects such as Gunbuster (1988) and Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water (1990–1991). However, Anno fell into a four year depression following Nadia since the series was handed down to him and he was given little creative control.

Anno's next project was the hit Science fiction TV series Neon Genesis Evangelion (1995–1996), which would be recognized as an influential anime series. His depression was the main source for many of the psychological elements of the series and its characters.

After Evangelion, Anno directed a significant portion of the 1998 anime series Kare Kano. Since then he has gone on to work with Miyazaki Hayao and Studio Ghibli on several short films which have been shown at the Ghibli Museum. The director has also made forays into live-action films with Love & Pop (1998), Shiki-Jitsu (2000), Funky Forest (2004) and Cutey Honey (2004). In 2006 he founded Studio Khara, an animation studio which in partnership with Gainax has released an anime film series remake of the original Neon Genesis Evangelion called Rebuild of Evangelion.

Anno Hideaki married comics artist Moyoco Anno in 27 April 2002. On Anno's religious views, he considered himself to be an agnostic. However, he has stated that he has found Japanese spiritualism closer to his beliefs.

Anime directed by Anno that have won the Animage Anime Grand Prix award have been Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water in 1990, Neon Genesis Evangelion in 1995 and 1996, and The End of Evangelion in 1997.