Michael Apted, the acclaimed British director of the “Up” documentaries series and films as diverse as the Loretta Lynn biopic “Coal Miner’s Daughter” and the James Bond film “The World Is Not Enough,” has died. He was 79.

A representative for the Directors Guild of America said his family informed the organization that he passed Thursday night. No cause was given.

An incredibly prolific director, Apted’s legacy is perhaps most defined by the nine “Up” films, which followed the lives of 14 economically diverse British children from age 7 to 63. The project started in 1964 with “Seven Up!” the brainchild of the late Canadian filmmaker Paul Almond. Apted served as a researcher on the first and seven years later, took over as director and continued checking in with the subjects every seven years. The ambitious project earned him an Institutional Peabody Award in 2012 and also had the honor of being satirized by “The Simpsons” in a 2007 episode. The last film, “63 Up,” came out in 2019.

“The series was an attempt to do a long view of English society,” Apted told Slant Magazine in 2019. “The class system needed a kick up the backside.”