William Friedkin

Directing · 1.4 popularity

Age

Movies

Born: August 29, 1935 – August 7, 2023
From: Chicago, Illinois, USA

Biography

William David Friedkin (August 29, 1935 – August 7, 2023) was an American film, television and opera director, producer, and screenwriter who was closely identified with the "New Hollywood" movement of the 1970s. Beginning his career in documentaries in the early 1960s, he is best known for his crime thriller film The French Connection (1971), which won five Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director, and the horror film The Exorcist (1973), which earned him another Academy Award nomination for Best Director. Friedkin's other films in the 1970s and 1980s include the drama The Boys in the Band (1970), considered a milestone of queer cinema; the originally deprecated, now lauded thriller Sorcerer (1977); the crime comedy drama The Brink's Job (1978); the controversial thriller Cruising (1980); and the neo-noir thriller To Live and Die in L.A. (1985). Although Friedkin's works suffered an overall commercial and critical decline in the late 1980s, his last three feature films, all based on plays, were positively received by critics: the psychological horror film Bug (2006), the crime film Killer Joe (2011), and the legal drama film The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial (2023), released two months after his death. He also worked extensively as an opera director from 1998 until his death, and directed various television films and series episodes for television. Description above from the Wikipedia article William Friedkin, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Works

63 films

A Decade Under the Influence

20037.9

The Masterpiece That Almost Wasn't

20087.2

Friedkin Uncut

20187.1

Tales from the Warner Bros. Lot

20136.8

Without Limits

19986.6

Mineshaft: The Cruising Murders

2026

Magician: The Astonishing Life and Work of Orson Welles

20146.5

I Am Alfred Hitchcock

20217.3

Henri Langlois vu par...

20144.0

A Fuller Life

20136.6

Stanley Kubrick in Focus

20125.3

Shadows of Suspense

2006

The Man Who Shot Chinatown: The Life and Work of John A. Alonzo

20076.0

The History of 'Cruising'

20077.7

Pure Cinema: Through the Eyes of Hitchcock

2008

Great Bolshy Yarblockos!: Making 'A Clockwork Orange'

20076.1

Billy Wilder: The Human Comedy

19986.0

Fellini of the Spirits

20206.6

Casablanca: An Unlikely Classic

20126.5

The Visions of Stanley Kubrick

20076.9

Godard Made in USA

2010

Fear in the Dark

19919.0

The Poughkeepsie Shuffle: Tracing 'The French Connection'

20008.1

The Master's Touch: Hitchcock's Signature Style

20096.8

Exorcising 'Cruising'

20076.5

Don't Say No Until I Finish Talking: The Story of Richard D. Zanuck

20136.3

The Fear of God: 25 Years of The Exorcist

19987.4

Howard Hawks: American Artist

19976.2

The Devil and Father Amorth

20185.1

Miller's Tale

20117.1

Shadows in the Dark: The Val Lewton Legacy

20059.4

In the Master's Shadow: Hitchcock's Legacy

20086.8

Putting It Together: The Making of the Broadway Album

19869.0

View from the Overlook: Crafting 'The Shining'

20077.4

Standing on the Shoulders of Kubrick: The Legacy of 2001

20076.2

Pursuing “The Hunted”

2003

North by Northwest: One for the Ages

20096.8

Victor Fleming: Master Craftsman

20097.5

Filming “The Hunted”

2003

Making the Boys

20114.7

Algren

20216.0

Leap of Faith: William Friedkin on The Exorcist

20197.4

Counterfeit World: Making 'To Live and Die in L.A.'

20037.7

Hollywood Halloween

19978.0

Making the Connection: Untold Stories of The French Connection

20017.0

The Making of the Wonderful Wizard of Oz

201310.0

Vision of a Future Passed: The Prophecy of 2001

20076.0

Conversation with Fritz Lang

19757.1

Michael Curtiz: The Greatest Director You Never Heard Of

20126.7

Tatort Oper - Wie Filmemacher Oper machen

2007

Return to the Genre

2016

Raising Hell: Filming the Exorcist

20106.0

Fasten Your Seatbelt: The Thrilling Art of Alfred Hitchcock

2009

Fear and Love: The Story of The Exorcist

2024

Narc: The Friedkin Connection

20039.0

The Cutting Edge

2003

A Little Solitaire

2004

Breaking Barriers: The Sound of Hitchcock

2008

Anatomy of a Chase

20094.0

Sorcerers: A Conversation with William Friedkin and Nicolas Winding Refn

20154.5

Oscars, Actors and The Exorcist

1974

The Exorcist Locations: Georgetown Then and Now

2010

The Lost Print: The Making of Orson Welles’ The Magnificent Ambersons

2022