Paul Schrader
Biography
Paul Joseph Schrader (born July 22, 1946) is an American screenwriter, film director, and film critic. He first became widely known for writing the screenplay of Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver (1976). He later continued his collaboration with Scorsese, writing or co-writing Raging Bull (1980), The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), and Bringing Out the Dead (1999). Schrader has also directed 24 films, including Blue Collar (1978), Hardcore (1979), American Gigolo (1980), Cat People (1982), Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (1985), Light Sleeper (1992), Affliction (1997), and First Reformed (2017); the latter earned him his first Academy Award nomination. Schrader's work frequently depicts troubled men struggling through an existential crisis that is then punctuated by a violent, cathartic event. Raised in a strict Calvinist family, Schrader attended Calvin College before electing to pursue film studies at UCLA on the encouragement of film critic Pauline Kael. He then worked as a film sch...
Known For
Top 40 Movies
A Decade Under the Influence
2003
What She Said: The Art of Pauline Kael
2019
Making 'Taxi Driver'
1999
Paul Schrader: Man in a Room
2020
Eames: The Architect and the Painter
2011
Venice 70: Future Reloaded
2013
Richard Pryor: Omit the Logic
2013
Preston Sturges: The Rise and Fall of an American Dreamer
1990
Tales from the Script
2009
The Rules of Film Noir
2009
The Beauty of Horror: Paul Schrader on The Comfort of Strangers
2020
Clapboard Jungle: Surviving the Independent Film Business
2020
Murnau, Borzage and Fox
2008
Milius
2013
God's Lonely Man
2007
Budd Boetticher: A Man Can Do That
2005
Raging Bull: Before the Fight
2005
Dog Eat Dog
2016
Ken San
2016
Talking with Ozu
1993
Sam Peckinpah's West: Legacy of a Hollywood Renegade
2004
Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex 'n' Drugs 'n' Rock 'n' Roll Generation Saved Hollywood
2003
Hitchcock/Truffaut
2015
Sex at 24 Frames Per Second
2003
Film Noir: Bringing Darkness to Light
2006
Influence And Appreciation: A Martin Scorsese Tribute
2007
We Blew It
2017
Hollywood Mavericks
1990
Ritratti di cinema
2025
The Road to Bresson
1984
Pictures of Europe
1990
Schrader's Exorcism
2008
Godard Made in USA
2010
Inside Mishima
1985
Untitled: New Blue
1995
The Book of Harth
2022