William Friedkin
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 fi...
Known For
Top 40 Movies
A Decade Under the Influence
2003
Without Limits
1998
Friedkin Uncut
2018
Billy Wilder: The Human Comedy
1998
Tales from the Warner Bros. Lot
2013
The Fear of God: 25 Years of The Exorcist
1998
I Am Alfred Hitchcock
2021
Michael Curtiz: The Greatest Director You Never Heard Of
2012
Don't Say No Until I Finish Talking: The Story of Richard D. Zanuck
2013
Shadows in the Dark: The Val Lewton Legacy
2005
Pure Cinema: Through the Eyes of Hitchcock
2008
A Fuller Life
2013
Fear in the Dark
1991
Miller's Tale
2011
In the Master's Shadow: Hitchcock's Legacy
2008
Casablanca: An Unlikely Classic
2012
The History of 'Cruising'
2007
Leap of Faith: William Friedkin on The Exorcist
2019
Fear and Love: The Story of The Exorcist
2024
Henri Langlois vu par...
2014
The Devil and Father Amorth
2018
The Masterpiece That Almost Wasn't
2008
Great Bolshy Yarblockos!: Making 'A Clockwork Orange'
2007
Magician: The Astonishing Life and Work of Orson Welles
2014
The Visions of Stanley Kubrick
2007
Hollywood Halloween
1997
Fellini of the Spirits
2020
Shadows of Suspense
2006
The History of 'Cruising'
2007
Algren
2021
The Man Who Shot Chinatown: The Life and Work of John A. Alonzo
2007
View from the Overlook: Crafting 'The Shining'
2007
Godard Made in USA
2010
Exorcising 'Cruising'
2007