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Paul Schrader

Writing

Paul Schrader

Born Jul 22, 1946 · 80 years91 titles 84 movies · 7 TV
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Biography

Paul Joseph Schrader (/ˈʃreɪdər/; born July 22, 1946) is an American screenwriter, film director, and film critic. He first became 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 worked extensively as a director: his 23 films include Blue Collar (1978), Hardcore (1979), American Gigolo (1980), Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (1985), Light Sleeper (1992), Affliction (1997), and First Reformed (2017), with the last of these earning him his first Academy Award nomination. Schrader's work frequently depicts "man in a room" stories which feature isolated, troubled men confronting an existential crisis. Raised in a strict Calvinist family, Schrader attended Calvin College before pursuing film studies at UCLA on the encouragement of film critic Pauline Kael. He then worked as a film scholar and critic, publishing the book Transcendental Style in Film: Ozu, Bresson, Dreyer (1972) before transitioning to screenwriting in 1974. The success of Taxi Driver in 1976 brought greater attention to his work, and Schrader began directing his own films, beginning with Blue Collar (co-written with his brother, Leonard Schrader). Schrader has described three of his recent films as a loose trilogy: First Reformed (2017), The Card Counter (2021), and Master Gardener (2022). Description above from the Wikipedia article Paul Schrader, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Also known as

Paul Joseph Schrader

Born

Jul 22, 1946

Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA

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Photos

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7 images

Roles across career

Titles counted once; a person can act and direct on the same film (roles merged).

48

Acting credits

28

Directing

34

Writing

7

Other crew

Most critically rated

Highest TMDB score (min 100 votes)

Most commercially successful

Highest TMDB vote count (attention / reach proxy; not box office)

Career timeline

By release / first air year · movie & TV merged

Orbit ↑

1974 1 title(s)

1976 2 title(s)

1977 1 title(s)

1978 1 title(s)

1979 2 title(s)

1980 2 title(s)

1982 1 title(s)

1984 1 title(s)

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1987 1 title(s)

1988 2 title(s)

1990 4 title(s)

1992 1 title(s)

1993 1 title(s)

1994 1 title(s)

1995 1 title(s)

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1999 3 title(s)

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2006 1 title(s)

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2010 1 title(s)

2011 2 title(s)

2012 1 title(s)

2013 4 title(s)

2014 2 title(s)

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2016 3 title(s)

2017 1 title(s)

2018 1 title(s)

2019 1 title(s)

2020 3 title(s)

2021 1 title(s)

2022 4 title(s)

2023 1 title(s)

2024 1 title(s)

2025 4 title(s)

Undated 6 title(s)