William Friedkin made his first steps as a filmmaker at the age of
seventeen, on the television screen. He first produced and directed
documentaries, with his first feature film in 1967, Good Times. He then
adapted three theatre plays: The Anniversary, The Night They Raised
Minsky’s and The Boys in The Band. In 1971, he met his first great success with French Connection, which won five Oscars and a Golden Globe Award. Two years later he became part of cinema history by directing The Exorcist, ten times nominated at the Academy Awards.
He directed Sorcerer and then two noir films, Cruising and To Live and
Die in L.A., before reconnecting with terror in the Rampage in 1988,
thanks to which he was nominated for a Saturn Award for Best Director, and The Nurse in 1990. He next shot Blue Chips and then signed an erotic thriller with Jade.
In 1992 he directed for television an episode of the cult series Tales
from the Crypt. In 1997 he directed 12 Angry Men, a remake of Sidney
Lumet’s 12 Angry Men. In 2000 he directed the thriller Tour of Duty,
with Tommy Lee Jones, Samuel L. Jackson and Ben Kingsley, and then
returned to the crime movie genre with The Hunted, in which Tommy
Lee Jones and Benicio Del Toro play opposite each other.
William Friedkin is also a renowned opera director and he has adapted
several Tracy’s Letts masterful plays: Bug, presented in The Director’s
Forthnight, at Cannes in 2006, and the thriller Killer Joe, in official
competition at the Venice Film Festival in 2011.