William Friedkin

William Friedkin

Date of Birth: 29 Aug 1935

Country: USA

Biography: Friedkin's mother was an operating room nurse. His father was a merchant seaman, semi-pro softball player and ultimately sold clothes in a men's discount chain. He never earned more than $50/week in his whole life and died indigent. Friedkin became infatuated with Orson Welles after seeing Citizen Kane (1941). He went to work for WGN TV immediately after graduating from high school where he started making documentaries, one of which won the Golden Gate Award at the 1962 San Francisco film festival. In 1965, he moved to Hollywood and immediately started directing TV shows.

Total Credits at Criticker: 19 (Actor), 30 (Director), 6 (Writer)

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Find more information about William Friedkin at The Internet Movie Database

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Titles you haven't rated - Actor (19) | Director (30) | Writer (6)

    The Exorcist: The Version You\
    Based on the 1971 novel by William Peter Blatty, The Exorcist marries three different scenarios into one extraordinary plot. A visiting actress in Washington, D.C., notices dramatic and dangerous changes in the behavior and physical make-up of her 12-year-old daughter. Meanwhile, a young priest at nearby Georgetown University begins to doubt his faith while dealing with his mother's terminal sickness. And, book-ending the story, a frail, elderly priest recognizes the necessity for a show-down with an old demonic enemy. (imdb)
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    The Hunted
    An FBI deep-woods tracker captures a trained assassin who has made a sport of hunting humans. (imdb)
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    Rules of Engagement
    Hayes Hodges finds his career aspirations dashed when he's wounded in Vietnam combat. He then returns to America and becomes a disillusioned lawyer who goes up against the service to defend Colonel Terry Childers, who is accused of inciting an incident that leaves many demonstrators dead. Hodges in no position to decline: Childers heroically saved his life back in Vietnam. (imdb)
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    The French Connection
    A pair of NYC cops in the Narcotics Bureau stumble onto a drug smuggling job with a French connection. (imdb)
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    The Exorcist
    A troubled cleric tries to help a very disturbed teenage girl.
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    To Live and Die in L.A.
    A fearless Secret Service agent will stop at nothing to bring down the counterfeiter who killed his partner. (imdb)
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    Sorcerer
    Based on the French film Salaire de la peur, Le (1953), this production begins with the individual beginnings of outcasts of different backgrounds who are forced by fortune to work in a remote oil drilling operation in South America (imdb)
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    Jade
    Someone does a nasty hatchet job on a San Fransisco big noise and the Assistant D.A. takes charge of the investigation... (imdb)
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    12 Angry Men
    Twelve men must decide the fate of one when one juror objects to the jury's decision. (imdb)
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    Blue Chips
    A college basketball coach is forced to break the rules in order to get the players he needs to stay competitive. (imdb)
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    Cruising
    A police detective goes undercover in the sleazy and underground gay subculture of New York City to catch a serial killer whom is murdering numerous gay men with S&M tactics. (imdb)
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    The Brink\
    After a long time of bad luck, the little criminal Tony and his gang successfully rob one of Brink's security transport, taking $30,000. Surprisingly their coup doesn't make the press. Curious Tony checks out their headquarters and finds out that their security standard is low beyond belief. Now a really big coup is prepared... (imdb)
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    Bug
    Probing the blurry lines between paranoia and nightmarish reality, Bug is an intense, mind-bending psychological thriller in which nothing is quite as it seems. (Lionsgate)
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    The Night They Raided Minsky\
    Rachel arrives in New York from her Amish community intent on becoming a dancer. Unfortunately Billy Minsky's Burlesque is hardly the place for her Dances From The Bible. (imdb)
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    The Boys in the Band
    Tensions run high as Michael hosts Harold and five mutual friends (all gay) for Harold's birthday, in late 1960s New York--especially when Michael's straight college roommate happens by after a crisis of his own.
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    The Guardian
    Alan and Molly Sheridan have a baby boy named Jake. They hire a baby-sitter, Camilla, to look after Jake and she becomes part of the family. The Sheridan's friend and neighbour, Phil, takes a liking to Camilla and asks her out. She refuses, but Phil follows her and discovers that she is not quite human. Camilla discovers that she has been followed and Phil is pursued. He leaves a desperate message for Alan and Molly which reveals that Camilla has special plans for baby Jake. (imdb)
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    The Birthday Party
    Based on Harold Pinter's enigmatic play about a border (Robert Shaw) in a British seaside dwelling who is visited by two strangers (Patrick Magee, Sydney Tafler). They torment him verbally, ask him idiotic unanswerable questions, force him to sit down and stand up, and give him a "party." Then, eventually, they take him away, a tongue-tied idiot. The trivial becomes the terrible, and with it a certain wonder, a certain pity. (imdb)
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    Good Times
    Done in a similar style to the musical duo's TV show "The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour", this film is more a series of unconnected skits and parodies than a single running plot. When Sonny gets offered a role in a movie, he talks Cher into giving it a try. The proposed script, however, turns out to be awful, but in order to get out of doing this stinker of a project, Sonny has just ten days to come with his own better script. (imdb)
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    Fritz Lang Interviewed by William Friedkin
    Fritz Lang is interviewed by William Friedkin.
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    Deal of the Century
    Arms dealers from several companies vie to sell the most expensive and highest technological weapons to a South American dictator. There are complications; understanding the exact nature of how 'gifts' are used to grease the wheels of a sale, a religious conversion from one of the salesman and a romance that begins to grow between two competitors, not to mention the imminent financial collapse of one of the companies if they don't make this sale. (imdb)
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    C.A.T. Squad: Stalking Danger
    When terrorists start killing scientists who are working on NATO's laser defense, an elite team, the Counter Assault Tactical (C.A.T.) Squad, are brought in to to stop the killers. (imdb)
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    Rampage
    This is the face of Charles Reece, a mass murderer. He doesn't think he's done anything wrong. The real crime is that the jury may agree. (tagline)
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    C.A.T. Squad: Python Wolf
    TV-sequel to the TV-movie "Cat Squad", directed by William Friedkin.
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    Rebel Highway
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    Killer Joe
    Emile Hirsch plays a desperate Texas debtor who plots to kill his mother, with help of his family (Thomas Haden Church, Gina Gershon). They hire a crooked cop (Matthew McConaughey) to do the job, but Killer Joe asks for their teenage daughter (Juno Temple) as a "retainer." (tiff.net)
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    The People vs. Paul Crump
    Paul Crump, age 22, was caught up in a failed robbery with four other black men and was sentenced to die in the electric chair. Friedkin so believed in Crump's innocence that he made The People vs. Paul Crump in order to save his life. (imdb)
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    The Devil and Father Amorth
    Father Gabriele Amortha performs his ninth exorcism on an Italian woman. (imdb)
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    The Alfred Hitchcock Hour
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    The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial
    Follows a naval officer who stands trial for mutiny after taking command from a ship captain he feels is acting in an unstable way, putting in danger both the ship and its crew. (imdb)
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    The Twilight Zone
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