Paul Schrader

Paul Schrader
Schrader in 2018
Born	Paul Joseph Schrader (1946-07-22) July 22, 1946 (age 77) Grand Rapids, Michigan, U.S.
Education	Calvin College (BA) University of California, Los Angeles (MA)
Occupations	Film director screenwriter
Years active	1974–present
Spouses	Jeannine Oppewall ​ ​ (m. 1969; div. 1976)​ Mary Beth Hurt ​ ​ (m. 1983)​
Children	2
Relatives	Leonard Schrader (brother)
Awards	Laurel Award for Screenwriting Achievement AFI Franklin J. Schaffner Award Venice Film Festival Golden Lion
Website	paulschrader.org

Paul Joseph Schrader (/ˈʃreɪdər/; 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 is more prolific 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.^[1][2]

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).