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Roger Corman

Roger Corman

Production · Acting · Directing · Writing · Crew · Art

Born April 5, 1926, Detroit, Michigan, USA

Roger William Corman (April 5, 1926 – May 9, 2024) was an American film director, producer and actor. Known under various monikers such as "The Pope of Pop Cinema", “The King of The B’s”, "The Spiritual Godfather of the New Hollywood", and "The King of Cult", he was known as a trailblazer in the world of independent film. Many of the more than 500 features directed or produced by Corman were low-budget films that later attracted a cult following, such as The Little Shop of Horrors (1960), The Intruder (1962), X: The Man with the X-ray Eyes (1963), and the counterculture films, The Wild Angels (1966) and The Trip (1967). House of Usher (1960) became the first of eight films directed by Corman that were adapted from the tales of Edgar Allan Poe, and which collectively came to be known as the "Poe Cycle". In 1964, Corman became the youngest filmmaker to have a retrospective at the Cinémathèque française, as well as in the British Film Institute and the Museum of Modern Art. He was the co-founder of New World Pictures, the founder of New Concorde and was a longtime member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. In 2009, he was awarded an Academy Honorary Award "for his rich engendering of films and filmmakers". Corman was also famous for handling the U.S. distribution of many films by noted foreign directors, including Federico Fellini (Italy), Ingmar Bergman (Sweden), François Truffaut (France) and Akira Kurosawa (Japan). He mentored and gave a start to many young film directors such as Francis Ford Coppola, Ron Howard, Martin Scorsese, Jonathan Demme, Peter Bogdanovich, Joe Dante, John Sayles, and James Cameron, and was highly influential in the New Hollywood filmmaking movement of the 1960s and 1970s. He also helped to launch the careers of actors like Peter Fonda, Jack Nicholson, Dennis Hopper, Bruce Dern, Diane Ladd, and William Shatner.

Filmography

Appearances as themselves (97)
  • 2025Il cinema secondo Corman — Self
  • 2025SEGAL — Self
  • 2025Wasp Woman: Murder of a B-movie Queen — Himself
  • 2024Sharksploitation — Self
  • The Last Drive-In Live: A Tribute to Roger Corman — Himself
  • Spector — Self
  • 2021Boris Karloff: The Man Behind the Monster — Self
  • 2021Hollywood in the Atomic Age: Monsters! Martians! Mad Scientists! — Self (archive footage)
  • 2021Roger Corman, the Pope of Pop Cinema — Self
  • 2020AGFA Mystery Mixtape #1 — Self
  • 2020AGFA Mystery Mixtape #3: Sequelitis — Self
  • 2020Corman's Eyedrops Got Me Too Crazy — Self
  • 2020Ivan, the TerrirBle — Self (archive footage)
  • 2020Tales of the Uncanny — Self
  • 2020Time Warp Vol. 2: Horror and Sci-Fi — Self
  • 2020Time Warp Vol. 3: Comedy and Camp — Self
  • Time Warp: The Greatest Cult Films of All Time — Self
  • CULT-TASTIC: Tales From The Trenches With Roger And Julie Corman — Himself
  • 2019Dr. Jack & Mr. Nicholson — Self
  • 2019Memory: The Origins of Alien — Self
  • The Last Drive-in with Joe Bob Briggs — Self
  • The Movies That Made Us — Self
  • 2018Bloody And Groovy Baby! A Tribute to Sam Raimi's Evil Dead 2 — Self
  • 2017Greetings from Tromaville! — Self
  • 2017Monstres, l'ennemi de l'intérieur — Self
  • 2015Doomed! The Untold Story of Roger Corman's The Fantastic Four — Himself
  • 2015It Was a Colossal Teenage Movie Machine: The AIP Story — Self
  • 2015Kings of Cult — self
  • 2014Behind the Swinging Blade — Self
  • 2014It Came From Connemara! — Self
  • 2014Monster Madness: Mutants, Space Invaders, and Drive-Ins — Self
  • 2014That Guy Dick Miller — Self
  • 2013La última película de Jess Franco — Self
  • 2011Corman's World — Self - Filmmaker
  • 2011From Manila with Love — Himself
  • 2011Produce Your Own Damn Movie! — Self
  • 2011Still Screaming: The Ultimate Scary Movie Retrospective — Self
  • A History of Horror — Self
  • 2010Charles Beaumont: The Short Life of Twilight Zone's Magic Man — Self
  • Conan — Self - Guest
  • 2010Machete Maidens Unleashed! — Self
  • Moguls & Movie Stars: A History of Hollywood — Self
  • 2010Sleepless Nights: Revisiting the Slumber Party Massacres — Himself (archive footage)
  • Sodankylä Forever — Self
  • 2010Tales from the Lumber Yard: The Making of Galaxy of Terror — Self
  • 2010With Great Power: The Stan Lee Story — Self
  • 2009Direct Your Own Damn Movie! — Self
  • 2009Nightmares in Red, White and Blue — Self
  • 2009Popatopolis — Himself
  • 2009Tromatized: Meet Lloyd Kaufman — Self
  • 2008Hollywood Gangster — Self
  • 2008The Fanex Files, Volume 2: Samuel Z. Arkoff — Himself
  • 2007Famous Monster: Forrest J Ackerman — Self
  • 2007Influence And Appreciation: A Martin Scorsese Tribute — Self
  • 2007Mr. Warmth: The Don Rickles Project — Self
  • 2007Spine Tingler! The William Castle Story — Self
  • 2007Val Lewton: The Man in the Shadows — Self
  • 2006The Sci-Fi Boys — Self
  • 2005The Perfect Scary Movie — Self
  • 2005The True Story of Hannibal — Self - Producer
  • 2004Edgar G. Ulmer: The Man Off-Screen — Self
  • 2004Mario Bava: Operazione paura — Self
  • 2003A Decade Under the Influence — Self
  • 2003Corman's Comedy of Poe — Himself
  • 2003Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex 'n' Drugs 'n' Rock 'n' Roll Generation Saved Hollywood — Self
  • 2002All the Love You Cannes! — Self
  • 2002Reel Radicals: The Sixties Revolution in Film — Self (uncredited)
  • 2001Burnt Offering: The Cult of The Wicker Man — Himself
  • 2001Hidden Values: The Movies of the Fifties — Self
  • 2001Inside the Labyrinth: The Making of 'The Silence of the Lambs' — Self
  • 2001It Conquered Hollywood! The Story of American International Pictures — Self
  • 2001Remembering 'The Intruder' — Self
  • 2001Schlock! The Secret History of American Movies — Himself
  • 2001The Wicker Man Enigma — Himself
  • 1999The Devil Ant — Himself
  • 1998Mythos Hollywood - Das Geheimnis des Erfolgs — Self
  • 1998Some Nudity Required — Himself
  • 1997Vincent Price: The Versatile Villain — Self
  • 100 Years of Horror — Self - Interview
  • 1996Chiller Theatre Fiend Club Show: Volume 2 — Self
  • 1994A Century of Cinema — Self
  • 1994The Man Who Drew Bug-Eyed Monsters — Self
  • 1991Crazy About the Movies: Dennis Hopper — Self
  • 1991The Horror Hall of Fame II — Self - Inductee
  • 1990Horror Cafe — Self
  • 1990Martin Scorsese Directs — Self
  • 1989First Works — Self
  • Biography — Self
  • 1987Out of the Blue and Into the Black — Self
  • 1984Ticket to Hollywood — Self
  • 1983The Horror of It All — Self
  • 1978Roger Corman: Hollywood's Wild Angel — Self
  • Les Rendez-vous du dimanche — Self
  • 1964Horror!!! — Self
  • I Am Not God But I Am Michelangelo Antonioni — Self
  • In Hock & Staying There — Himself
  • Mary Woronov: Cult Queen — Self