1974–1989: Screenwriter and directorial debut In 1974, Schrader and his brother
Leonard co-wrote
The Yakuza, a film set in the Japanese crime world. The script became the subject of a bidding war, eventually selling for $325,000. The film was directed by
Sydney Pollack and starred
Robert Mitchum.
Robert Towne, best known for
Chinatown, also received a credit for his rewrite. Although
The Yakuza failed commercially, it brought Schrader to the attention of the
new generation of
Hollywood directors. In 1975, he wrote the script for
Obsession for
Brian De Palma. Schrader wrote an early draft of
Steven Spielberg's
Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), but Spielberg disliked the script, calling it "terribly guilt-ridden", and opted for something lighter. He also wrote an early draft of
Rolling Thunder (1977), which the film's producers reworked without his participation. He disapproved of the final film. Schrader's script about an obsessed New York City taxi driver became Martin Scorsese's film
Taxi Driver, which was nominated for the
Oscar for
Best Picture and won the
Palme d'Or at the
Cannes Film Festival. Besides
Taxi Driver (1976), Scorsese also drew on scripts by Schrader for
Raging Bull (1980), co-credited to
Mardik Martin;
The Last Temptation of Christ (1988); and
Bringing Out the Dead (1999). Thanks partly to critical acclaim for
Taxi Driver, Schrader was able to direct his first feature,
Blue Collar (1978), co-written with his brother Leonard.
Blue Collar features
Richard Pryor,
Harvey Keitel, and
Yaphet Kotto as car factory workers attempting to escape their socio-economic rut through theft and
blackmail. He has described the film as challenging to make, because of the artistic and personal tensions between him and the cast. During principal photography, he suffered an on-set mental collapse, which led him to reconsider his career seriously.
John Milius acted as executive producer on the following year's
Hardcore, again written by Schrader, a film with many autobiographical parallels in his depiction of the Calvinist milieu of Grand Rapids, and in the character of
George C. Scott, which was based on Schrader's father.
1990–2016: Career fluctuations His 1990s work included the travelers-in-Venice tale
The Comfort of Strangers (1990), adapted by
Harold Pinter from the
Ian McEwan novel, and
Light Sleeper (1992), a sympathetic study of a drug dealer vying for a normal life. In 2005, Schrader described
Light Sleeper as his "most personal" film. In 1997, he made
Touch (1997), based on an
Elmore Leonard novel about a young man seemingly able to cure the sick by the laying on of hands. In 1998, Schrader won critical acclaim for the drama
Affliction. The film tells the story of a troubled small-town policeman (
Nick Nolte) who becomes obsessed with solving the mystery behind a fatal hunting accident. Schrader's script was based on the novel by
Russell Banks. The film was nominated for multiple awards, including two Academy Awards for acting (for Nolte and
James Coburn). Schrader received the
Austin Film Festival's Distinguished Screenwriter Award the same year. In 1999, Schrader received the
Laurel Award for Screenwriting Achievement from the
Writers Guild of America. 2009 In 2002, he directed the well received
biopic Auto Focus, based on the life and murder of ''
Hogan's Heroes actor Bob Crane. In 2003, Schrader made entertainment headlines after being fired from The Exorcist: Dominion
, a prequel film to the horror classic The Exorcist'' from 1973. The film's production companies
Morgan Creek Productions and
Warner Bros. Pictures intensely disliked the film Schrader had made. Director
Renny Harlin was hired to re-shoot nearly the entire movie, which was released as
Exorcist: The Beginning on August 20, 2004, to disastrously negative reviews and embarrassing box office receipts. Warner Bros. and Morgan Creek put over $80 million into the endeavor, and Harlin's film only made back $41 million domestically. Schrader's version of the film eventually premiered at the
Brussels International Festival of Fantastic Film on March 18, 2005, as
Exorcist: The Original Prequel. Due to extreme interest in Schrader's version from critics and cinephiles alike, Warner Bros. agreed to give the film a limited theatrical release later that year under the title
Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist. The film was only shown on 110 screens around the United States and made just $251,000. The critics liked Schrader's version much better than Harlin's. However, Schrader's film ultimately met with a generally negative reaction. After that, Schrader filmed
The Walker (2007), starring
Woody Harrelson as a male escort caught up in a political murder enquiry, and the Israel-set
Adam Resurrected (2008), which stars
Jeff Goldblum and
Willem Dafoe. Schrader headed the International Jury of the 2007 Berlin International Film Festival and in 2011 became a jury member for the ongoing
Filmaka short film contest. On July 2, 2009, Schrader was awarded the inaugural Lifetime Achievement in Screenwriting award at the ScreenLit Festival in
Nottingham,
England. Several of his films were shown at the festival, including
Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters, which followed the presentation of the award by director
Shane Meadows. After five years of trying and failing to find funding to make feature films, Schrader returned with
The Canyons (2013), an erotic dramatic thriller written by
Bret Easton Ellis and starring
Lindsay Lohan and adult-film star
James Deen. The film was one of the first films to use the website
Kickstarter to crowd-source its funding. Schrader also used the website Let It Cast to have unknown actors submit their audition tapes over the internet.
American Apparel provided some wardrobe for the film. The film was ultimately made for just $250,000 and had a limited theatrical release from
IFC Films on August 2, 2013. The film was poorly received by general critics and audiences. The film only made $56,000 in theaters but found later success when released on various
Video on Demand platforms. In 2014, Schrader directed
The Dying of the Light, an espionage thriller starring
Nicolas Cage as a government agent suffering from a deadly disease,
Anton Yelchin and
Irène Jacob. In post-production Schrader was denied final cut by the film's producers. The film was negatively received by many film critics and was a
box-office bomb. Schrader later recut
Dying of the Light into the separate, more experimental work
Dark, which received more positive reviews.
2017–present: Career resurgence Schrader's dramatic thriller
First Reformed, starring
Ethan Hawke, premiered at the 2017
Venice Film Festival and received critical acclaim. Schrader received his first
Academy Award nomination for the film in the category
Best Original Screenplay. In 2021, he directed the crime drama film
The Card Counter, starring
Oscar Isaac and
Tiffany Haddish. The film also premiered at the 2021 Venice Film Festival and was widely lauded by critics. Schrader grouped these two films into a loose trilogy with another thriller,
Master Gardener, starring
Joel Edgerton and
Sigourney Weaver. Like the rest of the trilogy, it premiered at the Venice Film Festival in 2022, where Schrader was awarded the
Golden Lion Honorary Award. In 2023, it was confirmed Schrader would write and direct
Oh, Canada, an adaptation of his friend
Russell Banks' novel,
Foregone, starring
Richard Gere and
Jacob Elordi. Additionally, Schrader has written a western called
Three Guns at Dawn, for
Antoine Fuqua to direct; a drama about a trauma nurse called
R.N for
Elisabeth Moss to star in and direct; and a script about a sex addict called
Non Compos Mentis which he intended to direct. ==Theatre career==