Cunningham's first jobs after graduating from Stanford included managing theater companies such as New York's Lincoln Center, the Mineola Theater on Long Island, as well as the
Oregon Shakespeare Festival, the latter of where he briefly studied. He is a member of the
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the
Directors Guild of America. While working for a documentary company in New York City in the late 1960s, Cunningham made his directorial debut with
The Art of Marriage (1970). While editing
Together, he met
Wes Craven, who was working as an editor at the time. The two collaborated on Craven's directorial debut, the exploitation film
The Last House on the Left (1972), which Cunningham produced. Cunningham is best known for his involvement of multiple films in the
Friday the 13th franchise, which introduced the fictional mass murderer
Jason Voorhees. Of the 12 films in the series, the ones that had Cunningham's involvement were
the original,
Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday,
Jason X,
Freddy vs. Jason, and
the 2009 reboot. He has also produced many horror films, such as the
House series and
Wes Craven's debut feature,
The Last House on the Left. He is the founder and CEO of
Crystal Lake Entertainment. Cunningham was set to produce
the CW series adaption of
Friday the 13th before that project fell through, and served as a producer of
Friday the 13th: The Game. As of 2015, he is also a member of the board of advisers for the Hollywood Horror Museum. In 2025, Cunningham was honoured at the
58th Sitges Film Festival with the Time Machine Award (The Màquina del Temps). ==Filmography==