Has Paul Schrader directed movies? Yes, as he is one of the great directors behind some of the absolute best movies, although many people recognize Paul Schrader simply from the scriptwriting.
That is a shame, though, because viewing each of his films shows that Paul Schrader is also a great director!
There isn’t much data on the internet devoted to the films coordinated by Paul Schrader. We might want to fill this void by listing Paul Schrader’s directed movies with subtleties.
Paul Schrader has produced various movies after directing Taxi Driver and Raging Bull.
However, in addition to all the films that Paul Schrader has run, the absolute best seem to be undecided purely because they are original and exciting, leaving the top spot for the best Paul Schrader-directed movie to every individual viewer.
So, here are all 23 of Paul Schrader’s directed films sorted by date (I didn’t rate them because they are generally exceptional).
1. Blue Collar (1978)
Three specialists, Zeke (Richard Pryor), Jerry (Harvey Keitel), and Smokey (Yaphet Kotto), work together in an industrial vehicle facility.
One evening, while sneaking away from their spouses for entertainment only, they realize they ought to rob the local union.
At first, they believe it’s a lemon since they get 600 dollars from it; however, at that point, Zeke understands that they also called it “hot” material.
They choose to coerce their association. The best justification for this is simply the association. Every one of the three is incited by how the association professes to have lost 10,000 dollars to theft.
2. Hardcore (1979)
Jake Van Dorn (George C. Scott) is a financial specialist from the American heartland who shares solid Calvinist feelings with many of his relatives.
His young girl is absent from her congregation youth show excursion to California, and Van Dorn recruits a private investigator to track her down.
The aftereffect of the investigation is his young daughter, seen in a modest X-appraised film. Van Dorn chooses to bring her back, and during the journey, he becomes familiar with the explicit, hidden world.
3. American Gigolo (1980)
Julian (Richard Gere) manages as a male escort for senior women in the Los Angeles area, allowing him a comfortable life until he strikes a relationship with Michelle (Lauren Hutton), the unfortunate trophy wife of a neighborhood legislator, with no expectation of compensation.
One of his clients dies, and Detective Sunday (Hector Elizondo) begins to question him about the complexities of his various clients, which he doubts when considering the idea of his work.
Julian begins to suspect that he is made out to be the fall guy. Meanwhile, Michelle starts to fall madly in love with him.
4. Cat People (1982)
The cat people’s origins are when humans sacrificed their wives to leopards, who mated with them. Felines resemble humans but must mate with other felines before transforming into panthers.
Irene Gallier (Nastassja Kinski) grew up with foster parents and met her older brother Paul (Malcolm McDowell) for the first time since childhood. We follow brother and sister, who seem to be the only ones of her type.
5. Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (1985)
This film takes place on November 25, 1970, the last day of Mishima’s life, as He is shown completing a manuscript.
Then he put on a uniform he designed and met four of his private army’s bravest followers.
In flashbacks that highlight episodes from his past life, viewers can watch Mishima, from a sick child to one of the most famous Japanese writers after the war (he remains in perfect physical shape due to a narcissistic body cult).
His deviation from the materialism of modern Japan leads him to extreme traditionalism.
He sets up his private army and proclaims the restoration of the emperor as head of state.
The biographical sections are interspersed with short dramatizations of three of Mishima’s novels: In the Temple of the Golden Pavilion, a stuttering aspirant illuminates the famous Zen Buddhist temple because he feels inferior when contemplating its beauty.
Kyoko’s house represents the sadomasochistic (and ultimately fatal) relationship between an older woman and her young lover, who is in financial debt.
In Runaway Horses, a group of young militant nationalists failed to assassinate the government, and its leader subsequently committed suicide.
The framed story, flashbacks, and dramatizations are divided into four chapters, each containing the film title: Art, Beauty, Action, and Harmony of Pen and Sword.
The film culminates when Mishima and his followers take a Japanese self-defense force hostage general.
He turns to the soldiers in his garrison and asks them to join in his fight to restore the emperor as sovereign of the nation. His speech is ignored and laughed at.
6. Light of Day (1987)
Brother and sister Patti (Genna Rowlands) and Joe Rasnick (Michael J. Fox) live in Cleveland, Ohio, an industrial suburb, and play in their local rock band, The Bar Busters.
While Patti focuses on his rock band, Joe is also dedicated to family and raising Patti’s young son, Benji.
Their pious mother accuses them of their lifestyle, especially when they stop working and tour Benji.
They will find happiness living their dream with The Bar Busters in Cleveland’s smoky and dangerously unsafe clubs and the surrounding areas.
Patti and Joe live their lives under the spotlights for an hour. When the lights go out, their world dims during difficult family times. At work, nighttime hard rock music keeps them alive.
7. Patty Hearst (1988)
This movie, directed by Paul Schrader, tells the true story of Patricia Hearst (Natasha Richardson).
American revolutionaries kidnapped this wealthy girl in the 1970s only to turn around and join the cause that her kidnappers were after.
That caused a scandal in the USA. Since then, Patty Hearst has become a household name in pop culture.
8. The Comfort of Strangers (1990)
An English couple is on vacation in Venice to sort out their relationship. There is some friction and distance between them, and they feel monitored.
One night, they get lost looking for a restaurant, and a stranger invites them to join him. He decorates them with wine and grotesque stories from his childhood.
They leave disoriented, physically ill, and morally repulsed. But when the stranger sees them in the square the next day, they accept an invitation to his splendid apartment.
After this visit, the couple finds the depth to ask each other questions and then return to the mysterious and threatening fantasies of the stranger and his partner.
9. Light Sleeper (1992)
In New York, John LeTour (Willem Dafoe) is the third person at the highest level of a drug dealer: Ann (Susan Sarandon), the boss, and her gay partner Robert (David Clennon), who does most of the “workplace” work, while John does. Most of the promotions for him.
Customers expect caution at all costs. John’s life consists entirely of this job, regardless of how long he spends with Ann and Robert or with these clients, as long as they need someone to hang out with while doing these promotions, even if he’s no longer using drugs and watching many people. Several people. These clients are undefined to each other.
As she grows up with him, John agrees that this time, Ann is not kidding when she runs out of business and offers an ideal opportunity for her thriving beauty products business, in which she asks Robert to join her, but not after.
In this role, John explores his future, feeling lost in everyday life and searching for specific answers after encountering the mystical Teresa Aranow (Mary Beth Hurt).
From then on, John meets his ex-lover, Marianne Jost (Dana Delany), who moved away after her divorce.
Marianne, a former addict, has been perfect for four years, and although John may want to reunite with her since he is still in love with her, he wears the unique ring she gave him, which John considers the source of everything.
The handicaps he has had pay little attention to the hidden energy. Also, John only sees that a man is following him, and he trusts this man as a narco.
It’s not precisely about who John accepts, but it also matters how John chooses to deal with his questionable future, especially when it comes to Ann and Marianne.
10. Witch Hunt (1994)
Criminal investigator Philip Lovecraft (Dennis Hopper), who lived in Los Angeles during the 1950s, holds Magic hearings as an aggressive Senator.
Sorcery is the new impact in Tinsel Town, and Lovecraft is exceptional in that he is the one who will not involve wizardry in his examination.
Not long after being employed, he meets customer Kim Hudson (Penelope Ann Miller), who is wrongfully accused of the murder of her spouse, a movie director.
Philip utilizes the abilities of a neighborhood witch, Kropotkin (Sheryl Lee Ralph), to clarify what occurs and to perceive how she is accused of homicide and viewed as at fault for being set ablaze. The film has black magic tones all over.
11. Touch (1997)
With the revelation of Juvenal (Skeet Ulrich), a marvel healer, evangelist turned R.V. vendor Bill Hill (Christopher Walken) imagines wealth.
Slope figures out how to catch Juvenal with the assistance of a previous partner, Lynn Faulkner (Bridget Fonder).
In any case, Hill’s book arrangements and T.V. television show visits hit an obstacle when Lynn succumbs to Juvenal and reconsiders taking advantage of him.
With this new circumstance, one more headache for Hill shows up as the Reverend August Murray (Tom Arnold), who considers Lynn to be a defiling impact on Juvenal, not unable to free him of her.
12. Affliction (1997)
Wade Whitehouse (Nick Nolte) is a small-town New Hampshire sheriff who, in the opinion of his ex-wife Lillian and daughter Jill, has achieved nothing in life and is a heavy drinker.
His girlfriend Margie (Sissy Spacek) accepts him for who he is. On the first day of hunting season, Wade’s friend Jack (Jim True-Frost) takes a wealthy businessman hunting, and only Jack returns alive.
Wade decides to play detective and investigates the case despite Jack insisting on an accidental, self-inflicted shooting.
13. Forever Mine (1999)
Two stories, 14 years separated, join in a suburb of New York. Manuel Esquema (Joseph Fiennes), a global leader whose face is gravely scarred, is flying from Miami to help a New York lawmaker arrange a request deal with the Justice Department.
A long time previously, this lender was a newly confronted cabaña kid at a Miami Beach resort who went gaga for a young lady on vacation with her better half.
The spouse is presently a politician, and he thinks he dispatched the cabaña kid sometime in the past.
What are Esquema’s arrangements: vengeance, leniency, or a complex arrangement to look for the lady’s affection again?
14. Auto Focus (2002)
In 1965, Bob Crane (Greg Kinnear), a fruitful morning radio D.J. on KNX Los Angeles, had some accomplishments as a T.V. star.
Although Crane partook in his work, photography (particularly the female structure), and drumming, he needed to become a famous actor.
He hesitated to star in another TV parody, Hogan’s Heroes (1965), a WWII POW satire. Amazingly, the show became a hit and launched him into a TV star.
The show’s subsequent acclaim started with abundance and a gathering with a home video sales rep and professional John Carpenter (Willem Dafoe).
He should fashion a fellowship dependent on their typical advantages, particularly extreme sex (for Crane straight sex) and celluloid catch—exposed ladies.
His notoriety made it workable for Crane to have all the sex he needed, which went against the picture that he was solid and TV-accommodating and how he introduced himself to nearly everybody except Carpenter and his ill-conceived sexual accomplices.
However, his addiction to sex secondary school darling/first spouse Anne Crane(Rita Wilson), nee Terzian, yet by his second wife, Patti Olson (Maria Bello), also called Sigrid Valdis, his co-star in Hogan’s Heroes.
Particularly after the finish of Hogan’s Heroes in 1971, this incongruence and companionship with Carpenter, with whom he had a waiting affectionate disdain relationship, added to his expert and personal defeat.
15. Dominion (2005)
Lankester Merrin (Stellan Skarsgård) was an archaeologist by profession but an ordained Catholic priest who lost faith and refused his vocation.
He is disturbed by what he had to do in his native Netherlands during World War II.
The church he studied in northern Kenya dates back to the Byzantine period, but construction took hundreds of years before Christianity entered the area.
The church is buried in the sand except for the roof. When its structure is exposed, madness slowly descends on the camp.
The local tribe is ready to fight and demand that the church be buried out of fear.
Shortly, two British soldiers are found dead, and their commander, Major Granville, shoots dead an innocent civilian in cold blood.
When fear strikes everyone in the camp, it turns out that there is a paralyzed young man, Cheche, who is possessed by a demon that forces Merrin to reconsider his faith.
16. The Walker (2007)
Critics reviewed The Walker as Paul Schrader’s best film since Affliction (1997), and here is why;
Carter Page III (Woody Harrelson) holds a special place in Washington, D.C.’s elite society. He is the gay grandchild of strong society men. When men are not intimating and refuse to attend events, they politely escort their wives to these events.
When one of these women’s secret lovers is murdered, she asks Carter to hide from her, and his immediate consent puts him in trouble with an ambitious cop and prosecutor.
Carter begins his research with the help of his lover, Emek Yoglu (Moritz Bleibtreu).
Hired thugs threaten them to stay clear; there is so much mystery throughout this Paul Schrader-directed movie.
17. Adam Resurrected (2008)
This film recounts the narrative of Adam Stein (Jeff Goldblum), a charming patient in a mental place for Holocaust survivors in Israel in 1961.
He understands minds and befuddles his PCPs under the heading of Nathan Gross (Derek Jacobi).
Before the conflict, Adam was a Berlin performer – nightclub chief, bazaar chief, entertainer, artist – adored by general society and the Nazis until he went up against Commandant Klein in the death camp.
Adam endures the center by turning into the officer’s “canine” and engaging him while his better half and girl are shipped off to their demise.
A long time later, we thought he was in secondary school. One day, Adam feels something and hears a clamor. “Who brought a canine here?” he asks Gross. Gross denies there is a canine.
However, Adam observes a little child who grew up fastened in a cellar. Adam and the kid see and perceive each other as canines, and their excursion starts.
18. The Canyons (2013)
Christian (James Deen) uses his family’s money to produce films during the day. Christian will make a low-budget slasher film in New Mexico with Ryan (Nolan Gerard Funk), her assistant’s pretty friend, the pretty Gina (Amanda Brooks).
But without her knowledge, Tara(Lindsay Lohan) got involved with Ryan a few years ago.
Meanwhile, Christian has an affair with the beautiful Cynthia(Tenille Houston), a yoga teacher who took acting lessons from Ryan.
19. Dying of the Light (2014)
Saved just in time, veteran CIA agent Evan Lake (Nicholas Cage) escapes certain death at the hands of his sadistic executioner and Islamic terrorist Muhammad Banir (Alexander Karim).
Twenty-two long and difficult years later, disturbing rumors, coupled with rare evidence that Banir is still alive, send a grizzled and sick lake to Bucharest with his young protege Milton (Anton Yelchin) on a dangerous quest for retaliation.
More than anything, the battle-scarred agent must be stopped. However, will Banir’s death calm the loud echoes of the past?
20. Dog Eat Dog (2016)
Designed from a lifelong experience that spanned from incarceration to release, Dog Eat Dog is the story of three men who have been removed from prison and are now tasked with adjusting to civilian life.
California’s Three Strikes Act is hanging over their heads, but heck, they will, and they will do it their way. Troy (Nicholas Cage), a distant thought leader, fights for a clean and straightforward life but cannot escape his hatred for the system.
The mob pays Diesel (Christopher Matthew Cook), and his interest in his suburban home and his nagging wife vanishes.
The trio’s loose cannon, Mad Dog(Willem Dafoe), is possessed by real demons who carry them from one situation to another.
Another success, another jackpot, and everyone will be happy. Troy builds the perfect crime, and they do it, but as a result, they continue to encounter the law that surrounds them wherever they go.
21. First Reformed (2017)
Ernst Toller(Ethan Hawke), 46, a Lonely and depressed pastor of a small historic church, Ernst, suffers from extreme post-traumatic stress disorder and feelings of guilt after a parishioner’s wife takes her own life.
This suicide is a triggering point for Ernst as it brings back painful and unfortunate memories of his son. Soon, he gets out of control.
The pregnant new member, Mary (Amanda Seyfried), requested Rev. Toller address her significant other, Michael (Philip Ettinger). Michael is worried about bringing a child into this world as man has already damaged the environment.
22. Dark (TV Series 2017 – 2020)
Paul Schrader was not permitted to create the form he wanted for “Dying of the Light.” He took the studio cut and altered it with his creative liberty to achieve a closer representation of his vision.
Dark” is an all the more appropriately named film that spotlights CIA specialist Evan Lake’s (Nicholas Cage) last mission as he gradually flies off the handle from dementia/Alzheimer’s.
23. The Card Counter (2021)
The movie by Paul Schrader follows William Tell (Oscar Isaac), a speculator and previous military investigator who embarks on changing a youngster looking for vengeance on a shared foe from before.
Tell wants to play cards and keep to himself. His straightforward demeanor on the club trail is broken when he is drawn closer by Cirk (Tye Sheridan), a defenseless and furious young fellow looking for help to execute his arrangement for vengeance on a resigned military major.
Tell sees a possibility of reclamation through his relationship with Cirk. Acquiring backing from strange betting lender La Linda (Tiffany Haddish), Tell takes Cirk with him, going from one club to another until they focus on winning the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas.
However, keeping Cirk on the honest seems complicated, hauling Tell once again into the dimness of his past.
As shown above, Paul Schrader has directed various feature movies over the years covering a wide range of genres.
Interestingly enough, even his first feature film was in a genre he’d never attempted again: romance.
In any case, it wasn’t until he directed The Yakuza that he returned to more familiar ground. Schrader continued to challenge himself with every subsequent work, not one to coast on his laurels.
Understanding an artist, especially one shrouded in mystery, like Paul Schrader. And if he’s a filmmaker you admire, which I imagine most of you do, it becomes even more important that every little thing you type about him is as accurate as possible.
