William Friedkin was an American film and television director, producer, and screenwriter closely identified with the "New Hollywood" movement of the 1970s. Beginning his career in documentaries in the early 1960s, he directed the crime thriller film The French Connection (1971), which won five Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Director for himself, and the supernatural horror film The Exorcist (1973), which earned him a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Director.
His other films included the drama The Boys in the Band (1970), the thriller Sorcerer (1977), the crime comedy drama The Brink's Job (1978), the crime thriller Cruising (1980), the neo-noir thriller To Live and Die in L.A. (1985), the psychological horror film Bug (2006), and the black comedy Killer Joe (2011).
Friedkin was born in Chicago, Illinois, on August 29, 1935. He died from heart failure and pneumonia at his home in Bel Air, Los Angeles, on August 7, 2023, at the age of 87 and about 22 days before his 88th birthday.
