John Carpenter

1h 23m

A student film that grew into a feature. Dan O'Bannon co-wrote it and later wrote Alien.

1h 31m

Rio Bravo relocated to a closing Los Angeles police station. Made for a hundred thousand dollars.

1h 31m

Shot in twenty days for about three hundred thousand dollars. He wrote the score himself in three days.

1h 29m

A ghost story in a coastal town, and his most atmospheric film.

1h 39m

Manhattan as a maximum-security prison, and Snake Plissken. Almost entirely shot in East St. Louis.

1h 49m

Rob Bottin's practical effects, and an ending that refuses to resolve. Hated on release, and now untouchable.

1h 50m

The Stephen King car. Taken purely for work after The Thing flopped, and better than it needed to be.

1h 55m

A gentle road-trip romance with an alien. Jeff Bridges got an Oscar nomination, which nobody expected.

1h 39m

Kurt Russell as the sidekick who thinks he is the hero. A flop, then a permanent cult film.

1h 42m

Physicists in a church with a cylinder of liquid Satan. Genuinely unnerving.

1h 34m

Sunglasses that reveal the advertising. The alley fight runs nearly six minutes.

1h 39m

A Chevy Chase studio vehicle, and his least characteristic film by a distance.

1h 35m

Lovecraft by way of a horror novelist whose books drive readers insane. The last great one.

1h 38m

A remake made to finish a studio contract, and he has said as much.

1h 41m

The same film again, larger and with worse effects. Snake surfs a tsunami.

1h 48m

James Woods hunting vampires as a western. Nastier than it is good.

1h 38m

Assault on Precinct 13 on Mars. Its failure effectively ended his feature career.

1h 29m

A nine-year comeback that came and went. His last feature to date.