Samuel Fuller

Directing

Samuel Fuller

Born — Died

1912-08-12 — 1997-10-30

Place of birth

Worcester, Massachusetts, USA

Known for

Directing

Credits

97 titles

Samuel Michael Fuller (August 12, 1912 – October 30, 1997) was an American screenwriter, novelist and film director known for low-budget genre movies with controversial themes. He was born Samuel Michael Fuller in Worcester, Massachusetts, the son of Benjamin Rabinovitch, a Jewish immigrant  from Russia, and Rebecca Baum, a Jewish immigrant from Poland. After immigrating to America, the family's surname was changed from Rabinovitch to "Fuller" possibly by inspiration of a Doctor who arrived in America on the Mayflower.  At the age of 12, he began working in journalism  as a newspaper  copyboy. He became a crime reporter  in New York City at age 17, working for the New York Evening Graphic. …

Known for

Film credits

2000s · 6 titles

1990s · 14 titles

La Vie de Bohème poster
7.5

Three penniless artists become friends in modern-day Paris: Rodolfo, an Albanian painter with no visa, Marcel, a playwright and magazine editor with no publisher, and Schaunard, a post-modernist composer of execrable noise.

La Vie de Bohème

1992

The End of Violence poster
5.4

In Hollywood, the lives of a successful film producer, his wife, a police detective and a surveillance agent intersect after a botched abduction.

The End of Violence

1997

Somebody to Love poster
5.2

Mercedes is a taxi dancer who wants to be an actress. She's involved with the married Harry, who considers himself a respected actor. Ernesto is in love with Mercedes, but he doesn't dance or have money.

Somebody to Love

1994

Golem: The Petrified Garden poster
5.2

Danny Cornish, a sort of stateless man who arranges art exhibits, is called from Tel Aviv to Paris with the news that a great uncle has died, in Birobidjan, the autonomous Jewish zone in Russia, leaving him a valuable art collection and the hand of a huge sculpture of a Golem. The uncle's will instructs Danny to find the rest of the statue, so Danny, who speaks no Russian, embarks on a trip that takes him (and the Golem's hand) to Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Siberia, fumbling with hotel clerks, taxi drivers, and bureaucrats, following leads, and making discoveries about myth, story telling, art, and hope.

Golem: The Petrified Garden

1993

The Typewriter, the Rifle & the Movie Camera poster
7.2

In a documentary about Samuel Fuller, the spectator gets different impressions about the Hollywood director and his films. The film is divided into the three sections: The Typewriter, the Rifle and the Movie Camera. The first segment covers Fuller's past as a newsman where he began as a copy boy and ended as a reporter. Part two describes Fuller's experiences in World War II, in which he participated as a soldier. The last section focuses on Fuller as director. Tim Robbins interviews Samuel Fuller revealing the director's own memories and impressions. Beside the interview, Jim Jarmusch, Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino accompany the documentary with their comments.

The Typewriter, the Rifle & the Movie Camera

1996

Sons poster
5.2

A trio of stepbrothers accompany their paralysed father on a jaunt to Normandy where the old boy saw combat and romantic action during the war.

Sons

1990

Where Is Musette? poster
10.0

Documentary filmed on-set during the making of Aki Kaurismaki's "La vie de Boheme"

Where Is Musette?

1992

Shock Corridor poster
NR

Short 35mm experimental film featuring Sam Fuller.

Shock Corridor

1992

Golem, the Spirit of Exile poster
5.0

An allegory of the Golem, a Jewish mythical creature personifying displacement and exile, this film tells the story of a woman (similar to the biblical Ruth) and her sisters, who are forced into exile after the death of their husbands. It is set in 1990s Paris, where the director was living in self-imposed exile following the ban on his 1982 documentary in Israel. The recurring theme of the film is migrations and unrooting, like the legendary Golem.

Golem, the Spirit of Exile

1992

Tigrero: A Film That Was Never Made poster
6.8

In 1993, Sam Fuller takes Jim Jarmusch on a trip into Brazil's Mato Grosso, up the River Araguaia to the village of Santa Isabel Do Morro, where 40 years before, Zanuck had sent Fuller to scout a location and write a script for a movie based on a tigrero, a jaguar hunter. Sam hopes to find people who remember him, and he takes film he shot in 1954. He's Rip Van Winkle, and, indeed, a great deal changed in the village. There are televisions, watches, and brick houses. But, the same Karajá culture awaits as well. He gathers the villagers to show his old film footage, and people recognize friends and relatives, thanking Fuller for momentarily bringing them back to life.

Tigrero: A Film That Was Never Made

1994

Motion and Emotion: The Films of Wim Wenders poster
8.0

Though very polite and British, this feature-length documentary about German filmmaker Wim Wenders offers the most penetrating insights and the best overall critique of his work that I have encountered anywhere. Paul Joyce, who directed it, has also made documentaries about Nicolas Roeg, David Cronenberg, Nagisa Oshima, and Dennis Hopper, and he knows the conventional format well enough to get the most out of it. There are good clips and interesting commentaries from the interviewed subjects, who include Wenders himself, cinematographer Robby Muller, filmmaker Sam Fuller, novelist Patricia Highsmith, musician Ry Cooder, actors Harry Dean Stanton, Peter Falk, and Hanns Zischler, and critic Kraft Wetzel, who is especially provocative. A must-see for Wenders fans, highly recommended for everyone else. –Jonathan Rosenbaum, 1989

Motion and Emotion: The Films of Wim Wenders

1990

The Madonna and the Dragon poster
6.7

Exposé of two news photographers covering the People's Revolution in the Philippines.

The Madonna and the Dragon

1990

Anything for John poster
7.3

An intimate portrait of actor-writer-director John Cassavetes and a loving tribute to his genius for studying and depicting the human character. In-depth, candid interviews with his wife and muse Gena Rowlands as well as his most trusted friends and co-workers like Peter Falk, Ben Gazzara, Seymour Cassel, etc. Clips from Cassavetes' greatest films, and many rare photos illustrate this touching documentary.

Anything for John

1993

No artwork available
NR

Filmmaker Samuel Fuller tells the story of Corporal Samuel Fuller's landing on Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944, and his subsequent campaign in Normandy (the "hedge war").

Un Américain en Normandie

1994

1980s · 19 titles

The Big Red One poster
6.7

A veteran sergeant of World War I leads a squad in World War II, always in the company of the survivor Pvt. Griff, the writer Pvt. Zab, the Sicilian Pvt. Vinci and Pvt. Johnson, in Vichy French Africa, Sicily, D-Day at Omaha Beach, Belgium and France, and ending in a concentration camp in Czechoslovakia where they face the true horror of war.

The Big Red One

1980

A Return to Salem's Lot poster
6.0

Anthropologist Joe Weber takes his son on a trip to the New England town of Salem's Lot, unaware of its vampire population. When the inhabitants reveal their secret, they seek Weber to write a bible for them.

A Return to Salem's Lot

1987

White Dog poster
6.6

Samuel Fuller’s throat-grabbing exposé on American racism was misunderstood and withheld from release when it was made in the early eighties.Today, the notorious film is lauded for its daring metaphor and gripping pulp filmmaking. Kristy McNichol stars as a young actress who adopts a lost German shepherd, only to discover through a series of horrifying incidents that the dog has been trained to attack black people, and Paul Winfield plays the animal trainer who tries to cure him. A snarling, uncompromising vision, White Dog is a tragic portrait of the evil done by that most corruptible of all animals; the human being.

White Dog

1982

Hammett poster
6.2

Chinatown, San Francisco, 1928. Former private detective Dashiell Hammett, a compulsive drinker with tuberculosis who writes pulp fiction for a living, receives an unexpected visit from an old friend asking for help.

Hammett

1982

Slapstick of Another Kind poster
3.1

A rich, beautiful couple give birth to deformed alien twins who, when their heads are together, are the smartest kids on the planet.

Slapstick of Another Kind

1982

The State of Things poster
6.4

On location in Portugal, a film crew runs out of film while making their own version of Roger Corman's The Day the World Ended (1956). The producer is nowhere to be found and director Munro attempts to find him in hopes of being able to finish the film.

The State of Things

1982

Street of No Return poster
5.2

A rock star-turned-bum, his vocal chords severed at the height of his career for the love of a woman, drunkenly roams the city, torn apart by sponsored race riots. When accused of murder, he may have the chance to get revenge on the magnate who maimed him.

Street of No Return

1989

Thieves After Dark poster
5.3

A crime story set in Paris about a Bonnie-and-Clyde couple -- how they got together and how they are pursued for a murder they never committed.

Thieves After Dark

1984

Helsinki Napoli All Night Long poster
5.9

A Finnish taxi driver in Berlin gets in over his head when he accepts a fare from two men with briefcases full of money stolen from ruthless gangsters.

Helsinki Napoli All Night Long

1987

Sam Fuller & the Big Red One poster
7.0

A documentary shot during the production of Samuel Fuller's film The Big Red One.

Sam Fuller & the Big Red One

1984

The Bleeding Star poster
NR

An Englishman arrives in a remote French town near the coast to collect his broken-down car. What he sees there will change his life forever.

The Bleeding Star

1987

No artwork available
NR

No synopsis available yet.

A Travelling is a Moral Affair

1986

Sam Fuller: Writings with a Camera poster
NR

A brief visit with Sam Fuller on the set of his film “White Dog” (1982).

Sam Fuller: Writings with a Camera

1981

No artwork available
NR

The greatest film festival (anti)promotional short ever made which explains why Midnight Sun is a unique event for both film buffs in Finland and some of the stellar international talents who attend it and also appear in this hilarious guide to a very Finnish way of showing films.

Midnight Sun Film Festival

1987

Falkenau, the Impossible poster
7.3

Documentary stems from 1945, when infantryman Sam Fuller, member of the U.S. Army's "Big Red One," helped liberate the Nazis' Falkenau death camp. Fuller shot footage of his commanding officer's marching Czech locals, who denied knowing of the genocide, out from town to view the horrors of the death house. 40 years later, French documentary filmmaker Emil Weiss brought Fuller, who became a famous film director after World War II, back to the death camp to tell the story of the camp's liberation. Fuller's original footage is incorporated in the film.

Falkenau, the Impossible

1988

No artwork available
7.0

“It may be worse than Portugal,” observes cinematographer Henri Alekan about a Los Angeles film lab while on the set of Wim Wenders’ The State of Things (1984). A legendary production and a transitional work for the New German Cinema director as his work became increasingly international, Wenders set out to make a film about filmmaking as funding stalled on the American production of Hammett. The State of Things deals with American and European sensibilities about cinema, and he enlisted Lachman to film and document the film being made in Los Angeles. Made for German television, completed in 1985 and unseen outside of Germany, Lachman’s portrait of Wenders at work features striking filmmaking and location photography of Los Angeles in the 1980s, and serves as a candid glimpse into European encounters with American culture at the time.

Report from Hollywood

1985

Mer de Chine: Le pays pour mémoire poster
NR

No synopsis available yet.

Mer de Chine: Le pays pour mémoire

1988

No artwork available
NR

Scottish Television's film on the 40th Edinburgh International Film Festival in 1986, starring Robbie Coltrane (a former EIFF chauffeur) and featuring interviews with Bill Forsyth, Samuel Fuller and Barry Norman, among many others.

Hooray For Holyrood

1986

No artwork available
NR

No synopsis available yet.

Tell me Sam - Encounters with Sam Fuller

1989

1970s · 6 titles

The American Friend poster
7.1

Tom Ripley, an American who deals in forged art, is slighted at an auction in Hamburg by picture framer Jonathan Zimmerman. When Ripley is asked by gangster Raoul Minot to kill a rival, he suggests Zimmerman, and the two, exploiting Zimmerman's terminal illness, coerce him into being a hitman.

The American Friend

1977

1941 poster
5.8

In the days after the attack on Pearl Harbor, panic grips California, where a military officer leads a mob chasing a Japanese sub.

1941

1979

The Last Movie poster
5.7

After a film production wraps in Peru, an American wrangler decides to stay behind, witnessing how filmmaking affects the locals.

The Last Movie

1971

Scott Joplin poster
6.6

The life story of Scott Joplin and how he became the greatest ragtime composer of all time.

Scott Joplin

1977

Cinématon poster
4.9

Cinématon is a 156-hour long experimental film by French director Gérard Courant. It was the longest film ever released until 2011. Composed over 36 years from 1978 until 2006, it consists of a series of over 2,821 silent vignettes (cinématons), each 3 minutes and 25 seconds long, of various celebrities, artists, journalists and friends of the director, each doing whatever they want for the allotted time. Subjects of the film include directors Barbet Schroeder, Nagisa Oshima, Volker Schlöndorff, Ken Loach, Benjamin Cuq, Youssef Chahine, Wim Wenders, Joseph Losey, Jean-Luc Godard, Samuel Fuller and Terry Gilliam, chess grandmaster Joël Lautier, and actors Roberto Benigni, Stéphane Audran, Julie Delpy and Lesley Chatterley. Gilliam is featured eating a 100-franc note, while Fuller smokes a cigar. Courant's favourite subject was a 7-month-old baby. The film was screened in its then-entirety in Avignon in November 2009 and was screened in Redondo Beach, CA on April 9, 2010.

Cinématon

1978

The Young Nurses poster
4.2

Sexy young nurses administer a special kind of therapy on their daily rounds as they battle a drug ring operating outside the hospital.

The Young Nurses

1973

Series credits

Behind the camera

The Big Red One poster
6.7

A veteran sergeant of World War I leads a squad in World War II, always in the company of the survivor Pvt. Griff, the writer Pvt. Zab, the Sicilian Pvt. Vinci and Pvt. Johnson, in Vichy French Africa, Sicily, D-Day at Omaha Beach, Belgium and France, and ending in a concentration camp in Czechoslovakia where they face the true horror of war.

The Big Red One

1980

The Big Red One poster
6.7

A veteran sergeant of World War I leads a squad in World War II, always in the company of the survivor Pvt. Griff, the writer Pvt. Zab, the Sicilian Pvt. Vinci and Pvt. Johnson, in Vichy French Africa, Sicily, D-Day at Omaha Beach, Belgium and France, and ending in a concentration camp in Czechoslovakia where they face the true horror of war.

The Big Red One

1980

Merrill's Marauders poster
6.2

Brigadier General Frank D. Merrill leads the 3,000 American volunteers of his 5307th Composite Unit (Provisional), aka "Merrill's Marauders", behind Japanese lines across Burma to Myitkyina, pushing beyond their limits and fighting pitched battles at every strong-point.

Merrill's Marauders

1962

Merrill's Marauders poster
6.2

Brigadier General Frank D. Merrill leads the 3,000 American volunteers of his 5307th Composite Unit (Provisional), aka "Merrill's Marauders", behind Japanese lines across Burma to Myitkyina, pushing beyond their limits and fighting pitched battles at every strong-point.

Merrill's Marauders

1962

The Steel Helmet poster
7.0

A ragtag group of American stragglers battles against superior Communist troops in an abandoned Buddhist temple during the Korean War.

The Steel Helmet

1951

The Steel Helmet poster
7.0

A ragtag group of American stragglers battles against superior Communist troops in an abandoned Buddhist temple during the Korean War.

The Steel Helmet

1951

The Steel Helmet poster
7.0

A ragtag group of American stragglers battles against superior Communist troops in an abandoned Buddhist temple during the Korean War.

The Steel Helmet

1951

House of Bamboo poster
6.2

Eddie Kenner is given a special assignment by the Army to get the inside story on Sandy Dawson, a former GI who has formed a gang of fellow servicemen and Japanese locals.

House of Bamboo

1955

The Meanest Men in the West poster
4.0

Bronson and Marvin star as murderous half-brothers who are running from the law as well as each other. A climatic confrontation proves to each of them just how mean the other can be. "The Meanest Men in the West" is actually an amalgam of two episodes of the hit 1960's TV series, "The Virginian." In one installment, a wealthy man's daughter is kidnapped by a nasty gunslinger. But the crime is only just a means for the ruffian to draw the tough title character into a blood- thirsty revenge scheme. In the second, a drifter burglarizes the Shiloh ranch. Then an unhinged girl relies on the man to aid in her flight from home.

The Meanest Men in the West

1978

The Meanest Men in the West poster
4.0

Bronson and Marvin star as murderous half-brothers who are running from the law as well as each other. A climatic confrontation proves to each of them just how mean the other can be. "The Meanest Men in the West" is actually an amalgam of two episodes of the hit 1960's TV series, "The Virginian." In one installment, a wealthy man's daughter is kidnapped by a nasty gunslinger. But the crime is only just a means for the ruffian to draw the tough title character into a blood- thirsty revenge scheme. In the second, a drifter burglarizes the Shiloh ranch. Then an unhinged girl relies on the man to aid in her flight from home.

The Meanest Men in the West

1978

Hell and High Water poster
6.0

A privately-financed scientist and his colleagues hire an ex-Navy officer to conduct an Alaskan submarine expedition in order to prevent a Red Chinese anti-American plot that may lead to World War III. Mixes deviously plotted schoolboy fiction with submarine spectacle and cold war heroics.

Hell and High Water

1954

Hell and High Water poster
6.0

A privately-financed scientist and his colleagues hire an ex-Navy officer to conduct an Alaskan submarine expedition in order to prevent a Red Chinese anti-American plot that may lead to World War III. Mixes deviously plotted schoolboy fiction with submarine spectacle and cold war heroics.

Hell and High Water

1954

White Dog poster
6.6

Samuel Fuller’s throat-grabbing exposé on American racism was misunderstood and withheld from release when it was made in the early eighties.Today, the notorious film is lauded for its daring metaphor and gripping pulp filmmaking. Kristy McNichol stars as a young actress who adopts a lost German shepherd, only to discover through a series of horrifying incidents that the dog has been trained to attack black people, and Paul Winfield plays the animal trainer who tries to cure him. A snarling, uncompromising vision, White Dog is a tragic portrait of the evil done by that most corruptible of all animals; the human being.

White Dog

1982

White Dog poster
6.6

Samuel Fuller’s throat-grabbing exposé on American racism was misunderstood and withheld from release when it was made in the early eighties.Today, the notorious film is lauded for its daring metaphor and gripping pulp filmmaking. Kristy McNichol stars as a young actress who adopts a lost German shepherd, only to discover through a series of horrifying incidents that the dog has been trained to attack black people, and Paul Winfield plays the animal trainer who tries to cure him. A snarling, uncompromising vision, White Dog is a tragic portrait of the evil done by that most corruptible of all animals; the human being.

White Dog

1982

Run of the Arrow poster
6.1

When the South loses the war, Confederate veteran O'Meara goes West, joins the Sioux, takes a wife and refuses to be an American but he must choose a side when the Sioux go to war against the U.S. Army.

Run of the Arrow

1957

Run of the Arrow poster
6.1

When the South loses the war, Confederate veteran O'Meara goes West, joins the Sioux, takes a wife and refuses to be an American but he must choose a side when the Sioux go to war against the U.S. Army.

Run of the Arrow

1957

Run of the Arrow poster
6.1

When the South loses the war, Confederate veteran O'Meara goes West, joins the Sioux, takes a wife and refuses to be an American but he must choose a side when the Sioux go to war against the U.S. Army.

Run of the Arrow

1957

Pickup on South Street poster
7.4

In New York City, an insolent pickpocket, Skip McCoy, inadvertently sets off a chain of events when he targets ex-prostitute Candy and steals her wallet. Unaware that she has been making deliveries of highly classified information to the communists, Candy, who has been trailed by FBI agents for months in hopes of nabbing the spy ringleader, is sent by her ex-boyfriend, Joey, to find Skip and retrieve the valuable microfilm he now holds.

Pickup on South Street

1953

Pickup on South Street poster
7.4

In New York City, an insolent pickpocket, Skip McCoy, inadvertently sets off a chain of events when he targets ex-prostitute Candy and steals her wallet. Unaware that she has been making deliveries of highly classified information to the communists, Candy, who has been trailed by FBI agents for months in hopes of nabbing the spy ringleader, is sent by her ex-boyfriend, Joey, to find Skip and retrieve the valuable microfilm he now holds.

Pickup on South Street

1953

China Gate poster
6.2

Near the end of the French phase of the Vietnam War, a group of mercenaries are recruited to travel through enemy territory to the Chinese border.

China Gate

1957

China Gate poster
6.2

Near the end of the French phase of the Vietnam War, a group of mercenaries are recruited to travel through enemy territory to the Chinese border.

China Gate

1957

China Gate poster
6.2

Near the end of the French phase of the Vietnam War, a group of mercenaries are recruited to travel through enemy territory to the Chinese border.

China Gate

1957

Fixed Bayonets! poster
6.5

The story of a platoon during the Korean War. One by one, Corporal Denno's superiors are killed until it comes to the point where he must try to take command responsibility.

Fixed Bayonets!

1951

Fixed Bayonets! poster
6.5

The story of a platoon during the Korean War. One by one, Corporal Denno's superiors are killed until it comes to the point where he must try to take command responsibility.

Fixed Bayonets!

1951

Underworld U.S.A. poster
7.1

A bitter young man sets out to get back at the gangsters who murdered his father.

Underworld U.S.A.

1961

Underworld U.S.A. poster
7.1

A bitter young man sets out to get back at the gangsters who murdered his father.

Underworld U.S.A.

1961

Underworld U.S.A. poster
7.1

A bitter young man sets out to get back at the gangsters who murdered his father.

Underworld U.S.A.

1961

The Naked Kiss poster
7.0

A former prostitute works to create a new life for herself in a small town, but a shocking discovery could threaten everything.

The Naked Kiss

1964

The Naked Kiss poster
7.0

A former prostitute works to create a new life for herself in a small town, but a shocking discovery could threaten everything.

The Naked Kiss

1964

The Naked Kiss poster
7.0

A former prostitute works to create a new life for herself in a small town, but a shocking discovery could threaten everything.

The Naked Kiss

1964

The Crimson Kimono poster
6.6

Two detectives clash over the hunt for a burlesque dancer’s killer in Los Angeles’ Japanese district.

The Crimson Kimono

1959

The Crimson Kimono poster
6.6

Two detectives clash over the hunt for a burlesque dancer’s killer in Los Angeles’ Japanese district.

The Crimson Kimono

1959

The Crimson Kimono poster
6.6

Two detectives clash over the hunt for a burlesque dancer’s killer in Los Angeles’ Japanese district.

The Crimson Kimono

1959

Targets poster
7.1

An aging horror-movie icon's fate intersects with that of a seemingly ordinary young man on a psychotic shooting spree around Los Angeles.

Targets

1968

Shock Corridor poster
7.0

With the help of his girlfriend Cathy and Dr. Fong, a psychiatrist, ambitious journalist Johnny Barrett poses as a madman in order to be admitted to a mental institution where a bloody murder has been committed.

Shock Corridor

1963

Shock Corridor poster
7.0

With the help of his girlfriend Cathy and Dr. Fong, a psychiatrist, ambitious journalist Johnny Barrett poses as a madman in order to be admitted to a mental institution where a bloody murder has been committed.

Shock Corridor

1963

Shock Corridor poster
7.0

With the help of his girlfriend Cathy and Dr. Fong, a psychiatrist, ambitious journalist Johnny Barrett poses as a madman in order to be admitted to a mental institution where a bloody murder has been committed.

Shock Corridor

1963

Shockproof poster
6.3

Jenny Marsh, recently released from prison for killing a man, finds herself under the watchful eye of her parole officer, Griff Marat, who helps her secure a job caring for his ailing mother.

Shockproof

1949

The Baron of Arizona poster
6.7

The U.S. government recognizes land grants made when the West was under Spanish rule. This inspires James Reavis to forge a chain of historical evidence that makes a foundling girl the Baroness of Arizona. Reavis marries the girl and presses his claim to the entire Arizona territory.

The Baron of Arizona

1950

The Baron of Arizona poster
6.7

The U.S. government recognizes land grants made when the West was under Spanish rule. This inspires James Reavis to forge a chain of historical evidence that makes a foundling girl the Baroness of Arizona. Reavis marries the girl and presses his claim to the entire Arizona territory.

The Baron of Arizona

1950