Biography
Richard Brooks (May 18, 1912 – March 11, 1992) was an American screenwriter, director, novelist and occasional producer. His outstanding works as director are Blackboard Jungle (1955); Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958); Elmer Gantry (1960) – for which he won an Academy Award for Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay); In Cold Blood (1967); and Looking for Mr. Goodbar (1977). Brooks was one of the relatively few filmmakers whose careers bridged the transition from the classic studio system to the independ...
Known For
Complete Filmography

Cary Grant: A Celebration of a Leading Man
1988
as Self
A retrospective of the life and career of actor Cary Grant, including clips from his films and interviews with his friends and co-workers.

Bacall on Bogart
1988
as Self
Lauren Bacall tells the story of her late husband Humphrey Bogart, presenting clips from his movies and interview clips with his peers.

A Special Friendship
1987
as Matt Bowser
During the American Civil War, two women, a wealthy white woman and a freed black slave, join forces to fight for freedom and the abolition of slavery...

Fever Pitch
1985
Writer, Director
An investigative journalist gets hooked on the subject of his inquiry — organized gambling.

Wrong Is Right
1982
Writer, Director, Producer
Political double-talk, dirty tricks, hidden microphones, spy satellites, bugging the Oval Office and a nuclear bomb for sale are all ingredients in th...

Looking for Mr. Goodbar
1977
Director, Screenplay
A short, unhappy affair with a married man leads a dedicated schoolteacher into the alcohol-and-drug fueled underworld of singles’ bars, where she beg...

Bite the Bullet
1975
Writer, Director, Producer
At the beginning of the 20th century, a newspaper organizes an endurance horse race : 700 miles to run in a few days. 9 adventurers are competing, amo...

Elizabeth Taylor: An Intimate Portrait
1975
as Self
Vintage 1975 documentary about the life of movie queen Elizabeth Taylor hosted by Peter Lawford, and featuring appearances by actors Roddy McDowall an...

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1971
Director, Writer
A bank security expert plots with a call girl to rob the safety deposit boxes of three very different criminals from a high-tech bank in Hamburg.

The Happy Ending
1969
Producer, Director, Writer
When Fred asked for Mary's hand in marriage, she thought she had the happy ending she only read about in fairy tales. Now it's 16 years later; Fred ha...

In Cold Blood
1967
Director, Screenplay
After a botched robbery results in the brutal murder of a rural family, two drifters elude police, in the end coming to terms with their own mortality...

The Professionals
1966
Producer, Director, Screenplay
An arrogant Texas millionaire hires four adventurers to rescue his kidnapped wife from a notorious Mexican bandit.

Lord Jim
1965
Director, Producer, Writer
After being discredited as a coward, a 19th century seaman lives for only one purpose: to redeem himself. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in pa...

Sweet Bird of Youth
1962
Director, Screenplay
Gigolo and drifter Chance Wayne returns to his hometown as the companion of a faded movie star, Alexandra Del Lago, whom he hopes to use to help him b...

Elmer Gantry
1960
Screenplay, Director
A charismatic charlatan begins a business — and eventually romantic — relationship with a roadside evangelist to sell religion to 1920s America. Based...

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
1958
Director, Screenplay
An alcoholic ex-football player drinks his days away, having failed to come to terms with his sexuality and his real feelings for his football buddy w...

The Brothers Karamazov
1958
Director, Writer
Ryevsk, Russia, 1870. Tensions abound in the Karamazov family. Fyodor is a wealthy libertine who holds his purse strings tightly. His four grown sons ...

Something of Value
1957
Director, Screenplay
As Kenya's Mau Mau uprising tears the country apart, former childhood friends Kimani (Sidney Poitier), a native, and Peter (Rock Hudson), a British co...

The Catered Affair
1956
Director
An Irish cabby in the Bronx watches his wife go overboard planning their daughter's wedding.

The Last Hunt
1956
Director, Writer
A buffalo hunter has a falling-out with his partner, who kills for fun.

Blackboard Jungle
1955
Director, Screenplay
Richard Dadier is a teacher at North Manual High School, an inner-city school where many of the pupils frequently engage in anti-social behavior. Dadi...

The Last Time I Saw Paris
1954
Director, Screenplay
Reporter Charles Wills, in Paris to cover the end of World War II, falls for the beautiful Helen Ellswirth following a brief flirtation with her siste...

Flame and the Flesh
1954
Director
American woman in Europe romanced by local gigolo; problems ensue.

Take the High Ground!
1953
Director
Sgt. Thorne Ryan, who once fought bravely in Korea, now serves as a hard-nosed drill instructor to new Army recruits at Fort Bliss, Texas. But is he r...

Battle Circus
1953
Writer, Director
A young Army nurse, Lt Ruth McGara, newly assigned to the 66th MASH during the Korean War, attracts the sexual attention of the unit's commander Dr. (...

Deadline - U.S.A.
1952
Director, Writer
With three days before his paper folds, a crusading editor tries to expose a vicious gangster.

The Light Touch
1951
Director, Screenplay
An art thief tries to double cross his gangster boss.

Storm Warning
1951
Writer
A fashion model witnesses the brutal assassination of an investigative journalist by the Ku Klux Klan while traveling to a small town to visit her sis...

Crisis
1950
Director, Writer
An American doctor gets caught in the middle of a revolution when he's forced to operate on a South American dictator.

Mystery Street
1950
Screenplay
When a young woman's skeletal remains turn up on a Massachusetts beach, Barnstable cop Peter Moralas teams with Boston police and uses forensics, with...

Any Number Can Play
1949
Screenplay
When illegal casino owner Charley Kyng develops heart disease, he is advised by a doctor to spend more time with his family. However, he finds it diff...

To the Victor
1948
Writer
An American serviceman remains in France after WWII and becomes a black marketeer.

Key Largo
1948
Screenplay
A hurricane swells outside, but it's nothing compared to the storm within the hotel at Key Largo. There, sadistic mobster Johnny Rocco holes up - and ...

Crossfire
1947
Novel
A man is murdered, apparently by one of a group of soldiers just out of the army. But which one? And why?

Brute Force
1947
Screenplay
Timeworn Joe Collins and his fellow inmates live under the heavy thumb of the sadistic, power-tripping guard Captain Munsey. Only Collins' dreams of e...

Swell Guy
1946
Writer
Perception vs. reality in a tale of a scoundrel and user whose jovial manner masks his true nature until a climatic redemption.

The Killers
1946
Writer, Additional Writing
Two hit men walk into a diner asking for a man called "the Swede". When the killers find the Swede, he's expecting them and doesn't put up a fight. Si...

Cobra Woman
1944
Screenplay
A man tracks his kidnapped bride to a jungle island, where her twin is the high priestess.

My Best Gal
1944
Story
A girl from a show-business family seeks a backer for her boyfriend's musical.

Return to Guam
1944
Director
Return to Guam is a 1944 short propaganda film produced by the US Navy about the taking and recapture of the island of Guam. The film starts when a co...

With the Marines at Tarawa
1944
Director
Documentary short film depicting the harrowing battle between the U.S. Marines and the Japanese for control of the Pacific island of Tarawa. Preserve...

White Savage
1943
Screenplay
A native boy plays Cupid for a shark fisherman and a South Sea Islands princess.

Don Winslow of the Coast Guard
1943
Additional Dialogue
Don Winslow (titular hero of the serial "Don Winslow of the Navy") is reassigned to the United States Coast Guard, to guard the coast against saboteur...

Sin Town
1942
Additional Dialogue
Two con artists arrive in a western boom town that they think is ripe for the pickings, only to get swindled themselves.

Men of Texas
1942
Screenplay
A Chicago reporter (Robert Stack) and photographer focus on a Confederate outlaw (Brod Crawford) in post-Civil War Texas.