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FILM DIRECTOR

William Friedkin

1935 - 2023

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Icon of person William Friedkin

William David Friedkin (August 29, 1935 – August 7, 2023) was an American film, television and opera director, producer, and screenwriter who was closely identified with the "New Hollywood" movement of the 1970s. Beginning his career in documentaries in the early 1960s, he is best known for his crime thriller film The French Connection (1971), which won five Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director, and the horror film The Exorcist (1973), which earned him another Academy Award nomination for Best Director. Friedkin's other films in the 1970s and 1980s include the drama The Boys in the Band (1970), considered a milestone of queer cinema, the originally deprecated, now lauded thriller Sorcerer (1977), the crime comedy drama The Brink's Job (1978), the controversial thriller Cruising (1980), and the neo-noir thriller To Live and Die in L.A. (1985). Read more on Wikipedia

Since 2007, the English Wikipedia page of William Friedkin has received more than 3,678,493 page views. His biography is available in 42 different languages on Wikipedia (up from 40 in 2019). William Friedkin is the 165th most popular film director (down from 121st in 2019), the 1,077th most popular biography from United States (down from 803rd in 2019) and the 44th most popular American Film Director.

William Friedkin is most famous for directing the horror film The Exorcist.

Memorability Metrics

  • 3.7M

    Page Views (PV)

  • 61.66

    Historical Popularity Index (HPI)

  • 42

    Languages Editions (L)

  • 4.46

    Effective Languages (L*)

  • 3.92

    Coefficient of Variation (CV)

Page views of William Friedkins by language


Among FILM DIRECTORS

Among film directors, William Friedkin ranks 165 out of 1,581Before him are Max Reinhardt, Sergio Corbucci, Volker Schlöndorff, Guillermo del Toro, Jacques Rivette, and Nagisa Oshima. After him are Masaki Kobayashi, Alexander Dovzhenko, Jonathan Demme, Kathryn Bigelow, Bille August, and Alejandro González Iñárritu.

Most Popular Film Directors in Wikipedia

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Contemporaries

Among people born in 1935, William Friedkin ranks 41Before him are Miroslav Blažević, Mirella Freni, Giya Kancheli, David Harvey, Jim Peebles, and Jerry Lee Lewis. After him are Satoshi Ōmura, Sylvia Earle, Danilo Kiš, Mylène Demongeot, Wim Duisenberg, and Masahito, Prince Hitachi. Among people deceased in 2023, William Friedkin ranks 45Before him are Paul Berg, Rosalynn Carter, Harry Markowitz, Burt Young, Alain Touraine, and Lucile Randon. After him are Pervez Musharraf, Ryuichi Sakamoto, John B. Goodenough, Antonio Negri, David McCallum, and Ivan Silayev.

Others Born in 1935

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Others Deceased in 2023

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In United States

Among people born in United States, William Friedkin ranks 1,077 out of 18,182Before him are Daniel Bell (1919), Guy Williams (1924), Peter Eisenman (1932), G. Stanley Hall (1846), Alicia Keys (1981), and Ben E. King (1938). After him are Jody Williams (1950), Burton Richter (1931), Cordell Hull (1871), Leo Fender (1909), Sheldon Lee Glashow (1932), and Dick Van Dyke (1925).

Among FILM DIRECTORS In United States

Among film directors born in United States, William Friedkin ranks 44Before him are D. W. Griffith (1875), Joel Schumacher (1939), Blake Edwards (1922), Joseph L. Mankiewicz (1909), Ed Wood (1924), and Robert Wise (1914). After him are Jonathan Demme (1944), Kathryn Bigelow (1951), Robert Aldrich (1918), Don Siegel (1912), James Ivory (1928), and Vincente Minnelli (1903).

Filmography