Samuel Fuller
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. He broke the story of Jeanne Eagels' death. He wrote pulp novels and screenplays from the mid-1930s onwards. Fuller also became a screenplay ghostwriter but would never tell interviewers which screenplays that he ghost-wrote explaining "that's what a ghost writer is for".
During World War II, Fuller joined the United States Army infantry. He was assigned to the 16th Infantry Regiment, 1st Infantry Division, and saw heavy fighting. He was involved in landings in Africa, Sicily, and Normandy and also saw action in Belgium and Czechoslovakia. In 1945 he was present at the liberation of the German concentration camp at Falkenau and shot 16 mm footage which was used later in the documentary Falkenau: The Impossible. For his service, he was awarded the Bronze Star, the Silver Star, and the Purple Heart. Fuller used his wartime experiences as material in his films, especially in The Big Red One (1980), a nickname of the 1st Infantry Division.
After his controversial film "White Dog" was shelved by Paramount pictures, Fuller moved to France, and never directed another American film. Fuller eventually returned to America. He died of natural causes in his California home. In November 1997, the Directors Guild held a three hour memorial in his honor, hosted by Curtis Hanson, his long time friend and co-writer on White Dog. He was survived by his wife Christa and daughter Samantha.
| Known For | Directing |
|---|---|
| Most Rating | 0.8603 |
| Birthday | 1912-08-12 |
| Place of Birth | Worcester, Massachusetts, USA |
| Also Known As | Sam Fuller, 사무엘 풀러, 새뮤얼 풀러, Samuel Michael Fuller , |
1965
Pierrot le Fou
7.335/934
Pierrot escapes his boring society and travels from Paris to the Mediterranean Sea with Marianne, a girl chased by hit-men from Algeria. They lead an...
Watch Now
Pierrot le Fou
1994
Un Américain en Normandie
0/0
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 (t...
Watch Now
Un Américain en Normandie
1982
The State of Things
6.41/83
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...
Watch Now
The State of Things
1977
The American Friend
7.099/436
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 ga...
Watch Now
The American Friend
1987
A Return to Salem's Lot
5.9/314
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 revea...
Watch Now
A Return to Salem's Lot
1992
La Vie de Bohème
7.49/148
Three penniless artists become friends in modern-day Paris: Rodolfo, an Albanian painter with no visa, Marcel, a playwright and magazine editor with n...
Watch Now
La Vie de Bohème
1997
The End of Violence
5.39/77
In Hollywood, the lives of a successful film producer, his wife, a police detective and a surveillance agent intersect after a botched abduction.
Watch Now
The End of Violence
1980
The Big Red One
6.702/334
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 P...
Watch Now
The Big Red One
1994
Tigrero: A Film That Was Never Made
6.769/13
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 ye...
Watch Now
Tigrero: A Film That Was Never Made
1996
The Typewriter, the Rifle & the Movie Camera
7.222/9
In a documentary about Samuel Fuller, the spectator gets different impressions about the Hollywood director and his films. The film is divided into th...
Watch Now
The Typewriter, the Rifle & the Movie Camera
1993
Anything for John
7.333/3
An intimate portrait of actor-writer-director John Cassavetes and a loving tribute to his genius for studying and depicting the human character. In-de...
Watch Now
Anything for John
1985
Report from Hollywood
7/1
“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 Thin...
Watch Now
Report from Hollywood
2005
The Big Red One: The Reconstruction
8.4/9
A re-working, re-editing, and restructuring of Sam Fuller's The Big Red One bringing it closer as originally envisioned by the late filmmaker. It incl...
Watch Now
The Big Red One: The Reconstruction
1966
Brigitte and Brigitte
6.286/14
Episodes in the lives of two country girls at school in Paris and their opinions.
Watch Now
Brigitte and Brigitte
2013
A Fuller Life
6.6/12
Friends and admirers of iconoclastic film director Sam Fuller read from his memoirs in this unconventional documentary directed by Fuller's only child...
Watch Now
A Fuller Life
1990
The Madonna and the Dragon
6.667/3
Exposé of two news photographers covering the People's Revolution in the Philippines.
Watch Now
The Madonna and the Dragon
1982
White Dog
6.63/297
Samuel Fuller’s throat-grabbing exposé on American racism was misunderstood and withheld from release when it was made in the early eighties.Today, th...
Watch Now
White Dog
1988
Mer de Chine: Le pays pour mémoire
0/0
Watch Now
Mer de Chine: Le pays pour mémoire
2002
The Men Who Made the Movies: Samuel Fuller
5.8/4
Samuel Fuller discusses his career as a filmmaker, illustrated by plenty of clips.
Watch Now
The Men Who Made the Movies: Samuel Fuller
2005
The Real Glory: Reconstructing 'The Big Red One'
7/2
Documentary about the efforts to reconstruct Sam Fuller's The Big Red One closer to the film Fuller had originally envisioned.
Watch Now
The Real Glory: Reconstructing 'The Big Red One'
1988
Falkenau, the Impossible
7.286/7
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. Ful...
Watch Now
Falkenau, the Impossible
1987
Helsinki Napoli All Night Long
5.9/10
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...
Watch Now
Helsinki Napoli All Night Long
1993
Golem: The Petrified Garden
5.2/5
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 Birob...
Watch Now
Golem: The Petrified Garden
1955
House of Bamboo
6.207/70
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...
Watch Now
House of Bamboo
1992
Golem, the Spirit of Exile
5/8
An allegory of the Golem, a Jewish mythical creature personifying displacement and exile, this film tells the story of a woman (similar to the biblica...
Watch Now
Golem, the Spirit of Exile
1973
The Young Nurses
4/10
Sexy young nurses administer a special kind of therapy on their daily rounds as they battle a drug ring operating outside the hospital.
Watch Now
The Young Nurses
1992
Where Is Musette?
10/1
Documentary filmed on-set during the making of Aki Kaurismaki's "La vie de Boheme"
Watch Now
Where Is Musette?
1984
Thieves After Dark
5.333/9
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.
Watch Now
Thieves After Dark
1989
Street of No Return
5.225/20
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 sponsore...
Watch Now
Street of No Return
2009
Carmel
7/6
Israeli filmmaker Amos Gitaï offers a look impressionist long history of armed conflict in their nation.
Watch Now
Carmel
1992
Shock Corridor
0/0
Short 35mm experimental film featuring Sam Fuller.
Watch Now
Shock Corridor
1982
Hammett
6.22/75
Chinatown, San Francisco, 1928. Former private detective Dashiell Hammett, a compulsive drinker with tuberculosis who writes pulp fiction for a living...
Watch Now
Hammett
1971
The Last Movie
5.778/63
After a film production wraps in Peru, an American wrangler decides to stay behind, witnessing how filmmaking affects the locals.
Watch Now
The Last Movie
1986
A Travelling is a Moral Affair
0/0
Watch Now
A Travelling is a Moral Affair
1982
Slapstick of Another Kind
3.023/22
A rich, beautiful couple give birth to deformed alien twins who, when their heads are together, are the smartest kids on the planet.
Watch Now
Slapstick of Another Kind
1967
Cinéastes de notre temps : Samuel Fuller
0/0
Episode of the French television series about the work of American film director Samuel Fuller. (A 23-minute edited version of this show appears on th...
Watch Now
Cinéastes de notre temps : Samuel Fuller
1990
Sons
6.333/3
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.
Watch Now
Sons
2006
Filmmakers in Action
7.2/5
What is the state of cinema and what being a filmmaker means? What are the measures taken to protect authors' copyright? What is their legal status in...
Watch Now
Filmmakers in Action
1986
Hooray For Holyrood
0/0
Scottish Television's film on the 40th Edinburgh International Film Festival in 1986, starring Robbie Coltrane (a former EIFF chauffeur) and featuring...
Watch Now
Hooray For Holyrood
1987
Midnight Sun Film Festival
0/0
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...
Watch Now
Midnight Sun Film Festival
2011
Nuits transparentes
0/0
Strolling through France (Roanne, Nice and Carcassonne) with some excursions abroad (Munich, Montreal, New York).
Watch Now
Nuits transparentes
2012
Scene Missing
6.3/3
The unfinished documentary about the making of Dennis Hopper's mostly unseen feature film The Last Movie (1971).
Watch Now
Scene Missing
1984
Sam Fuller & the Big Red One
7/1
A documentary shot during the production of Samuel Fuller's film The Big Red One.
Watch Now
Sam Fuller & the Big Red One
1978
Cinématon
4.857/7
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 y...
Watch Now
Cinématon
1989
Tell me Sam - Encounters with Sam Fuller
0/0
Watch Now
Tell me Sam - Encounters with Sam Fuller
1987
The Bleeding Star
0/0
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.
Watch Now
The Bleeding Star
1990
Motion and Emotion: The Films of Wim Wenders
8/1
Though very polite and British, this feature-length documentary about German filmmaker Wim Wenders offers the most penetrating insights and the best o...
Watch Now
Motion and Emotion: The Films of Wim Wenders
2010
Sodankylä Forever
0/0
The Midnight Sun Film Festival is held every June in the Finnish village of Sodankylä beyond the arctic circle — where the sun never sets. Founded by...
Watch Now
Sodankylä Forever
1979
1941
5.78/678
In the days after the attack on Pearl Harbor, panic grips California, where a military officer leads a mob chasing a Japanese sub.
Watch Now
1941
1977
Scott Joplin
6.375/8
The life story of Scott Joplin and how he became the greatest ragtime composer of all time.
Watch Now
Scott Joplin
1994
Somebody to Love
5.247/17
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 lo...
Watch Now
Somebody to Love
2003
Necro not(to b)e
0/0
A montage dedicated to friends, actors and companions who have passed away over the years: from Francesco Tirone to Paviglianiti, two leading figures...
Watch Now
Necro not(to b)e
2025
Films to Die For
0/0
Watch Now
Films to Die For
1981
Sam Fuller: Writings with a Camera
0/0
A brief visit with Sam Fuller on the set of his film “White Dog” (1982).
Watch Now