John Waters
Directing
- Born:
- 1946-04-22
- Place of birth:
- Baltimore, Maryland, USA
Biography
John Samuel Waters Jr. (born April 22, 1946) is an American filmmaker, writer, actor, and artist. He rose to fame in the early 1970s for his transgressive cult films, including Multiple Maniacs (1970), Pink Flamingos (1972) and Female Trouble (1974). Waters wrote and directed the comedy film Hairspray (1988), which was later adapted into a hit Broadway musical and a 2007 musical film. Other films he has written and directed include Desperate Living (1977), Polyester (1981), Cry-Baby (1990), Serial Mom (1994), Pecker (1998), and Cecil B. Demented (2000). His films contain elements of post-modern comedy and surrealism. As an actor, Waters has appeared in Sweet and Lowdown (1999), 'Til Death Do Us Part (2007), Mangus! (2011), Excision (2012), Suburban Gothic (2014), and has appeared in the Child's Play franchise with Seed of Chucky (2004) and third season of the television series Chucky (2024). He hosted and produced the television series John Waters Presents Movies That Will Corrupt You (2006). Throughout his career, Waters has often collaborated with actor and drag queen Divine and his regular cast of the Dreamlanders. More recently, he performs in his touring one-man show This Filthy World. Waters also works as a visual artist and across different media, such as installations, photography, and sculpture. The audiobooks he narrated for his books Carsick and Mr. Know-It-All were nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album in 2015 and 2020, respectively. In 2018, Waters was named an officer of the Order of Arts and Letters in France. He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2023.
Known For
Filmography
Vincent Price: What Keeps Us Alive
Mary Oliver: Saved by the Beauty of the World
Return to Mortville
Kevin
Eddie Cochran: Don't Forget Me
Gays Against Guns
Sarah Squirm: Live + in the Flesh
TURA!
Velvet Vision: The Story of James Bidgood and the Making of Pink Narcissus
It's Dorothy!
A Summer with Joe, Liz and Richard
Everybody's Live with John Mulaney
As Time Goes By
Doc of Chucky
Scala!!!
Lynch/Oz
Little Richard: I Am Everything
Digman!
Don't Fall in Love with Yourself
Monster High
Fragments of Paradise
Living with Chucky
The Book of Harth
Charles Band’s Full Moon Freakshow
Tell Me Iggy
The Andy Warhol Diaries
Blood, Guts and Sunshine: The History of Horror Made in Florida
The Velvet Underground
Chucky
Pride
My Life with the Waters
The Mystery of the Pink Flamingo
Helluva Boss
Time Warp Vol. 3: Comedy and Camp
Time Warp Vol. 2: Horror and Sci-Fi
Time Warp Vol. 1: Midnight Madness
Time Warp: The Greatest Cult Films of All Time
Joel Calls Indie Film Type Dudes
30/30 Vision: Three Decades of Strand Releasing
At the Video Store
Bully. Coward. Victim. The Story of Roy Cohn
Sniffing Out ‘Polyester’
Mugworth
Liverspots and Astronots
Crime and Beauty: Making ‘Female Trouble’
Female Trouble: On-Set Footage
Explained
Sickies Making Films
Queercore: How to Punk a Revolution
FEUD
Mansfield 66/67
Search Party
Wall Writers
In Conversation With Director John Waters, Actress Kathleen Turner and Actress Mink Stole
Whatever Happened to Gelitin
The New Yorker Presents
Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip
Sympathy for the Devil: The True Story of The Process Church of the Final Judgment
The 1000 Eyes of Dr Maddin
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
Seed Money: The Chuck Holmes Story
Tab Hunter Confidential
Suburban Gothic
The Last Impresario
Clarence
I Am Divine
Late Night with Seth Meyers
HitRECord on TV with Joseph Gordon-Levitt
Jingle Bell Rocks!
The Blacklist
RuPaul Drives...
Paul Bowles: The Cage Door Is Always Open
The Sarnos: A Life in Dirty Movies
Frankenstein: A Modern Myth
Excision
Mansome
Finding Your Roots
The Advocate for Fagdom
American Horror Story
Blank City
Mangus!
These Amazing Shadows
William S. Burroughs: A Man Within
Fish Hooks
Herschell Gordon Lewis: The Godfather of Gore
Beautiful Darling
The Simpsons 20th Anniversary Special - In 3D! On Ice!
It Came from Kuchar
Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen
For the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism
RuPaul's Drag Race
The Wild World of Ted V. Mikels
Obscene: A Portrait of Barney Rosset and Grove Press
Starz Inside: In the Gutter
New Line Cinema: The First Generation and the Next Generation
Coven of the Heathenites
365 Day Project
You Can’t Stop the Beat: The Long Journey of "Hairspray"
The Roots of 'Hairspray'
Spine Tingler! The William Castle Story
The Junior Defenders
Jessica the Hippo
Indie Sex
Hairspray
Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis
Each Time I Kill
'Til Death Do Us Part
The Graham Norton Show
Here’s Looking at You, Boy
This Filthy World
Treasures Untold: The Making of Disney's 'The Little Mermaid'
Jackass Number Two
This Film Is Not Yet Rated
The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players: Off & On Broadway
I Love the '70s: Volume 2
Midnight Movies: From the Margin to the Mainstream
Mommie Dearest: Joan Lives On
The Henry Rollins Show
42nd Street: From Book to Screen to Stage
Busby Berkeley's Kaleidoscopic Eyes
Footlight Parade: Music for the Decades
(buz'be bur'kle) n. A Study in Style
Plagues and Pleasures on the Salton Sea
Fabulous! The Story of Queer Cinema
That Man: Peter Berlin
Meet The Kuchar Brothers
I, of the Cyclops
The Colbert Report
My Name Is Earl
It Came from... Baltimore!!
All the Dirt on 'A Dirty Shame'
Inside Deep Throat
Seed of Chucky
Thinking XXX
Closer Than That: A Documentary on Low
Abby Singer
Real Time with Bill Maher
A History of Sex
Sylvester: Mighty Real
Blood Feast 2: All U Can Eat
The Cockettes
Memories of Oz
Welcome to Hollywood
Pie in the Sky: The Brigid Berlin Story
Cecil B. Demented
Divine Trash
Sweet and Lowdown
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
In Bad Taste
Yesterday's Tomorrows
Forever Hollywood
Pecker
The Roseanne Show
So Graham Norton
Anarchy TV
The View
Anthem
E! True Hollywood Story
Ballyhoo: The Hollywood Sideshow!
The Daily Show
Film Independent Spirit Awards
God Save the Queens
Family Album
Serial Mom
The Big Wet
Eurotrash
Frasier
Late Show with David Letterman
Homicide: Life on the Street
Growing Up with John Waters
HBO First Look
Gastronomic Getaway
The Word
The Simpsons
Homer and Eddie
The Incredibly Strange Film Show
Hairspray
Way USA!
21 Jump Street
Something Wild
The Ballad of Sexual Dependency
Divine Waters
Nuart Theatre No Smoking PSA
Late Night with David Letterman
Edith's Shopping Bag
Saturday Night Live
Love Letter to Edie
Pink Flamingos
Mondo Trasho
Tony Awards
Mary Woronov: Cult Queen
The Brandon Novak Story
Baltigore
Mamie Exposed! The Life and Loves of the Last Blonde Bombshell
New Line: Independent Legacies