Born in Fresno, California, in 1925 and died in 1984, Sam Peckinpah worked in television westerns before making Ride the High Country (1962). The Wild Bunch (1969) transformed the genre with its slow-motion bloodshed and its elegy for aging outlaws in a changing West, and made him the most controversial American director of his time. His films treat violence, honour and men who have outlived their world, and his battles with studios and with alcohol shortened a career that also included Straw Dogs, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid and Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia.
Filmography
- The Deadly Companions (1961)
- Ride the High Country (1962)
- Major Dundee (1965)
- The Wild Bunch (1969)
- The Ballad of Cable Hogue (1970)
- Straw Dogs (1971)
- Junior Bonner (1972)
- The Getaway (1972)
- Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973)
- Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974)
- Cross of Iron (1977)
- Convoy (1978)