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Roman Polanski

Highest Rated: 98% Chinatown (1974)

Lowest Rated: 10% The Palace (2023)

Birthday: Aug 18, 1933

Birthplace: Paris, France

A Best Director Oscar winner for "The Pianist" (2002), Roman Polanski also made the seminal films "Rosemary's Baby" (1969) and "Chinatown" (1974), but his career was inevitably overshadowed by the shocking murder of second wife Sharon Tate and his statutory rape of a 13-year-old girl which resulted in him becoming one of America's most high-profile fugitives. Born in Paris, France in 1933 to Polish immigrant parents who moved back to Krakow shortly after, Roman Polanski endured a traumatic early childhood which was largely spent in the Krakow Ghetto following the outbreak of World War II, a period in which his mother was tragically killed at Auschwitz. Using cinema as a form of escapism, Polanski developed a passion for movies and in his late teens attended Lodz's National Film School. He achieved his first screen credit as an actor, in Andrzej Walda's "Pokolenie" (1954), before making his directorial debut with the semi-autobiographical "Rower" (1955). Following several further shorts, Polanski made the leap to feature films with the unsettling Oscar-nominated thriller "Knife in the Water" (1962) before helming psychological horror "Repulsion" (1965), tragicomedy "Cul-de-sac" (1966) and parody "The Fearless Vampire Killers" (1967). He then ventured into Hollywood for the first time with the acclaimed Satanic horror "Rosemary's Baby" (1968). But tragedy struck a year later when his second wife, Sharon Tate, was brutally murdered at their Los Angeles home alongside four friends by members of the notorious Manson Family. Polanski subsequently threw himself into his work, directing a provocative adaptation of "Macbeth" (1971) and absurdist comedy "What?" (1973) before becoming the toast of Tinseltown with "Chinatown" (1974), the neo-noir mystery based on the California Water Wars, which earned 11 Academy Award nominations. But after helming and starring as a Polish immigrant in Parisian tale "The Tenant" (1976), his story took an even darker turn two years later when he was charged with the rape of a 13-year-old girl in Los Angeles. Polanski later pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of unlawful sex with a minor, but on learning that a lengthy prison sentence was imminent, he fled America, spending the rest of his life in European exile. Yet Polanski continued to make films, and continued to receive the adoration of critics, with his next film, "Tess" (1979), picking up three Oscars and a Best Picture nomination. He fared less well with the swashbuckling epic "Pirates" (1986), but soon bounced back with "Frantic" (1988), a Hitchcock-esque thriller starring his future third wife Emmanuelle Seigner. After adding to his filmography with acting credits in in "Back in the USSR" (1992), "Una pura formulita" (1994) and "Zemsta" (2002), and directorial efforts "Bitter Moon" (1992), "Death and the Maiden" (1994) and "The Ninth Gate" (1999), Polanski adapted Polish-Jewish musician Wladyslaw Szpilman's autobiography in "The Pianist" (2003), winning both the Palme d'Or and Best Director Oscar in the process. He then took on Charles Dickens for "Oliver Twist" (2005) and Robert Harris for "The Ghost Writer" (2010), directed adaptations of stage plays "Carnage" (2011) and "Venus in Fur" (2013), and tackled the Dreyfus Affair in "J'accuse" (2019).

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Highest-Rated Movies

98% 93% Chinatown
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97% 85% Knife in the Water
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97% 87% Rosemary's Baby Watchlist
96% 86% Repulsion
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95% 96% The Pianist
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92% 75% Roman Polanski: A Film Memoir
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88% 72% Venus in Fur
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84% 70% The Ghost Writer
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84% 87% The Tenant
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84% 62% Seduced and Abandoned
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Filmography

Movies TV Shows
The Palace 10% 63% 2023 Director, Screenwriter Hometown 2021 Self An Officer and a Spy 76% 82% 2019 Director, Screenwriter In the Tracks of Alexandre Desplat 2018 Actor Based on a True Story 50% 37% 2017 Director, Writer Venus in Fur 88% 72% 2013 Director, Screenwriter Seduced and Abandoned 84% 62% 2013 Self Roman Polanski: A Film Memoir 92% 75% 2011 Self Carnage 71% 66% 2011 Director, Screenwriter Dance of the Vampires 73% 2011 Director The Ghost Writer 84% 70% 2010 Director, Screenwriter, Producer Rush Hour 3 17% 63% 2007 Det. Revi Actor Oliver Twist 61% 63% 2005 Director, Producer The Revenge 49% 2002 Józef Papkin Actor The Pianist 95% 96% 2002 Director, Producer The Ninth Gate 43% 58% 1999 Director, Screenwriter, Producer Death and the Maiden 82% 81% 1994 Director A Pure Formality 80% 88% 1994 Inspector Actor Dead Tired 50% 55% 1994 Self Bitter Moon 63% 80% 1992 Director, Screenwriter, Producer Back in the USSR 23% 1992 Kurilov Actor Frantic 77% 64% 1988 Director, Screenwriter Pirates 27% 51% 1986 Director Tess 81% 78% 1979 Director, Screenwriter The Tenant 84% 87% 1976 Trelkovsky Actor, Director, Screenwriter
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