James Schamus Trailers
Attack of the Hollywood Clichés! TrailerFrames TrailerCrouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: A Retrospective Trailer
James Allan Schamus (born September 7, 1959) is an American screenwriter, producer, business executive, film historian, professor, and director. He is a frequent collaborator of Ang Lee, the co-founder of the production company Good Machine, and the co-founder and former CEO of motion picture production, financing, and worldwide distribution company Focus Features, a subsidiary of NBCUniversal. He is currently president of the New York–based production company Symbolic Exchange and is Professor of Professional Practice at Columbia University, where he has taught film history and theory since 1989.
Schamus was born in Detroit, Michigan, to a Jewish family.He is the son of Clarita (Gershowitz) Karlin and Julian John Schamus and was raised in Los Angeles. He is married to writer Nancy Kricorian, with whom he has two children.
His output includes writing or co-writing The Ice Storm, Eat, Drink, Man, Woman, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and Hulk (all directed by Ang Lee) and producing Brokeback Mountain and Alone in Berlin. At Focus he oversaw the production and distribution of Lost in Translation, Milk, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Coraline, and The Kids Are All Right. In addition to his tenure at Columbia University, he has also taught at Yale University and at Rutgers University. He is the author of Carl Theodor Dreyer's Gertrud: The Moving Word, published by the University of Washington Press. He earned his BA, MA, and Ph.D. in English from the University of California, Berkeley.
Schamus made his feature directorial debut with Indignation, an adaptation of Philip Roth's novel of the same name. Schamus also wrote the script for the film, which stars Logan Lerman, Sarah Gadon, and Tracy Letts, and is the story of a Jewish student at an Ohio college in 1951. The film premiered at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival and was theatrically released by Roadside Attractions on July 29, 2016.
He was president of the jury for the 64th Berlin International Film Festival. He has also been on the jury of the New York International Children's Film Festival and has served on the editorial boards of Film Quarterly and Cinema Journal, as well as on the board of Creative Capital and the Heyman Centre for the Humanities.
Most Popular James Schamus Trailers
Total trailers found: 69
14 December 2019
Over 30 filmmakers and friends of Strand Releasing have come together to honor the company’s indelible contribution to independent cinema over the past thirty years.
24 September 2007
During World War II, a secret agent must seduce, then assassinate an official who works for the Japanese puppet government in Shanghai.
19 June 2003
Bruce Banner, a genetics researcher with a tragic past, suffers massive radiation exposure in his laboratory that causes him to transform into a raging green monster when he gets angry.
22 October 2005
In 1960s Wyoming, two men develop a strong emotional and sexual relationship that endures as a lifelong connection complicating their lives as they get married and start families of their own.
15 July 2023
Based on the most well-known classical fantasy novel of China, Fengshenyanyi, the trilogy is a magnificent eastern high fantasy epic that recreates the prolonged mythical wars between humans, immortals and monsters, which happened more than three thousand years ago.
13 December 1995
The Dashwood sisters, sensible Elinor and passionate Marianne, learn that their prospects of marriage seem doomed by their family's sudden loss of fortune.
18 April 2026
José Sánchez has big ambitions, terrible instincts, and a mustache to match. After a string of bad deals, he accidentally bluffs his way into becoming El Serpiente, a political boss feared for all the wrong reasons.
11 August 1995
Deals with the lives of the three Irish Catholic McMullen brothers from Long Island, New York, over three months, as they grapple with basic ideas and values — love, sex, marriage, religion and family — in the 1990s.
06 July 2000
Two warriors in pursuit of a stolen sword and a notorious fugitive are led to an impetuous, physically-skilled, teenage nobleman's daughter, who is at a crossroads in her life.
15 April 2016
Set against a backdrop of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Palestinian rapper Kareem and his singer girlfriend Manar struggle, love and make music in their crime-ridden ghetto and Tel Aviv's hip-hop club scene.
11 October 2013
A documentary about the influential independent film production company The Shooting Gallery.
12 February 2006
A chronological look at films by, for, or about gays and lesbians in the United States, from 1947 to 2005, Kenneth Anger's "Fireworks" to "Brokeback Mountain".
26 August 2009
The story of Elliot Tiber and his family, who inadvertently played a pivotal role in making the famed Woodstock Music and Arts Festival into the happening that it was.
01 November 1991
An intimate exploration of the circumstances surrounding the incarceration of Native American activist Leonard Peltier, convicted of murder in 1977, with commentary from those involved, including Peltier himself.
27 September 1997
In the weekend after thanksgiving 1973 the Hood family is skidding out of control. Then an ice storm hits, the worst in a century.
03 August 1994
Retired and widowed Chinese master chef Chu lives in modern day Taipei, with his three attractive daughters, all of whom are unattached.
16 October 2015
Based on true events about the foot soldiers of the early feminist movement, women who were forced underground to pursue a dangerous game of cat and mouse with an increasingly brutal State.
11 October 1998
The lives of several individuals intertwine as they go about their lives in their own unique ways, engaging in acts which society as a whole might find disturbing in a desperate search for human connection.
21 January 2022
King Louis XIV's quest for immortality leads him to capture and steal a mermaid's life force, a move that is further complicated by his illegitimate daughter's discovery of the creature.
22 November 2011
This documentary short takes you inside the fascinating world of film preservation and restoration.
01 March 1993
A Taiwanese-American man is happily settled in New York with his American boyfriend. He plans a marriage of convenience to a Chinese woman in order to keep his parents off his back and to get the woman a green card.
18 October 2002
A successful TV star during the 1960s, former "Hogan's Heroes" actor Bob Crane projects a wholesome family-man image, but this front masks his persona as a sex addict who records and photographs his many encounters with women, often with the help of his seedy friend, John Henry Carpenter.
19 April 2024
In 1992 Chicago, a story of two young legends in their own right begins. As wide-eyed and imaginative best friends Malik and Eric traverse the city, looking to escape the mundaneness of school and the hardships of growing up in public housing, their unbreakable bond is challenged when tragedy shakes their community just as they are learning to fly.
18 April 2025
Frustrated with his commitment-phobic boyfriend Chris and running out of time, Min makes a proposal: a green-card marriage with their friend Angela in exchange for her partner Lee's expensive IVF.
07 December 1991
Mr. Chu is an elderly widower who teaches tai chi chuan in Beijing. He moves to America to live with his son's family, but finds the cultural adjustment difficult.
22 May 2019
Ed Hemsler spends his life preparing for a disaster that may never come. Ronnie Meisner spends her life shopping for things she may never use.
31 January 2020
A searing look at a day in the life of an assistant to a powerful executive. As Jane follows her daily routine, she grows increasingly aware of the insidious abuse that threatens every aspect of her position.
15 February 2016
Berlin in June of 1940. While Nazi propaganda celebrates the regime’s victory over France, a kitchen-cum-living room in Prenzlauer Berg is filled with grief.
24 November 1999
Friends Jake and Jack Bull join up with Civil War guerrilla fighters, yet after the realities of war set in, they must decide what honor truly means.
23 June 1995
Carol White, a Los Angeles housewife in the late 1980s, comes down with a debilitating illness with no clear diagnosis.
26 August 1996
Mickey, a free-spirited New York cabbie, and Francis, a materialistic Wall Street stockbroker, are extremely competitive and confused about women as a result of their father's influence.
24 August 2001
A Mexican-American master chef and father to three daughters has lost his taste for food but not for life.
13 September 2017
In the wake of his big brother’s violent death, 13-year-old Dayveon struggles to find his way in an economically depressed Arkansas town.
23 October 1992
An aspiring young filmmaker gets involved with an eccentric gangster for the financing of his first film.
29 July 2016
In 1951, Marcus Messner, a working-class Jewish student from New Jersey, attends a small Ohio college, where he struggles with anti-Semitism, sexual repression, and the ongoing Korean War.
31 October 2002
A criminal subculture operates among U.S. soldiers stationed in West Germany just before the fall of the Berlin wall.
17 July 1996
Just as Amelia thinks she's over her anxiety and insecurity, her best friend announces her engagement, bringing her anxiety and insecurity right back.
17 December 2020
Eight-year-old Cody is spending the summer in an unfamiliar setting with his mom Kathy. Though he can't relate to the neighbourhood kids, things take an unexpected turn when he develops an unusual friendship with the widowed old man from next door.
14 August 2019
Adam, an awkward teen, spends a summer with his older sister, who is part of New York City's lesbian and trans activist scene.
27 September 2021
One-man armies, meet-cutes, casual strolls away from huge explosions — stars and industry insiders toast and roast these cinematic chestnuts and more.
05 April 1991
A trio of interweaved transgressive tales, telling a bizarre stories of suburban patricide and a miraculous flight from justice, a mad sex experiment which unleashes a disfiguring plague, and the obsessive sexual relationship between two prison inmates.
09 September 1994
Jackie and Michael are coworkers at a large law firm. They decide to meet at Jackie's for dinner one night.
22 January 1992
Jude, a college professor, is obsessed with Sophie, his student. She, in turn, is intrigued by his scholarly charm.
03 December 1997
When Dorine Douglas' job as proofreader for Constant Consumer magazine is turned into an at-home position during a downsizing, she doesn't know how to cope.
16 March 2018
In between caring for her mother, a young woman works part time at a prison. The rookie guard gets a chance to prove her mettle when she's tasked with accompanying a hell-raising inmate on an emergency furlough to visit her dying mother.
22 January 2011
Tells the history and importance of The National Film Registry, a roll call of American cinema treasures that reflects the diversity of film, and indeed the American experience itself.
07 June 2024
A haunting psychological thriller based on one of America's most infamous figures. After the Waco siege, a chilling plan brews in the mind of army veteran Timothy McVeigh.
01 September 1993
A psychic suburban mother--with an affinity for Doris Day films--begins a spiritual journey beyond the confines of her neighborhood and failed nuclear family experience.
27 January 1997
A directionless teenager (Aesha Waks) becomes involved with a headstrong runaway (Summer Phoenix) and her drug-dealing brother (Sam Rockwell).
18 December 1999
Manhattan, 1996. All mental hospitals must cut their patient load by a third, and LaRue (Will Keenan) is sent out onto the streets with "chronic reading syndrome".
17 September 1997
When a New England dysfunctional family gathers for Thanksgiving, past demons reveal themselves as one son returns for the first time in three years.
01 January 1993
A love story between a Jamaican immigrant and his wife that turns bittersweet when the search for the American dream goes awry.
14 December 2019
James’s film provides us with a thoughtful history of photography and the moving image that both pays tribute to the past and celebrates how advancements in technology support the ever-evolving nature of cinema.
21 February 1999
Lola is part of “The Migrant Workers”, a Turkish drag queen troupe who perform to great acclaim. Lola’s gay little brother Murat, on the other hand, is just beginning his search for an identity.
28 April 2017
Twenty years after the modern world's most notorious child murder, the legacy of the crime and its impact are explored.
01 October 1991
Silva fulfills herself a dream: from Poland she flies to USA. With only a few hundred dollars she arrives in New York, incapable of the language.
18 October 2016
A three-part feature in which Cultural Critic/Film Journalist Tasha R. Robinson interviews three key members of the filmmaking team.
01 January 1991
Sophie comes to New York from France with the intention of joining a man she met a few months before.
29 January 1992
Blending humor and tragedy, filmmaker Jan Oxenberg goes on a personal journey to process the aging and death of her grandmother.
31 January 1992
Follows a day in the life of a young artist who longs for professional success and the attention of beautiful women, but who encounters only frustration and violence.
