John Carpenter: Quick Facts

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Last updated

Nov. 3, 2026

News •

John Carpenter to Receive Filmmaker of the Year at ACE Eddie Awards • Oct. 28, 2026, 1:00 PM ET (Variety)

Horror icon John Carpenter is now making chocolate bars. Here’s how to find them • Oct. 27, 2026, 3:11 PM ET (Los Angeles Times)

Facts

Also Known As	John Howard Carpenter
Born	January 16, 1948 (age 78) • New York
Notable Works	“Big Trouble in Little China” • “Christine” • “Escape from L.A.” • “Escape from New York” • “Halloween” • “In the Mouth of Madness” • “Memoirs of an Invisible Man” • “Prince of Darkness” • “Starman” • “The Fog” • “The Thing” • “The Ward” • “They Live” • “Village of the Damned”

Photos

The master of the low-budget horror film

Publicity still from Halloween showing Nick Castle as Michael Myers in a white mask holding a large knife, standing behind a staircase railing in dim lighting.

Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie Strode in Halloween grips a large knife and peers tensely over the back of a couch in a dimly lit scene.

Keith Gordon, John Stockwell, and Roberts Blossom stand by a rusty red car with its door open in a junkyard in a scene from the 1983 film Christine, directed by John Carpenter.

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Melvin Van Peebles

American author and filmmaker

Gulzar

Gulzar

writer, film producer, and director

Vishal Bhardwaj

Vishal Bhardwaj

Indian director, producer, and composer

Barbra Streisand in 2010, wearing a layered necklace and a black jacket, with straight shoulder-length hair, smiling slightly at an event.

Barbra Streisand

American singer and actress

Pharrell Williams smiles on stage holding a microphone, wearing a white Mickey Mouse 1928 t-shirt and a cap, with red stage lights in the background.

Pharrell Williams

American musician and producer

The multitalented Donald Glover, 2019

Donald Glover

American writer, actor, and musician

Quincy Jones

Quincy Jones

American producer, performer, and composer

Kishore Kumar

Kishore Kumar

Indian actor, singer, composer, and director

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Mike Stoller

American songwriter and record producer

Steven Spielberg wearing a tuxedo and bow tie, smiling at the camera on the red carpet at the Cannes International Film Festival.

Steven Spielberg

American film director and producer

Orson Welles

Orson Welles

American actor, director, and writer

Martin Scorsese smiling in a tuxedo and bow tie, holding an Oscar statuette at the Academy Awards, with a gold Oscar statue in the background.

Martin Scorsese

American filmmaker

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre

John Huston

American director, writer, and actor

Billy Wilder poses in a suit and hat, leaning against a streetlamp with a sign reading Sunset Blvd. in a promotional photo for the film Sunset Boulevard.

Billy Wilder

Austrian-born American director and producer

Francis Ford Coppola, with a beard, sits on a camera dolly surrounded by crew and actors on the set of The Godfather: Part II, with storefronts in the background.

Francis Ford Coppola

American director and screenwriter

American director Stanley Kubrick

Stanley Kubrick

American director

Elia Kazan stands on a docked ship set with arms outstretched, directing a scene for Panic in the Streets in New Orleans, with crew members and rigging visible behind him.

Elia Kazan

American director and author

Mankiewicz, Joseph L.

Joseph L. Mankiewicz

American filmmaker

Mel Brooks in a tuxedo smiles widely and points at his Emmy Award trophy while posing in front of a blue Emmy Awards backdrop.

Mel Brooks

American director, producer, screenwriter, and actor

Leo McCarey, seated sideways in a director's chair, looks toward the camera in a black-and-white portrait from around 1930.

Leo McCarey

American director

Children dressed in halloween costumes and masks. Group of trick or treaters standing on steps in their Halloween costumes. Holiday

Halloween