Rate My Professor James Schamus

An award-winning screenwriter for The Ice Storm (1997) and Hulk (2003), producer on the Academy Award-winning Brokeback Mountain (2005), and director of the feature adaptation Indignation (2016) from Philip Roth’s novel—which premiered at Sundance and Berlin Film Festivals—Schamus previously led Focus Features as CEO, championing films such as Lost in Translation, Milk, The Pianist, Dallas Buyers Club, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Moonrise Kingdom, and Coraline. Through his production company Symbolic Exchange, he has executive produced We Grown Now starring Jurnee Smollett, The Assistant starring Julia Garner (nominated for Best Feature at the 2020 Gotham Awards), Driveways starring Hong Chau and Brian Dennehy, the trans comedy Adam starring Margaret Qualley, McVeigh starring Alfie Allen and Tracy Letts (Tribeca premiere), and the reboot of Ang Lee’s The Wedding Banquet starring Bowen Yang, Lily Gladstone, and others (Sundance premiere). He created, executive produced, and showran the Netflix Mexican series Somos, collaborates with composer Huang Ruo on a Metropolitan Opera production, and serves as consulting producer for a Duffer Brothers television series. Schamus authored Carl Theodor Dreyer’s Gertrud: The Moving Word (University of Washington Press) and represented writers on the negotiating committee during the Writers Guild of America’s successful 148-day strike against the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers.