Born in London, England. Left the dry cleaning business to become first a film critic and then an assistant film editor for Britain's Independent Television, before going on to produce documentaries for Southern Television. In 1962, while heading the BBC's Bristol Film Unit, he experimented with a dramatic documentary style, resulting in the series "Citizen 63" and "The Newcomers." Boorman's first feature, HAVING A WILD WEEKEND (1965), was a competent, exuberant 1960s musical featuring the Dave Clark Five which attempted, unsuccessfully, to duplicate the success of the Beatles/Richard Lester ground-breaker A HARD DAY'S NIGHT (1964). After THE GREAT DIRECTOR (1966), a documentary on D.W. Griffith for the BBC, Boorman moved to the US and made the genre-bending POINT BLANK (1967). A taut, violent thriller starring Angie Dickinson and Lee Marvin and marked by a complex flashback narrative structure, the film went virtually unnoticed at the time but has since earned considerable critical acclaim. Boorman's subsequent films, through ZARDOZ (1974), show off his impressive visual style, his gift for superior plotting and pace, and his recurrent concern with the themes of the hunt and survival. Among his greatest achievements is DELIVERANCE (1972), in which four Atlanta businessmen take off on a weekend canoe trip which turns into a nightmare. Adapted from the novel by James Dickey (who plays the sheriff in the film), DELIVERANCE was noted for its masterful handling of the civilization vs. nature theme, for an unforgettably gruesome scene in which one of the travelers is raped by a backwoodsman, and for outstanding cinematography, including extremely long takes, by Vilmos Zsigmond. The son of one of the men was played by the director's son Charley Boorman, who later starred in THE EMERALD FOREST (1985) as a white child who is raised for ten years by a primitive Amazon tribe. After the ill-conceived and overambitious EXORCIST II: THE HERETIC (1977), Boorman returned to form with EXCALIBUR (1981), continuing to explore the mythic, quest themes of his earlier films. The delightful, semi-autobiographical HOPE AND GLORY (1987) was a humorous account of a boy growing up in Blitz-torn London. Later writer-director-producer credits include WHERE THE HEART IS (1990), BEYOND RANGOON (1995), TWO NUDES BATHING (1995), THE GENERAL (1998), THE TAILOR OF PANAMA (2001), and THE TIGER'S TAIL (2006).  Nominated for Best Picture 1972: DELIVERANCE - Producer at Warner Bros.  Nominated for Director 1972: DELIVERANCE  Nominated for Best Picture 1987: HOPE AND GLORY - Producer at Davros Production Services, Ltd.  Nominated for Director 1987: HOPE AND GLORY  Nominated for Writing (Best Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen) 1987: HOPE AND GLORY 5 nominations