John Huston is an American film director, screenwriter and actor who directed more than 50 films during a five-decade career.

He was known for directing films in the “Hollywood gangster” and film noir genres such as The Maltese Falcon, Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Key Largo and The Asphalt Jungle.

As a director, his work is known for its subtlety and character-driven drama. His film The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) brought him his only Academy Award nomination for Best Director.

Who Was John Huston?

Huston’s parents were Irish Catholic immigrants; he had a brother and three sisters; his mother came from a modest background. After moving to Los Angeles,

he worked as a commercial illustrator and creative designer before finding success as a television director and writer/producer on The Rifleman in 1958-59, having also written some of the scripts for that show’s many episodes.

He then crossed back over to feature filmmaking with several minor roles in Hollywood blockbusters of the 1950s before directing two films in 1961: The Misfits (with Marilyn Monroe), which was nominated for three Oscars including Best Picture; and The Unforgiven (with Clint Eastwood), which won one Oscar but failed to impress critics or

Best John Huston Movies          

 John Huston is one of the greatest directors of all time. He had a long career that spanned over 60 years, and he made some of the greatest movies ever made.

Huston was born in Nevada, Missouri on August 19, 1906. After graduating from high school, he moved to California where he got a job as an assistant director for Fox Movietone News. This was his first job in the film industry.

After working for several years at Fox Movietone News, Huston took a job with Warner Bros., where he worked on many films including The Treasure of Sierra Madre, The Asphalt Jungle and The African Queen.

In 1949, John Huston directed Treasure of Sierra Madre starring Humphrey Bogart and Walter Huston. This is considered one of the best movies ever made, but it also has some controversial aspects to it such as Bogart’s character killing a man and stealing his money.

John Huston won an Academy Award for Best Director for this film in 1951 along with another Oscar nomination for Best Picture (Best Director also got him an additional nomination). He also won two more Oscars for Best Screenplay (The Treasure

1. The Maltese Falcon (1941)

Maltese Falcon is a 1941 film noir directed by John Huston, starring Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor and Peter Lorre. The screenplay was written by John Huston and Edwin Balmer, based on the novel of the same name by Dashiell Hammett. Its cinematography was by Ted Scaife.

It was adapted for the screen in 1939 as a radio play by Orson Welles, who also starred in the lead role; it was broadcast on CBS Radio’s Suspense on October 4, 1939.

The film is set in San Francisco during the 1930s, at the tail end of Prohibition (1929–1933) when bootleggers and gangsters flourished. The story revolves around Sam Spade (Humphrey Bogart),

who is hired by wealthy socialite Brigid O’Shaughnessy (Mary Astor) to find her missing brother Mike (Peter Lorre). During their investigation they encounter other characters who are trying to retrieve valuable jewel-encrusted statuettes from a mysterious falcon named “The Maltese Falcon”, which is being used as collateral for money from various people throughout the city.

2. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)         

John Huston’s The Treasure of the Sierra Madre is a compelling, gripping and deeply philosophical film about greed, betrayal and human nature. It was written by James Warner Bellah and Edward Anhalt and directed by Huston.

The movie is based on the novel by John Steinbeck. It tells the story of three very different men who journey to Mexico to find gold in order to save their families from poverty.

Joaquin (played by Humphrey Bogart) is an American who has lived in Mexico for many years with his wife and children. He suffers from a serious case of writer’s block, but when he receives an unexpected inheritance, he decides to return to America with his family so that he can write full time.

He finds out that his brother-in-law has been killed while working as a diamond smuggler in Mexico, which prompts him to go back into business with his nephew Eddie (Mark Rydell).

When they arrive at El Dorado mine, they discover that it has been abandoned for many years due to high costs of living in Mexico City, but when they start digging through its tunnels, they discover a hidden treasure worth millions of dollars

3. The Man Who Would Be King (1975) 

John Huston’s The Man Who Would Be King is a classic adventure story that tells the tale of a man who is searching for the treasure of ancient kings. Bruce Dern stars as the protagonist, and Richard Burton plays his adversary.

The film has been said to be “a cinematic throwback to Conrad’s Heart of Darkness,” with its exploration of greed, power and corruption.

The movie was based on a book by Rudyard Kipling called The Man Who Would Be King, which was first published in 1888. It tells the story of an Englishman named Danny Deever (Dern) who travels to India in search for buried treasure from an ancient civilization.

Deever is captured by Maharajah Duleep Singh (Burton), who wants to use Deever’s abilities as a translator and guide to find his own fortune.

But what makes this film so remarkable isn’t just how good it looks or how well-made it is; it’s also how much fun it is to watch! The cinematography by Jack Cardiff is stunning and adds a lot to the moody tone of the movie, while John Williams’ score adds much needed emotion at key moments throughout

4. The African Queen (1951)      

The story of The African Queen is an adventure tale about the friendship between a young Englishwoman and her antelope-hunting companion, played by Humphrey Bogart. Both are stranded in Africa during the First World War, when the Germans have occupied their homeland.

They decide to escape together, but not before the young woman has a chance to get some revenge on the German soldiers who had taken her father as a prisoner of war. This leads to an encounter between them that changes both their lives forever.

The film was based on the novel by C. S. Forester, which also included other characters such as Kurtz (Robert Morley), a mysterious man who acts as a guide to their journey through dangerous territory and takes them across several rivers in canoes. In order to get away from him, they must first deal with his loyal servant Hildebrand (Peter Bull), who wants revenge for having been fired from his position by Kurtz.

5. The Asphalt Jungle (1950)      

The Asphalt Jungle is a film about the world of illegal drugs in Los Angeles. It shows how the business of drug dealing is run, and also gives an insight into the lives of a number of people involved in this trade. The film is based on a novel by William H. White, who also wrote the screenplay for this movie.

It was directed by John Huston, who had previously made The Maltese Falcon and The Treasure of Sierra Madre. He had also worked as an actor in Hollywood films before becoming a director himself. This was his first experience with making a film about drug addiction.

The story follows two characters who are involved in trafficking drugs across the border from Mexico into California. One of them is a man called Doyle Lonnegan (Robert Mitchum),

who is married to Margaret “Maggie” O’Brien (Jean Seberg). She has become addicted to heroin after being introduced to it by her boyfriend Alex Vail (John Breckinridge).

Doyle’s other companion is another man called Jack Foley (Richard Conte), who works with Doyle as his assistant but does not share his wife’s interest in drugs. Doyle and Jack have been friends for years and have

6. Key Largo (1948)         

 Directed by John Huston. Written by William Goldman. Based on the novel by Donald Barthelme.

Los Angeles, 1968. A young man named Enrico Banducci arrives in Los Angeles with a dream of being a screenwriter. He finds work as a messenger for the studio where his father worked, but soon he’s drawn into the world of film production.

Fat City is a masterful meditation on life in Hollywood during its golden age. Huston uses it as an opportunity to draw parallels between the movie business and politics:

both are obsessed with looking backward and ignoring the present, and both have their own form of corruption one is willing to say anything to get what they want, while the other lies about what they did do to get elected in the first place.

7. Fat City (1972)             

 Fat City is a 1972 American drama film directed by John Huston and starring Robert Mitchum, Woody Strode, and Joe Don Baker. The screenplay by Huston and Richard Price was based on the novel Fat City by Leonard Gardner. The film was entered into the 1972 Cannes Film Festival.

The film’s title refers to the city of Reno, Nevada, where it was filmed.[1]

Plot [ edit ]

The story follows three brothers from Chicago who are trying to end their addiction to heroin. One brother (Woody Strode) is a local drug pusher and has been arrested for possession of illegal narcotics; another (Robert Mitchum) is a police officer with an abusive relationship with his brother;

and the third brother (Joe Don Baker) is a boxer who fought in World War II and now works as a garbage collector.[2] The youngest brother (Richard Pacheco) eventually becomes involved with one of his older brothers’ drug dealing operation in order to provide money for medical care for his younger sister.[3][4]

8. The Misfits (1961)      

The Misfits is the story of a group of young men who are in jail for breaking into a bank. They were led by one man who had a plan to steal money from the bank and use it to open a roadhouse. He was executed by hanging for his crime,

but the rest of the group went free because they had no connection to him. The movie explores how people can change their lives based on their environment and what happens when you have no choice but to face your mistakes head on.

The film begins with a montage of images showing different parts of life at different times: sleeping, eating, partying, playing guitar with friends, etcetera. The first shot shows some kids playing in a field on their own as birds fly away from them.

Then we see an older man working as he takes out trash from his yard while looking over his shoulder at something behind him: presumably his wife (who is pregnant). He drops something on the ground and looks back again just as another bird flies over head;

this time however there are two birds flying together! These shots set up the tone of the film; it’s not just about crime or punishment or even escape – it’s about human nature

9. The Night of the Iguana (1964)             

The Night of the Iguana is one of John Huston’s best films. It’s a film about power, corruption and obsession. There are three main characters: Danny Archer, an American soldier stationed in the Pacific during World War II, his wife Cathy and Raymond Roussel,

a French Canadian who lives on an island with his wife and two children. All three are haunted by their pasts Danny has killed a man during a bar fight; Cathy has been molested and raped;

Raymond was institutionalized for mental illness after he tried to kill himself during WWI.

The movie starts out with Danny Archer being interrogated by military police. They want to know if he knows where his brother Mike is and if he’s going to help them find him because they think Mike might be dead but they don’t know for sure yet.

During this interrogation, we learn that Danny was friends with Mike’s wife Laura before she died in childbirth. He also helps her husband fix up their house with money from his family back home in Alabama who have just lost their farm due to drought conditions so they can move into town where there is more work available for them as farmers than out on the

10. Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison (1957)   

John Huston is one of the greatest American directors of all time; he’s certainly the best director to come out of Hollywood in the 1950s. His work is a combination of naturalism and formalism, with a focus on character and psychology.

He has a gift for creating strong female characters who are not just love interests or victims, but people with agency and personality.

Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison is one of his most famous films; it stars James Mason as an eccentric Englishman who lives in New York City in 1958 with his wife and young son.

When he discovers that his son has committed suicide, he decides to return to England with his wife but leaves behind his daughter-in-law (Jennifer Jones), who becomes convinced that he murdered their son.

The film is based on Somerset Maugham’s novel Of Human Bondage (1915), which was adapted into a play before being turned into a film by Josef von Sternberg in 1928. Huston had wanted to make this story since reading Maugham’s novel when he was 12 years old; when

11. Wise Blood (1979)   

 Wise Blood is a 1979 American drama film directed by John Huston. The screenplay was adapted by Huston from the novel of the same name by Flannery O’Connor. The film stars Danny Glover, Andrew Robinson, John Cusack and Mary Steenburgen. It tells the story of Hazel Motes (Cusack),

an impoverished, eccentric hillbilly living in rural Arkansas. He claims to have had sexual intercourse with Jesus Christ while he was alive on earth, but has been unable to convince anyone else of his claim.

The film was released on March 7, 1980, by Warner Bros., at the time one of director John Huston’s best-known films; it received mixed reviews from critics but gained an audience following its release on home video and cable television.

It won two Academy Awards for Best Actor in a Leading Role (for Danny Glover) and Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium (for John Huston).

Wise Blood is based on Flannery O’Connor’s short story “A Good Man Is Hard To Find” (1955). The story was published posthumously in 1964 as part of O’Connor’s collection Everything That Rises Must Converge: A Novel

12. The Red Badge of Courage (1951)     

 One of the best war movies ever made, John Huston’s The Red Badge of Courage has always been more than a simple retelling of Stephen Crane’s Civil War novel.

It may be a story about a young man who stands up to his commanding officer and refuses to back down from battle, but it also reflects the broader themes of courage and cowardice that have always fascinated filmmakers.

The film begins with Will Henry (Fredric March), a young recruit in the Union Army, who finds himself being bullied by everyone around him. This isn’t just because he’s new to the army;

it’s also because he’s an introverted bookworm who lacks self-confidence. His only friend is Private LaFarge (John Garfield), who seems to understand Will better than anyone else does but has trouble expressing his feelings toward Will in words.

When Will gets into trouble during training exercises, he finally decides that enough is enough and challenges his superior officer (Robert Ryan) head-on. He doesn’t care about getting killed in battle; he only wants to prove that he’s not afraid of getting shot at or maimed by cannon fire.

The Red Badge of Courage focuses on three main conflicts: Will’s struggle with cowardice; LaFarge’s battle with

13. Prizzi’s Honor (1985)              

 John Huston is known for his work with the film noir genre, but he also made a number of films that fall outside of this genre. His most notable non-noir films include Prizzi’s Honor (1985), The Dead (1987), and The Man Who Would Be King (1975).

Prizzi’s Honor was released in 1985, shortly before the release of The Dead. It was a box office success and won three Academy Awards, including Best Actor for Huston.

The Dead was not released until 1987. It was the first film directed by Huston after a long absence from the director’s chair, and it earned him another Oscar nomination for Best Director.

Huston’s last major directorial effort was The Man Who Would Be King, which was released in 1975 after several years in development at Universal Studios as well as several other studios. It was not well received by critics or audiences when it was released, but over time it has become recognized as one of his best films.

14. Moby Dick (1956)    

 The 1956 version of Moby Dick is a film adaptation of Herman Melville’s novel. It was directed by John Huston and stars Humphrey Bogart, Walter Huston, and Mary Astor.

The story begins with Captain Ahab traveling across the Atlantic Ocean aboard his ship The Pequod, in search of the white whale, who killed his son 20 years earlier.

Ahab’s quest for vengeance is fueled by his obsession with finding revenge on the whale for killing his son. Along the way, he meets other characters that are either trying to help him or hinder him from reaching his goal.

The film was shot over three months in March and April 1957 on location at sea off Hawaii.[6] The filming included scenes shot aboard a large scale model ship built by art director Cedric Gibbons.[7] It was filmed in CinemaScope.[8]

15. Under the Volcano (1984)

Under the Volcano is a 1984 novel by British author Malcolm Lowry, who is best known for his 1953 novel Under the Volcano. It was adapted into a film of the same name in 1984 by John Huston, starring Jeff Bridges and Emma Thompson. The screenplay was written by Bridget Fonda and Christopher Monger, based on the novel.

The story is set in Catalonia during the 1930s Spanish Civil War. A young man who works as a fisherman and his wife are trapped on an island during an eruption of Mount Unzen-dake (烏澤山), which has been dormant since 1707.

They survive by eating rats and frogs that they find in their cave home until they can build a boat to escape. After they leave the island, they encounter a mysterious old man who tells them about their past and instructs them to return to the island before it’s too late.

16. Freud (1962)

The opening scene of “Freud” records the arrival of a young patient whom Freud regards as a “narcissist.” He has been brought to Freud by his father, who is concerned about the boy’s poor grades in school and his lack of interest in work.

The father blames this on a secret passion for female impersonation, but Freud interprets it as a symptom of homosexuality.

The boy is diagnosed with paranoia, and this diagnosis is confirmed by the results of an X-ray. He also seems to show signs of hypochondria, which Freud attributes to his desire for attention from women.

The boy’s mother visits Freud for advice, but he rejects her suggestion that she should make him wear women’s clothing. She then accuses him of being unfaithful during her recent illness; he deduces that she wants him to leave home so that she can marry someone else.

17. Moulin Rouge (1952)             

 Moulin Rouge (1952) is a musical film about life in an imaginary cabaret. The story was written by the English playwright John Osborne, and the screenplay was written by Osborne and Huston.

The film stars real-life husband and wife Jean Simmons and Richard Burton, as well as Stanley Baker, Deborah Kerr and Pamela Brown. Directed by John Huston, it is noted for its elaborate choreography of dance numbers which were influenced by the style of Fred Astaire and Gwen Verdon.

The story follows Christian Fabritius (Burton), who arrives in Paris to make his fortune as a painter but instead becomes a writer and singer at a cabaret named Le Moulin Rouge where he falls in love with Nana (Simmons).

The film climaxes with the famous “can-can” scene featuring Kerr as Sylvia who dances on a rotating platform while wearing a sequined dress designed by Charles James. Her performance earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress.