American film director, screenwriter, producer, editor, composer, and occasionally actor.

Although over his forty-year career Carpenter has worked in many film genres, his name is most often associated with horror and science fiction.

Most of the films in Carpenter's career initially suffered commercial and critical failure, with notable exceptions: Halloween (1978), The Fog (1980), Escape from New York (1981), and Starman (1984).

However, many of Carpenter's films from the 1970s and 1980s came to be considered cult classics, and he himself was recognized as an influential filmmaker. Cult classics directed by Carpenter include: Dark Star (1974), Assault on Precinct 13 (1976), The Thing (1982), Christine (1983), Big Trouble in Little China (1986), Prince of Darkness (1987), They Live (1988), and In the Mouth of Madness (1995).