Short answers, pulled from the story.
John Boorman is best known for directing Point Blank (1967), Deliverance (1972), Excalibur (1981), Hope and Glory (1987), and The General (1998). Both Point Blank and Deliverance have been inducted into the National Film Registry.
John Boorman has received five Academy Award nominations. Two were for Best Director, for Deliverance and Hope and Glory, and Hope and Glory also earned him nominations for Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay. Deliverance received an additional Best Picture nomination.
Boorman is credited with creating the first Academy Award screeners when he made VHS copies of The Emerald Forest available at no charge to Academy members through Los Angeles-area video rental stores in 1985. The film's distributor was in financial difficulty and could not fund a traditional awards campaign. By the 2010s, more than a million screeners were being mailed to Academy members each year.
Exorcist II: The Heretic, released in June 1977, was a critical disaster despite moderate box office returns. Boorman was denounced by Exorcist novelist William Peter Blatty and original director William Friedkin. Boorman later admitted his approach was a mistake, and the film is widely considered one of the worst films ever made.
Boorman received the BAFTA Fellowship for lifetime achievement in 2004 and a Fellowship from the British Film Institute in 2013. He was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 1994 Birthday Honours and was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in the 2022 New Year Honours for services to film. He also won Best Director at the Cannes Film Festival for Leo the Last and again for The General.
Boorman was born in Shepperton, Middlesex on the 18th of January 1933, the son of pub landlord George Boorman, who was of Dutch parentage and served as a captain in the British Indian Army. Boorman settled in Annamoe, County Wicklow, Ireland for many years before planning a move to Surrey in 2022. He has seven children, several of whom have appeared in his films, including son Charley Boorman and daughter Katrine Boorman.