United States playwright, screenwriter, film director and producer, he affirmed himself with the plays Duck variations (1972), Sexual perversity in Chicago (1974) and American Buffalo (1975), a trenchant analysis of the crisis of American values from the point of view of a Vietnam veteran. His later works include The Woods (1979), Glengarry Glen Ross (1982), which won him the 1984 Pulitzer prize, also becoming a 1992 film directed by James Foley, and The Anarchist (2011). For the cinema, as well as writing the screenplays for films such as The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981), The Untouchables (1987) and Hannibal (2001), he also directed House of Games (1987), Things Change (1988), The Winslow Boy (1999), Spartan (2004) and Redbelt (2008). He was nominated for two Academy Awards: in 1983 for the screenplay of The Verdict and in 1998 for that of Wag the Dog.. His later essays include The Old Religion (1997), Bambi Vs. Godzilla: On the Nature, Purpose and Practice of the Movie Business (2007) and The Secret Knowledge: On the Dismantling of American Culture (2011).