Who directed the 1973 horror film The Exorcist?

William Friedkin directed the 1973 horror film The Exorcist.

The film adapts William Peter Blatty’s 1971 novel about Regan MacNeil, a young girl whose mother seeks medical and religious help after increasingly disturbing events. Friedkin had already attracted attention for directing The French Connection, which won him the Academy Award for Best Director in 1972.

The Exorcist was produced by Warner Bros. and became a major commercial success despite its unsettling subject matter. It received 10 Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, making it the first horror film nominated in that category. It won two Oscars, for adapted screenplay and sound mixing.

A common mix-up is confusing Friedkin with William Peter Blatty, who wrote the novel and screenplay, or with director John Boorman, who made the sequel Exorcist II: The Heretic. Friedkin also directed the later horror film Cruising, but he did not direct the Exorcist sequels.