Paul Verhoeven

Paul Verhoeven (born 18 July 1938) is a Dutch film director, film producer, television director, television producer, and screenwriter. Verhoeven is active in both the Netherlands and Hollywood. Explicit violent and/or sexual content and social satire are trademarks of both his drama and science fiction films. He is best known for directing the films RoboCop (1987), Total Recall (1990), Basic Instinct (1992), Showgirls (1995), Starship Troopers (1997), and Elle (2016).

Verhoeven's film Turkish Delight (1973) received the award for Best Dutch Film of the Century at the Netherlands Film Festival. His films altogether received a total of nine Academy Award nominations, mainly for editing and effects. Verhoeven won the Saturn Award for Best Director for Robocop. His Dutch war film Black Book (2006) was nominated for a BAFTA Award for Best Film Not in the English Language, and was voted the best Dutch film ever by the Dutch public in 2008.

In contrast, he won the Golden Raspberry Awards for Worst Picture and Worst Director for Showgirls (1995); he is one of the few people to have accepted their award(s) in person, and the first to accept the awards at the ceremony.


 * Business Is Business (1971)
 * Turkish Delight (1973)
 * Katie Tippel (1975)
 * Soldier of Orange (1977)
 * Spetters (1980)
 * The Fourth Man (1983)
 * Flesh + Blood (1985)
 * RoboCop (1987),
 * Total Recall (1990)
 * Basic Instinct (1992),
 * Showgirls (1995)
 * Starship Troopers (1997)
 * Hollow Man (2000)
 * Black Book (2006)
 * Tricked (2012)
 * Elle (2016).
 * Elle (2016).


 * Dramatically Missing the Point: Verhoeven is really bad at getting his message across. Like, really bad, to the point that many of his movies suffer from Misaimed Fandom due to people either misinterpreting the message or deliberately ignoring it because they think it's ridiculous. He apparently exists in a strange place where Viewers are Morons (he seems to think everyone has a child's extreme, visceral reaction to everything they're shown instead of dealing with it as fiction) and Viewers Are Geniuses (they'll surely look for the deep, multi-layered meaning in this flashy summer action movie) overlap.