John Waters to Receive The 20th Annual Coolidge Award for his Extraordinary Contributions to Cinema

The Coolidge Corner Theatre will honor legendary filmmaker, author, and visual artist John Waters with The Coolidge Award on Thursday, November 21, for his extraordinary contributions to cinema. Waters's canon of high-shock-value, high-entertainment movies has cemented his position as the "Pope of Trash" and one of the most revered and subversive auteurs in American independent cinema.

This year marks the 20th anniversary of The Coolidge Award, which was launched in 2004 and recognizes a selected film artist whose work represents original and outstanding contributions to cinema. Previous honorees include Meryl Streep, Werner Herzog, Jane Fonda, Michael Douglas, Julianne Moore, Liv Ullmann, Ruth E. Carter, Zhang Yimou, Viggo Mortensen, cinematographer Vittorio Storaro, and film editor Thelma Schoonmaker.

On Thursday evening, Waters will be presented The Coolidge Award after a moderated conversation onstage in the theater's authentically restored Art Deco Moviehouse. Jared Bowen, Emmy award-winning Executive Arts Editor and host of "The Culture Show" at GBH, will moderate. Earlier that day, Waters will introduce and participate in a Q&A following a screening of his 2000 Hollywood send-up "Cecil B. Demented."

"We can't think of a more brilliant artist to celebrate for The Coolidge Award's 20th anniversary than John Waters. His movies have long been a staple of our programming, and his filmography remains one of the funniest, filthiest, and most subversive in cinema history," remarked Coolidge Program Director Mark Anastasio, who will moderate the Cecil B. Demented Q&A.

The Coolidge will also honor Waters with selected screenings from his filmography, including "Pink Flamingos" (Thursday, November 14 at 9:30 pm); "Female Trouble" (Friday, November 22 at midnight); "Desperate Living" (Friday, November 29 at midnight); "A Dirty Shame" (Monday, December 2 at 9:45 pm); and "Pecker" (Thursday, December 5 at 7:00 pm).

John Waters has written and directed sixteen movies, including "Pink Flamingos," "Female Trouble," "Polyester," "Hairspray," "Cry Baby," "Serial Mom," and "A Dirty Shame." Both "Pink Flamingos" and "Hairspray" have been added to the U.S. Library of Congress' National Film Registry.

Waters is also the author of ten books: "Shock Value," "Crackpot," "Pink Flamingos and Other Trash," "Hairspray," "Female Trouble," "Multiple Maniacs," "Art: A Sex Book" (co-written with Bruce Hainley), "Role Models," "Carsick," "Make Trouble, Mr. Know-It-All," and in May, 2022 his first novel, "Liarmouth: A Feel Bad Romance." In 2022, "Liarmouth "was optioned by Village Roadshow Pictures for John to write and direct the movie.

Two music compilation CDs have been released by New Line Records, "A John Waters Christmas" (2004) followed up by "A Date with John Waters" (2007). In 2017 Third Man Records released a 7" EP of Waters reading "Make Trouble," and in 2021 Sub Pop records distributed his "Prayer to Pasolini" as part of its Singles Club. John's audiobooks "Carsick" and "Mr. Know-It-All" were both nominated for Grammy Awards in the Best-Spoken Word Album category. Sub Pop Records released the 7" single, "It's in the Book," Waters' cover of a 1952 hit comedy recording by Johnny Standley, in 2022. Sub Pop released a new 7" single, "John Waters Covers 'The Singing Dogs' "Jingle Bells'" b/w "It's a Punk Rock Christmas," in November 2024.

John Waters is a member of The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. Additionally, he is a past member of the The Andy Warhol Foundation Board and the Wexner Center International Arts Advisory Council. He is currently on the Board of Trustees for the Baltimore Museum of Art as well as the Maryland Film Festival Board and has been a key advisor to the Provincetown International Film Festival since it began in 1999, the same year Waters was honored as the first recipient of PIFF's "Filmmaker on the Edge" award.

In September 2014, Film Society of Lincoln Center honored John Waters' filmmaking with a 10-day celebration entitled "Fifty Years of John Waters: How Much Can You Take?," featuring a complete retrospective of his work. The next year, the British Film Institute also honored John's contribution to cinema with their own program called "The Complete Films of John Waters... Every Goddam One of Them". In 2015, Waters was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts from the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), and the same by the Maryland Institute College of Arts (MICA) in May 2016, as well as two by School of Visual Arts (SVA), in 2020 and 2022.

The French Minister of Culture bestowed the rank of Officer in the Order of Arts and Letters to Mr. Waters in 2015. In February 2017 John Waters was honored with the Writers Guild of America East's Ian McLellan Hunter Award for his body of work as a writer in motion pictures. In September 2023, the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures opened "John Waters: Pope of Trash," the first comprehensive exhibition dedicated to John Waters' contributions to cinema, and he was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. American Cinema Editors selected Waters to receive the ACE Golden Eddie Filmmaker of the Year Award in 2024.

Waters is a photographer whose work has been shown in galleries all over the world. In 2011 he was selected as a juror for the Venice Biennale. He's performed his one man spoken-word lectures entitled "End of the World," "This Filthy World," "False Negative," "Naked Truth" or "Make Trouble," and his annual Christmas show, "A John Waters Christmas," at colleges, museums, film festivals, and comedy clubs around the world.

Waters has appeared in many motion pictures and television shows, including Jonathan Demme's "Something Wild," Woody Allen's "Sweet and Lowdown," "Seed of Chucky," "Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip," "The Simpsons," "Ryan Murphy's Feud," "The Blacklist," "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit," "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel," "Search Party," and the "Chucky TV Series." He also was one of the faces of a Nike campaign in 2019 and the Saint Laurent fall/winter 2020 menswear campaign in 2020, and John Waters was featured with Mink Stole in the 2022 Calvin Klein Pride campaign.

Tickets are available onsite at the box office, or at coolidge.org. The Coolidge's screens are accessible by elevators. All are also equipped with a variety of options for patrons that are hard of hearing, deaf, blind, and/or visually impaired. For questions about accessibility or to request any special accommodations, please email [email protected].