A musical pastiche of 1920s gangster films with an entire cast of children, the highly original Bugsy received eight British Academy Award nominations and five Awards.
His second film was the controversial Midnight Express (1977), a brutal story of a young American incarcerated in a Turkish jail. It won two Oscars and six Academy Award nominations, including one for Parker as Best Director.
The director followed this in 1979 with film Fame, a celebration of youth and the arts, which won two Academy Awards, six nominations, four Golden Globe nominations and was later adapted into a successful television series.
In 1981 Parker directed Shoot The Moon which concerned the bitter break-up of a marriage and starred Diane Keaton and Albert Finney. He then made a feature film adaptation of the successful Pink Floyd rock album The Wall.
Frequently accused of letting style dominate the subsance of his work, and a vocal opponent of social realist traditions, he has worked extensively within the American studio system on such films as Birdy (1985), Angel Heart (1987) and Mississippi Burning (1988), a tense Civil Rights thriller that combined a compelling narrative, strong visual sensibility and dynamic performances in a potent, popular entertainment.
In 1989 Parker wrote and directed Come See The Paradise, a love story set against the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, starring Dennis Quaid and Tamlyn Tomita.
The Commitments, made in 1990, a story of a young Irish working-class soul band was awarded a Golden Globe nomination for Best Picture and won Parker the Best Director prize at the Tokyo Film Festival, as well as British Academy Awards for Editing, Screenplay, Director and Best Picture.
In 1993, Parker wrote and directed The Road To Wellville, based on the novel by T. Coraghessan Boyle, and starring Anthony Hopkins, Bridget Fonda, Matthew Broderick, John Cusack and Dana Carvey. In 1996 he filmed the musical Evita, which was based on the successful stage show by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice, and starred Madonna, Antonio Banderas and Jonathan Pryce.
A founding member of the Directors Guild of Great Britain, Parker has lectured at film schools around the world. In 1985 he was honoured by the British Academy with the prestigious Michael Balcon Award for Outstanding Contribution to British Cinema, and in November 1995, Parker was awarded with a CBE by Queen Elizabeth II for services tot he British film industry. In January 1998, he took up his post as Chairman of the Board of Governors of the British Film Institute and in November 1998 he was awarded the prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award by the Directors Guild of Great Britain.
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