Paul Verhoeven

Verhoeven made his first film Één hagedis teveel ("One Lizard Too Many") for the anniversary of his students' corps in 1960.[11] In his last years at university Verhoeven also attended classes at the Netherlands Film Academy. After this he made three more short films: Nothing Special (1961), The Hitchhikers (1962) and Let's Have a Party (1963).

Verhoeven has not professionally used his mathematics and physics degree, opting instead to invest his energies in a career in film. After his studies, he entered the Royal Dutch Navy as a conscript. He made the documentary Het Korps Mariniers ("The Marine Corps", 1965), which won the French 'Golden Sun' award for military films.[7]

Verhoeven on the set of Floris (1968)

When he left the Navy, Verhoeven took his skills to Dutch television. First, he made a documentary about Anton Mussert titled Mussert (1968). His first major success was the 1969 television series Floris, starring Rutger Hauer in the title role. The concept of Floris was inspired by foreign series such as Ivanhoe and Thierry La Fronde.

Verhoeven's first feature film Business Is Business was released in 1971 and was not well received. His first national success came in 1973 with Turkish Delight, starring Rutger Hauer and Monique van de Ven. Based on a novel by bestselling Dutch author Jan Wolkers, Turkish Delight tells the passionate love story of an artist and a young liberal girl from a conservative background. It received an Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Language Film in 1974. In 1999, the film won a Golden Calf for Best Dutch Film of the Century. Katie Tippel (1975) again featured Hauer and van de Ven, but it did not match the success of Turkish Delight.

Verhoeven (center) in 1983

Verhoeven built on his reputation and achieved international success with the Golden Globe-nominated Soldier of Orange (1977),[12] starring Rutger Hauer and Jeroen Krabbé. Based on a true story about the Dutch resistance in World War II, it was written by Erik Hazelhoff Roelfzema. Soldier of Orange received the 1979 LA Film Critics Award for best foreign-language film, and it was also nominated for a Golden Globe in 1980.

In 1980, Verhoeven made Spetters with Renée Soutendijk and Rutger Hauer. The story is sometimes compared to Saturday Night Fever, but it has more explicit violence and sexuality (in this case also homosexuality), which are sometimes seen as the director's trademarks. The Fourth Man (1983) is a horror film starring Jeroen Krabbé and Renée Soutendijk. It was written by Gerard Soeteman from a novel by the Dutch writer Gerard Reve, and was Verhoeven's last Dutch production until Black Book (2006).

The Seattle Times praised Verhoeven by saying he "often appears to be a one-man Dutch movie industry".[13] The San Diego Union-Tribune called Verhoeven "a busy bee whose movies pollinate the festival circuit".[14]

Gerard Soeteman also wrote the script for Verhoeven's first English-language film, Flesh and Blood (1985), which starred Rutger Hauer and Jennifer Jason Leigh. Verhoeven moved to Hollywood for a wider range of opportunities in filmmaking. Working in the U.S., he made a serious change in style, directing big-budget, violent, special-effects-heavy hits RoboCop (1987) and Total Recall (1990)⁠ — each of which won an Academy Special Achievement Award: RoboCop for Sound Effects Editing and Total Recall for Visual Effects.

Presentation of Basic Instinct at the 1992 Cannes Film Festival. Left to right: Jeanne Tripplehorn, Michael Douglas, Martine Tours (Verhoeven's wife), Verhoeven, Sharon Stone and Mario Kassar.

Verhoeven followed those successes with the equally intense and provocative Basic Instinct (1992), an erotic thriller. The ninth-highest-grossing film of the year, the movie was a return to themes Verhoeven had explored in Turkish Delight and The Fourth Man. The film's most notorious scene shows Sharon Stone's character in a police interrogation, where she uncrosses her legs, briefly revealing her vulva (she does not wear underwear underneath her skirt). The film received two Academy Award nominations, for Film Editing and for Original Music.[15]

During this time, Verhoeven also worked on creating an historical epic based around the Crusades that would have starred Arnold Schwarzenegger. It went into pre-production in 1993, but a year later the studio backing it, Carolco, pulled funding for the project. Verhoeven would continue to discuss it throughout the 1990s.[16][17][18]

Verhoeven's next film was the poorly received, NC-17-rated Showgirls (1995), about a stripper in Las Vegas trying to make a career as a showgirl. It won seven Golden Raspberry Awards, including Worst Film and Worst Director; Verhoeven became the first director to accept his award in person.[19] Showgirls enjoyed a large amount of success on the home video market, generating more than $100 million from video rentals,[20] and became one of MGM's top twenty all-time bestsellers.[21]

After Basic Instinct and Showgirls Verhoeven returned to the science fiction genre, utilizing the graphic violence and special-effects tropes that had marked his earlier films, making Starship Troopers (1997), loosely based on the novel of the same name by Robert A. Heinlein,[22] and Hollow Man (2000). Each film received an Academy Award nomination for Best Visual Effects.

After about twenty years of working and living in the United States, Verhoeven returned to the Netherlands for the shooting of a new film. Together with his screenwriter Gerard Soeteman, Verhoeven made Black Book (2006). The director was hailed by the host of the Netherlands Film Festival with the words "The return of a hero".[23] Black Book won six Golden Calves at this festival, including Best Director.[24] When the shooting of Black Book was delayed due to financial issues, there was speculation about a new production. Beast of Bataan had been announced, but once the shooting for Black Book resumed, the other film was not made.

Verhoeven at press conference at Berlinale 2017

Verhoeven was knighted in the Order of the Netherlands Lion in 2007.[25]

Since Black Book, Verhoeven has been connected to a large number of projects, but in the first decade after his return, none came to fruition. Some of those titles were produced with other directors at the helm, such as The Paperboy. In 2016, however, Verhoeven followed Black Book by directing a French film: Elle, an adaptation of a novel by Philippe Djian. A psychological thriller where Isabelle Huppert plays a rape victim, Elle was selected for the Official Competition at the Cannes International Film Festival, where it obtained very favourable reviews.

In December 2016, it was announced that Verhoeven would be the president of the jury for the 67th Berlin International Film Festival, scheduled to take place in February 2017.[26]

In April 2017, it was announced that filming of Benedetta, his next French film, would begin in August of the same year.[27][28] It is a biopic about the life of Benedetta Carlini, portrayed by Elle co-star Virginie Efira, and is an adaptation of the non-fiction book Immodest Acts: The Life of a Lesbian Nun in Renaissance Italy by Judith C. Brown.[29] In May 2018, it was announced that Charlotte Rampling would play a key supporting role.[30] The film premiered at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival in competition for the Palme d'Or.[31]

Verhoeven is currently preparing his next film, which reunites him with RoboCop screenwriter Edward Neumeier. Young Sinner is an erotic political thriller set in Washington DC about a "young staffer who works for a powerful Senator [and] is drawn into a web of international intrigue and danger."[32]