James L. Brooks

The Profile

James L. Brooks is an American filmmaker, director, producer, and screenwriter known for Terms of Endearment (1983), Broadcast News (1987), and As Good as It Gets (1997). He is also an executive producer and developer of The Simpsons.

Winner of three Academy Awards for Terms of Endearment (Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay); executive producer and developer of The Simpsons.

Three reviews spotlight Brooks’s blend of wit and feeling: the newsroom ethics of Broadcast News, the mother-daughter arc of Terms of Endearment, and the prickly romance of As Good as It Gets. Performances by Nicholson, MacLaine, Hunt, Hunter and Hurt earn praise. Awards recognition, sharp dialogue and unobtrusive direction are recurring themes.