--- name: "Roger Donaldson" canonical: "https://film.one/person/roger-donaldson" fi1m_id: "roger-donaldson" imdb_id: "nm0002044" tmdb_id: 21370 wikidata_id: "Q707755" roles: ["Director"] born: "15 November 1945" reviewed_on_fi1m: 2 average_as: "director" average_over: 1 updated: "2026-10-02T22:10:16.460428+00:00" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Roger Donaldson ## Identity Roger Donaldson - **Canonical:** https://film.one/person/roger-donaldson - **Type:** Person - **Fi1m ID:** roger-donaldson - **IMDb ID:** nm0002044 - **TMDB ID:** 21370 - **Wikidata ID:** Q707755 - **Same entity:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Donaldson, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q707755, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0002044/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/21370 Director. Born 15 November 1945 in Ballarat, Australia. ## Details - **Work:** Director - **Born:** 15 November 1945, Ballarat, Australia - **Active:** 1978–2000 - **Also known as:** Roger Lindsey Donaldson - **Titles on Fi1m:** 2: 1 directing, 1 other - **Fi1m score by decade:** 2000s 70 (1), 2010s 83 (1) - **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Donaldson, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q707755, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0002044/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/21370 ## Streaming the US now - **Amazon Prime Video:** [*Thirteen Days*](https://film.one/film/thirteen-days.md) (70) For United States; add `?region=XX` for another country. ## Fi1m on Roger Donaldson > Roger Donaldson is at his best with a handful of people behind a closed door and a decision that cannot wait, and at his least interesting once the cast spreads out and the explosions get louder. *Thirteen Days* is the one to start with. In *Thirteen Days* (2000) a general tells the President of the United States that he is in a pretty bad fix, and means it as advice. Nothing explodes. Nobody draws a gun. Roger Donaldson keeps his camera in the Cabinet Room and lets Bruce Greenwood's tired, careful Kennedy listen while the men around him argue about whether a blockade counts as an act of war. We knew how October 1962 came out and we were tense anyway, because Donaldson lets the argument run at the length and in the order the men might actually have had it. That is his gift, and it is rarer than it sounds. He has said that he thinks of every film he makes as a thriller, whatever the subject, and the career bears him out. He started in New Zealand with no film school behind him, moving from photography and advertising into documentaries, then into *Sleeping Dogs* (1977), the first colour 35mm feature made entirely in that country, and *Smash Palace* (1981), a domestic drama he wrote and produced himself. *The Bounty* (1984) took him to Hollywood and *No Way Out* (1987), a Washington thriller with Kevin Costner, kept him there. What followed was thirty years of steady work: *Cocktail* (1988), *Species* (1995), *Dante's Peak* (1997), *The Recruit* (2003), *The Bank Job* (2008), *The November Man* (2014). He has worked twice each with Costner, Anthony Hopkins and Pierce Brosnan, and he has gone home periodically, most tellingly for *The World's Fastest Indian* (2005), which grew out of a documentary he had made in 1971. What works is the argument. Give him a table, a clock and a cast who disagree and he will hold a plot with half a dozen strands together without dropping one, which is the skill *The Bank Job* is admired for. What works less well is daylight. In *Thirteen Days* the date captions, the family breakfasts and the swelling brass make a well-built 145 minutes look like expensive television, and the twenty minutes that could go are all the ones spent away from the table. The pattern holds across the career. The New Zealand films are the ones called distinctive; the studio pictures from the late eighties on, *Cocktail* above all, are the ones called formulaic and uneven. He takes the job in front of him, and some of the jobs were better than others. Start with *Thirteen Days*, then *No Way Out*, then work outwards. The further you get from a closed door and a bad decision, the more the brass swells. ## Biography Roger Donaldson is an Australian-born New Zealand film director, producer and writer. Born on 15 November 1945 in Ballarat, Australia, he moved to New Zealand in 1965. He began his career in photography and television commercials before directing documentaries and short films. Donaldson co-produced and directed his first feature, *Sleeping Dogs* (1977), the first colour 35 mm feature film made entirely in New Zealand. His second feature, *Smash Palace* (1981), brought international attention. He later directed Hollywood films including *No Way Out* (1987), *Cocktail* (1988), *Species* (1995), *Dante's Peak* (1997), *Thirteen Days* (2000), *The World's Fastest Indian* (2005) and *The Bank Job* (2008). *Sources: en.wikipedia.org, nzonscreen.com.* ## On Fi1m (2) ### Directed (1) — the average rests on these - *Thirteen Days* (2000), Fi1m 70, Director — [page](https://film.one/film/thirteen-days.md) ### Also credited (1) — thanks, archive footage, uncredited - *Brooklyn* (2015), Fi1m 83, Thanks — [page](https://film.one/film/brooklyn.md) ## Complete filmography (29) Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page. - *Good One* (2024), Executive Producer - *Hannahs* (2019), Thanks - *McLaren* (2016), Director - *Brooklyn* (2015), Thanks — Fi1m 83, [page](https://film.one/film/brooklyn.md) - *The November Man* (2014), Director - *Seeking Justice* (2011), Director - *Lawyers* (2010), Writer, Director - *The Bank Job* (2008), Director - *The World's Fastest Indian* (2005), Producer, Author, Director, Writer - *The Making of Sleeping Dogs* (2004), Executive Producer - *The Recruit* (2003), Director - *Thirteen Days* (2000), Director — Fi1m 70, [page](https://film.one/film/thirteen-days.md) - *Fearless* (1999), Producer - *Dante's Peak* (1997), Director - *Species* (1995), Director - *The Getaway* (1994), Director - *White Sands* (1992), Director - *Cadillac Man* (1990), Director, Producer - *Cocktail* (1988), Director - *No Way Out* (1987), Director - *Kaleidoscope* (1987), as Subject - *Marie: A True Story* (1985), Director - *The Bounty* (1984), Director - *Smash Palace* (1981), Director, Writer, Producer - *Nutcase* (1980), Producer, Director, Screenplay - *Sleeping Dogs* (1978), Director, Producer, Art Direction - *Start Again* (1972), Director of Photography, Director - *Offerings to the God of Speed* (1971), Executive Producer, Producer, Director, Writer - *Immortal*, Director ## Gallery - ![Roger Donaldson](https://film.one/media/person/333692/gallery-37176968022d.jpg) Roger Donaldson — New Zealand Government, Office of the Governor-General, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f3/Roger_Donaldson_ONZM_%28cropped%29.jpg/1280px-Roger_Donaldson_ONZM_%28cropped%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail) - ![Roger Donaldson (right), after his investiture as ONZM, for services to film, by the administrator of the government, Dame Helen Winkelmann, at Government House (2023)](https://film.one/media/person/333692/gallery-83fd4b1b9fa1.jpg) Roger Donaldson (right), after his investiture as ONZM, for services to film, by the administrator of the government, Dame Helen Winkelmann, at Government House (2023) — New Zealand Government, Office of the Governor-General, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d1/Roger_Donaldson_ONZM_investiture.jpg/1280px-Roger_Donaldson_ONZM_investiture.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail) - ![Roger Donaldson](https://film.one/media/person/333692/gallery-832b30c1c6e9.jpg) Roger Donaldson — Image via TMDB ## Awards ### Other awards — 1 won, 1 nominated - Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit 2018: Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit (won) - Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Director 1989: Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Director (nominated), for *Cocktail* *From Wikidata, which records wins more completely than nominations.* --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/person/roger-donaldson