The New Yorker called Michael Tolkin “an L.A. Antonioni with a sense of humor.” In Artforum he was called, “The only American filmmaker working near the level of Pasolini and Kiezlowski.” As a writer/director, his two films, THE RAPTURE and THE NEW AGE, were opening night selections at the Telluride Film Festival. As writer/producer, he is best known for THE PLAYER, for which he won the Writers Guild Award, The British Academy Award, The Chicago Film Critics’ Award, the PEN Center USA West Literary Award, and the Edgar Allan Poe Award for best crime screenplay. He was also nominated for an Academy Award. As one of the film’s producers he was awarded the Golden Globe, the New York Film Critics Circle Award and the Independent Feature Project Spirit Award for best picture of the year. THE RAPTURE (1991), starring Mimi Rogers and David Duchovny, was nominated for three Spirit Awards. He has also co-written four films, the HBO movie, THE BURNING SEASON, starring the late Raul Julia and directed by the late John Frankenheimer, for which he shared the Humanitas Prize and an Emmy Nomination; DEEP COVER, starring Laurence Fishburne and Jeff Goldblum; DEEP IMPACT, a Dreamworks co-production with Paramount Pictures; and also for Paramount, CHANGING LANES, which was named Best Picture of the Year by Catholic in Media.

His books, all published by Grove/Atlantic Books include THE PLAYER, AMONG THE DEAD, UNDER RADAR, all of which have been translated around the world, and THE PLAYER, THE RAPTURE, THE NEW AGE: THREE SCREENPLAYS BY MICHAEL TOLKIN. His fourth novel, THE RETURN OF THE PLAYER, is due from Grove/Atlantic in September.