Tom Schulman

Thomas H. Schulman (born October 20, 1950) is an American screenwriter best known for his semi-autobiographical screenplay Dead Poets Society, which won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay in 1989.

Life and career Following high school at Montgomery Bell Academy, Schulman earned a Bachelor of Arts (BA) in philosophy, graduating in 1972 from Vanderbilt University in Nashville. Schulman pursued his interest in film at the University of Southern California's Graduate School of Cinema.

Dead Poets Society won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay in 1989, and was nominated for Best Picture and Best Director (Peter Weir). The character of John Keating was inspired by one of Schulman's teachers at Montgomery Bell Academy in Nashville.

Prior to Dead Poets Society, Schulman had already written several telemovies. However, Dead Poets Society was his first movie script to reach the screen. He was hired to rewrite the hit movie Honey, I Shrunk the Kids shortly before the film was due to begin shooting; Schulman had just seven days to turn it from a drama into a comedy.

Other scripts written or co-written by Schulman include comedies Welcome to Mooseport, What About Bob?, Second Sight (which Schulman sold the same day as Dead Poets Society) and Holy Man, which stars Eddie Murphy. The Sean Connery drama Medicine Man, originally entitled The Stand, In 2022, Schulman returned to directing with Double Down South, a seedy sports drama set in Mississippi's underground keno pool scene (a world Schulman encountered as a teenager).

In 2009, Schulman was elected vice president of the Writers Guild of America, West. He was a member of the WGA negotiating committee during the extended writers' strike of 2023.

Filmography