Legendary British filmmaker Mike Hodges of 'Get Carter' & 'Croupier' fame dies aged 90

Legendary film director and screenwriter Mike Hodges, known for directing cult crime dramas like Get Carter, Pulp, Croupier, and others, dies on December 17 in Dorset, England. Hodges' long-time friend, former associate and film producer Mike Kaplan confirmed the death to the media and shared that the filmmaker passed away at his England home on Saturday. Mike Hodges was 90.

Mike Kaplan produced Hodges' final outing I'll Sleep When I'm Dead (2003), starring Clive Owen, Charlotte Rampling, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, and Malcolm McDowell.

Mike Hodges' career was bookended with gritty crime dramas such as the 1971 cult-classic Get Carter (also his directorial debut), Pulp (1972), the supernatural thriller Damien: Omen II (of the 'Omen' series), Croupier (1998), and his final film I'll Sleep When I'm Dead. He also directed the 1980 space opera Flash Gordon which was a critical and commercial success at the time of its release.

Hodges also boasts a credible filmography for television with titles such as The Tyrant King (a 1968 six-part series), Florida Straits (1986), and Dandelion Dead (1994) to his name.

Born in Bristol, United Kingdom in 1932, Hodges began his professional life as a qualified chartered accountant and spent two years on the lower deck of a Royal Navy warship minesweeper. It was here, he says in an interaction with the Guardian, that he was able to witness the "horrendous poverty and deprivation" that existed in his country and these encounters are said to have influenced his future filmmaking gaze.

Following the Royal Navy stint, Mike Hodges landed a job as a teleprompter operator in British Television and here, he was to gain direct access to observe the workings of the studios. He would quickly progress to directing and producing series for TV and it was his work on the thrillers Suspect (1969) and Rumour (1970) that fetched him the opportunity to make the plunge into feature filmmaking. He wrote and directed his first feature Get Carter in 1971, which has been described as one of the greatest British gangster films of all time.