James Allan Schamus (born September 7, 1959) is an American screenwriter, producer, business executive, film historian, professor, and director.

He is currently president of the New York–based production company Symbolic Exchange,[1] and is Professor of Professional Practice at Columbia University, where he has taught film history and theory since 1989.

His output includes writing or co-writing The Ice Storm, Eat, Drink, Man, Woman, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Hulk (all directed by Ang Lee), and producing Brokeback Mountain and Alone in Berlin.

At Focus he oversaw the production and distribution of Lost in Translation, Milk, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Coraline, and The Kids Are All Right.

Schamus also wrote the script for the film, which stars Logan Lerman, Sarah Gadon, and Tracy Letts, and is the story of a Jewish student at an Ohio college in 1951.