He later continued his collaboration with Scorsese, writing or co-writing Raging Bull (1980), The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), and Bringing Out the Dead (1999).

Schrader has also worked extensively as a director: his 23 films include Blue Collar (1978), Hardcore (1979), American Gigolo (1980), Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (1985), Light Sleeper (1992), Affliction (1997), and First Reformed (2017), with the last of these earning him his first Academy Award nomination.

Schrader's work frequently depicts "man in a room" stories which feature isolated, troubled men confronting an existential crisis.

Other film-makers who made a lasting impression on Schrader are John Ford, Jean Renoir, Roberto Rossellini, Alfred Hitchcock, and Sam Peckinpah.

Besides Taxi Driver (1976), Scorsese also drew on scripts by Schrader for Raging Bull (1980), co-credited to Mardik Martin; The Last Temptation of Christ (1988); and Bringing Out the Dead (1999).

Thanks partly to critical acclaim for Taxi Driver, Schrader was able to direct his first feature, Blue Collar (1978), co-written with his brother Leonard.

Blue Collar features Richard Pryor, Harvey Keitel, and Yaphet Kotto as car factory workers attempting to escape their socio-economic rut through theft and blackmail.

[12] His 1990s work included the travelers-in-Venice tale The Comfort of Strangers (1990), adapted by Harold Pinter from the Ian McEwan novel, and Light Sleeper (1992), a sympathetic study of a drug dealer vying for a normal life.

[13] In 1997, he made Touch (1997), based on an Elmore Leonard novel about a young man seemingly able to cure the sick by the laying on of hands.

The film tells the story of a troubled small-town policeman (Nick Nolte) who becomes obsessed with solving the mystery behind a fatal hunting accident.

In 2002, he directed the well received biopic Auto Focus, based on the life and murder of Hogan's Heroes actor Bob Crane.

Director Renny Harlin was hired to re-shoot nearly the entire movie, which was released as Exorcist: The Beginning on August 20, 2004, to disastrously negative reviews and embarrassing box office receipts.

Due to extreme interest in Schrader's version from critics and cinephiles alike, Warner Bros. agreed to give the film a limited theatrical release later that year under the title Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist.

Several of his films were shown at the festival, including Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters, which followed the presentation of the award by director Shane Meadows.

In 2014, Schrader directed The Dying of the Light, an espionage thriller starring Nicolas Cage as a government agent suffering from a deadly disease, Anton Yelchin and Irène Jacob.

Schrader's dramatic thriller First Reformed, starring Ethan Hawke, premiered at the 2017 Venice Film Festival and received critical acclaim.

In 2021, he directed the crime drama film The Card Counter, starring Oscar Isaac and Tiffany Haddish.

Schrader grouped these two films into a loose trilogy with another thriller, Master Gardener, starring Joel Edgerton and Sigourney Weaver.

In 2023, it was confirmed Schrader would write and direct Oh, Canada, an adaptation of his friend Russell Banks' novel, Foregone, starring Richard Gere and Jacob Elordi.

[8][19][20] A recurring theme in Schrader's films is the protagonist on a self-destructive path, or undertaking actions which work against himself, deliberately or subconsciously.

[citation needed] Schrader has repeatedly referred to Taxi Driver, American Gigolo, Light Sleeper, The Canyons, The Walker, First Reformed, and The Card Counter as "a man in a room" stories.

[25] In January 2023, he and his wife moved from New York's suburban Putnam County to a luxury assisted-living facility in Manhattan's Hudson Yards area, where Hurt receives treatment for her worsening Alzheimer's.

He quickly deleted the post, but was visited by the New York City Police Department Counterterrorism Bureau for threatening violence.