Roger Corman has produced over 300 films and directed more than 50. He was the youngest director ever to be honored with retrospectives at the Cinematheque Francaise in Paris, the British Film Institute in London, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

His film The Wild Angels, starring Peter Fonda, was selected as the opening night film of the Venice Film Festival, and received a nomination for the festival's coveted Gold Lion award. His film The Trip, written by Jack Nicholson, and starring Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper, was the American entry at the Cannes Film Festival.

In 1998, he won the first Producer’s Award ever given by the Cannes Film Festival. In 2006, Corman received the David O. Selznick Award from the Producers Guild of America. Also in 2006, his film Fall of the House of Usher was among the twenty-five movies selected for the National Film Registry, a compilation of significant films being preserved by the Library of Congress.

His distribution company brought films by Ingmar Bergman, Francois Truffaut, Federico Fellini and Akira Kurosawa to the United States for the first time. In a ten-year period, the company won more Academy Awards for Best Foreign Film than all other studios combined.

While producing and directing his own films, Corman also focused on nuturing young talent. Directors Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Peter Bogdanovich, and Jonathan Demme, and actors Jack Nicholson, Robert De Niro, Dennis Hopper, Peter Fonda, and Bruce Dern all began their careers with him.

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