He and his brothers, Adam and Gabriel, made more than 100 short films before he graduated from Newton South High School and attended film school (the Tisch School of the Arts) at New York University. Roth began shooting films at the age of eight, after watching Ridley Scott's Alien (1979). In addition to English, he speaks French, Italian, and basic Russian. Roth was raised Jewish (his family were Jewish emigrants from Austria, Hungary, Russia, and Poland). He has an older brother, Adam (born May 1970), and a younger brother, Gabriel (born December 1974). Roth was born the middle of three sons in Newton, Massachusetts, to Sheldon Roth, a psychiatrist/ psychoanalyst and clinical professor at Harvard Medical School, and Cora Roth, a painter. In 2013, Roth received the Visionary Award for his contributions to horror at the Stanley Film Festival. Many journalists have included him in a group of filmmakers dubbed the Splat Pack for their explicitly violent and controversially bloody horror films. He also starred in the horror film Death Proof (2007) and the disaster film Aftershock (2012).
Īs an actor, Roth starred as Donny "The Bear Jew" Donowitz in Quentin Tarantino's war film Inglourious Basterds (2009), for which he received a Critic's Choice Movie Award and a SAG Award as part of the ensemble. Also in 2018, he directed the fantasy comedy film The House with a Clock in Its Walls, his first PG-rated film and his highest domestic grosser to date. He also expanded into other genres, directing the erotic thriller film Knock Knock (2015) and the action film Death Wish (2018), a remake of the 1974 original.
Roth continued to work in the horror genre, directing the films Hostel: Part II (2007) and The Green Inferno (2013). As a director and producer, he is most closely associated with the horror genre, having directed the films Cabin Fever (2003) and Hostel (2005). Eli Raphael Roth (born April 18, 1972) is an American film director, producer, and actor.