On Wednesday, December 3, 2025, the Coolidge presented legendary actor, filmmaker, producer, and author Ethan Hawke as the recipient of the 2025 Coolidge Award.
“This uncompromising artistry has become a signature of Ethan’s work. Over the course of a nearly four-decade career, he has carved a place for himself as one of cinema’s most distinctive and quietly brilliant actors."
– Coolidge Corner Theatre Executive Director & CEO Katherine Tallman and Deputy Director Beth Gilligan
ABOUT Ethan Hawke
"Gather ye rosebuds while ye may" is a phrase a young Ethan Hawke took to heart while filming Dead Poets Society, the iconic film that launched his career. Over the past 30 years, Hawke has become a multifaceted, critically acclaimed artist—an actor, writer, director, producer, and best-selling novelist—earning four Academy Award nominations, both as an actor and a writer.
Most recently, Hawke stars in his ninth collaboration with filmmaker Richard Linklater, the feature film Blue Moon, giving a career-defining performance as the famed lyricist Lorenz Hart, part of the once-famed songwriting team Rodgers & Hart. The film, which also stars Margaret Qualley, Andrew Scott, and Bobby Cannavale, had its world premiere at the 2025 Berlin International Film Festival. Also, he reprised his role at The Grabber in Universal and Blumhouse’s The Black Phone 2 from his frequent collaborator, director Scott Derrickson.
As a filmmaker, he most recently directed and co-wrote Wildcat, a biopic about Flannery O’Connor starring Maya Hawke, Laura Linney, and Steve Zahn, released by Oscilloscope in 2023. The film was produced under his banner, Under the Influence Productions, which he founded with his wife and producing partner Ryan Hawke. Under the Influence also produced the six-part Paul Newman-Joanne Woodward docuseries The Last Movie Stars, directed by Hawke and produced by Martin Scorsese; and the FX drama The Lowdown, which Hawke stars in and executive produces, reuniting with creator Sterlin Harjo following Hawke’s pivotal guest role in the penultimate episode of Harjo’s acclaimed series Reservation Dogs. As a filmmaker, Hawke’s directing credits also include the narrative features Chelsea Walls, The Hottest State, and Blaze and the documentary Seymour: An Introduction.
His expansive onscreen filmography includes his Oscar-nominated performances in Training Day and Boyhood, his Independent Spirit and Gotham Award-winning performance in First Reformed, his multi-award-nominated and Peabody-winning work in Showtime’s limited series The Good Lord Bird, plus films such as Gattaca, Reality Bites, Maudie, The Northman, Sinister, The Purge, Leave the World Behind, Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead, Great Expectations, White Fang, Marvel’s Moon Knight, Pedro Almodóvar’s short film Strange Way of Life and the celebrated Before trilogy (Before Sunrise and its sequels Before Sunset and Before Midnight), for which he received two writing Oscar nominations alongside his collaborators Julie Delpy and Richard Linklater.
On stage, he received a Tony Award nomination for his performance in Tom Stoppard’s epic The Coast of Utopia, and also starred on Broadway in Henvy IV, Macbeth, and Sam Shepard’s True West, in addition to countless Off-Broadway acting and directing credits. As a best-selling author, Hawke has written the novels The Hottest State, Ash Wednesday, A Bright Ray of Darkness, the children’s book Rules for a Knight, and two graphic novels, Meadowlark and Indeh, with illustrator Greg Ruth.
