Monte Hellman was born July 12, 1932 in New York City to Gertrude (née Edelstein) and Fred Himmelbaum, who were vacationing in New York at the time of his birth. The family ended up settling in Albany, New York before relocating to Los Angeles, California when Hellman was five years old.
Hellman graduated from Los Angeles High School, and attended Stanford University, graduating in 1951. He then attended graduate school at the University of California, Los Angeles, but did not complete his studies.
He would later gain critical recognition for the Western Ride in the Whirlwind (1966) starring Jack Nicholson, and the independent road movie Two-Lane Blacktop (1971) starring James Taylor and Dennis Wilson. His later directorial work has included the 1989 slasher film Silent Night, Deadly Night 3: Better Watch Out! and the independent thriller Road to Nowhere (2010).
In addition to his directorial career, Hellman worked on several films in different capacities. He was the dialogue Director for Corman's The St. Valentine's Day Massacre (1967), and second unit Director on Paul Verhoeven's RoboCop (1987). Hellman finished two pictures in post-production that were started by other Directors who died after the movies were shot, the Muhammad Ali bio The Greatest (1977) (started by Tom Gries) and Avalanche Express (1979) (begun by Mark Robson). He shot extra footage for the television versions of Ski Troop Attack (1960), Last Woman on Earth (1960), Creature from the Haunted Sea and Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars (1964). Among the movies on which Hellman served as Editor are Corman's The Wild Angels (1966), Bob Rafelson's Head (1968), Sam Peckinpah's The Killer Elite (1975) and Jonathan Demme's Fighting Mad (1976).
Hellman is among a group of directing talent mentored by Roger Corman, who produced several of the director's early films. According to film scholar Wheeler Winston Dixon, Hellman began by working on "low budget exploitation films with a personal slant," yet learned from Corman the art of producing commercially viable films on a tight budget while staying true to a personal vision. Hellman's most critically acclaimed film to date has been Two-Lane Blacktop (1971), a road movie that was a box office failure at the time of its initial release but has subsequently turned into a perennial cult favorite. Hellman's two acid westerns starring Jack Nicholson, Ride in the Whirlwind and The Shooting, both shot in 1965 and released directly to television in 1968, have also developed cult followings, particularly the latter. A third western, China 9, Liberty 37 (1978), was far less successful critically, although it too has its admirers, as do Cockfighter (1974) (aka Born to Kill) and Iguana (1988). In 1989 he directed the straight-to-video slasher film Silent Night, Deadly Night 3: Better Watch Out!.
Hellman was an executive Producer on Quentin Tarantino's debut feature Reservoir Dogs (1992).
In 2006, he directed "Stanley's Girlfriend," a section of the omnibus horror film Trapped Ashes. Hellman's section of the film was presented by the Cannes Film Festival that year as an "Official Selection" and Hellman was named President of the Festival's "Un Certain Regard" jury.
At the 2010 Venice Film Festival he was awarded with a special career prize.
