Death Warrant (1990)
1990 film directed by Deran Sarafian
- Released
- 1990
- Country
- Canada, United States
- Language
- English
- Genre
- Martial arts film
- Director
- Deran Sarafian
- Screenplay
- David S. Goyer
- Producer
- Mark DiSalle
- Music
- Gary Chang
- Cinematography
- Russell Carpenter
- Starring
- Jean-Claude Van Damme, Robert Guillaume, Cynthia Gibb, Art LaFleur, Patrick Kilpatrick, Joshua John Miller, Larry Hankin, George Dickerson
- Running time
- 86 minutes
- Distributor
- Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Netflix
- Set in
- California
Death Warrant is a 1990 American prison action thriller film directed by Deran Sarafian, produced by Mark di Salle, and starring Jean-Claude Van Damme. The film was written by David S. Goyer while a student at USC, and was Goyer's first screenplay to be sold and produced commercially. In the film, police detective Louis Burke is going into a prison facility in California as an undercover cop in order to find out who was behind a mysterious series of murders, and finds himself locked up with his nemesis: Christian Naylor, a psychotic serial killer who calls himself "The Sandman," who sets out to exact revenge upon him after getting into prison.
Death Warrant was released on September 14, 1990. Upon its release, the film grossed $46 million against a production budget of only $6 million. The film received general mixed critical reaction from critics who found the direction, its storyline, villain, and the plot poor, but highly praised the acting as well as the action scenes and the thrilling atmosphere.
Cast
- Jean-Claude Van Damme
- Robert Guillaume
- Cynthia Gibb
- Art LaFleur
- Patrick Kilpatrick
- Joshua John Miller
- Larry Hankin
- George Dickerson
- Jack Bannon
- Armin Shimerman
- Mark DiSalle
External links
Facts from Wikidata Q284870 (CC0); quoted introduction from English Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0). Data retrieved 2026-10-22.
Data: Wikidata (CC0 1.0); Wikipedia (English) (CC BY-SA 4.0). Retrieved 2026-10-22.