A graduate of The National Film School, Julian Richards wrote and directed three short films; Pirates (1987) (The Starting Out Award at The Celtic Film Festival), Queen Sacrifice (1988) (Best Film at the British Short Film Festival) and Bad Company (1992) (AFI Film Festival official selection). Their success led to employment at the BBC where Richards directed doc-drama A Mutter of Voices (1994) about genocide in Rwanda and Channel 4 Television where he directed twelve episodes of Liverpool soap Brookside (1982). In 1994 Richards was hired by Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment to adapt the novel "Calling All Monsters" to screenplay. Two years later he returned to the UK to write and direct his debut feature Darklands (1996), a conspiracy horror about paganism and human sacrifice (Melies D'Argent for Best European Fantasy Film 1997). Richards second feature, conspiracy thriller Silent Cry (2002) was awarded The Gold Remi at Worldfest Houston and his third feature The Last Horror Movie (2003) won The Melies D'Argent for Best European Fantasy Film 2005 . Richards followed up with coming-of-age thriller Summer Scars (2007) which won two BAFTA Cymru Awards and Charles Dickens's England (2009) starring Sir Derek Jacobi in a documentary about the life of iconic British author Charles Dickens. In 2011 Richards returned to the US to direct Shiver (2012), a psychological thriller starring Danielle Harris and John Jarratt for Image Entertainment. In 2017 Richards directed psychological horror Daddy's Girl (2018) starring Costas Mandylor and Jemma Dallender which won Best Director at Fantasporto, and in 2018 he directed paranormal horror Reborn (2018) starring Barbara Crampton, Michael Pare and Chaz Bono which won 15 awards including Best Sci-Fi Feature at Another Hole In The Head. In 2019 Richards directed the Bad Santa segment in Christmas horror anthology Deathcember (2019)