It's provocative, original, extremely violent and extremely good." Twitch Film said "[Bone Tomahawk] succeeds in demonstrating the voice of its massively talented creator." At the Sitges Film Festival Bone Tomahawk won the critic's award for "Best Picture", and Zahler was given the award for "Best Director". The Independent Spirit Awards nominated Richard Jenkins for "Best Supporting Actor" and S. Craig Zahler for "Best Screenplay". Kurt Russell won the "Best Actor" award at the Fangoria Chainsaw Awards. Zahler's second feature film as writer, director, and co-composer was Brawl in Cell Block 99, which stars Vince Vaughn, Jennifer Carpenter, Udo Kier, and Don Johnson. This movie received its world premiere at the 74th Venice Film Festival in 2017. Actors Fred Melamed and Geno Segers both returned from his debut, and were joined by Marc Blucas, Mustafa Shakir, Thomas Guiry, Willie C. Carpenter, and others. The review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a "certified fresh" approval rating of 92% based on 75 reviews, with an average rating of 7.3/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Brawl in Cell Block 99 rides a committed Vince Vaughn performance into the brutally violent – and undeniably entertaining – depths of prison-set grindhouse genre fare." The movie made year end best of lists for Newsweek, (Justin Chang) L.A. Times, Collider, JoBlo.com, (Mike D'Angelo) The A.V. Club, and others. The picture was a New York Times Critics Pick and was screened at the Museum of Modern Art, where it was added to the permanent collection. Zahler's third feature film as writer, director, and co-composer was Dragged Across Concrete, which stars Mel Gibson, Vince Vaughn, Tory Kittles, Michael Jai White, Jennifer Carpenter, Thomas Kretschmann, Laurie Holden, Fred Melamed, Udo Kier, and Don Johnson. This movie received its world premiere at the 75th Venice Film Festival in 2018. In 2018, it was announced that Zahler would be joining the writing staff of the resurrected Fangoria magazine. As of 2019, he writes a column called "Malignant Growths" about microbudget horror films. Film projects Zahler told Variety that on June 22, 2006, he began his career at NYU film school as a cinematographer. In 2004, he wrote six scripts, including a western that topped the prestigious Black List entitled, The Brigands of Rattleborge, which Park Chan-wook was set to direct. On September 7, 2007, The Hollywood Reporter reported that Warner Bros. had acquired the film rights to the anime Robotech with