White Sands is a 1992 American crime thriller film directed by Roger Donaldson and starring Willem Dafoe, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Samuel L. Jackson, and Mickey Rourke. Written by Daniel Pyne for Warner Bros., the film is about a U.S. southwestern small-town sheriff who finds a body in the desert with a suitcase and $500,000. He impersonates the man and stumbles into an FBI investigation.
Theatrical release poster
Roger Lindsey Donaldson is an Australian and New Zealand film director, screenwriter, and producer. His 1977 debut film, Sleeping Dogs, is considered landmark work of New Zealand cinema, as one of the country’s first films to attract large-scale critical and commercial success. He has subsequently directed 17 feature films, working in Hollywood and the United Kingdom, as well as his native country.
Donaldson in 2023