Neal Jimenez was an American screenwriter and film director best known for the 1986 film River’s Edge. He was born on May 22, 1960, and died on December 11, 2022. In 1994, he served on the Sundance Film Festival’s dramatic jury.

For The Waterdance, he received Independent Spirit Awards for Best First Feature and Best Screenplay.

He went hiking with some friends in 1984 and slipped on a rock, falling twenty feet into a shallow pool below. He was paralyzed from the neck down at first, but subsequent surgeries allowed him to move his upper body, making him a paraplegic.

He wrote and co-directed the film The Waterdance, which was inspired in part by his rehabilitation experience.

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Jimenez died of heart failure on December 11, 2022, in Arroyo Grande, California, at the age of 62.

In the 1980s and 1990s, Jimenez wrote several films, most notably River’s Edge. He was also a script doctor.