Franklin James Schaffner (May 30, 1920-July 2, 1989) was an American film director.

The son of missionaries, Schaffner was born in Tokyo, Japan and raised in that country. He returned to the United States and graduated from Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where he was active in drama. He studied law at Columbia University in New York City but his education was interrupted by service with the United States Navy in World War II during which he served with American amphibious forces in Europe and North Africa. In the latter stages of the war he was sent to the Pacific Far East to serve with the United States Office for Strategic Services.

Returning home after the war, he found work in the television industry with March of Time and then joined the CBS network. He won directing Emmys for his work on the original 1954 CBS teleplay, 12 Angry Men. Schaffner earned two more Emmy awards for his work on the 1955 TV adaptation of the Broadway play, The Caine Mutiny Court Martial, shown on the anthology series Ford Star Jubilee. He won his fourth Emmy Award for his work on the series, The Defenders.

In 1960, he directed Allen Drury's stage play Advise and Consent. His first Hollywood motion picture was praised and he directed the influential hit Planet of the Apes. His next film, Patton was a major success for which he won the Academy Award for Directing and the Directors Guild of America for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures. Jerry Goldsmith composed the scores for a number of his later films, including Planet of the Apes, Papillon and The Boys from Brazil.

Schaffner married Helen Jane Gilchrist in 1948. The couple had two children.

Schaffner was elected President of the Directors Guild of America in 1987.

Schaffner died on July 2, 1989 at the age of 69. The cause of his death is unknown.

Franklin J. Schaffner was one of the most innovative creative minds in the early days of American network television, utilizing a moving camera in the days when most television directors kept the camera static. His eye for visuals was developed in the dozens of live television programs he directed on prestigious shows such as "Studio One" and "Playhouse 90," not to mention his work in news and public affairs on "March of Time" and as one of the directors of TV coverage of the 1948 political conventions in Philadelphia. His visual sense came to be one of the important attributes of his work in feature films, such as the trek taken across the desert by the astronauts at the start of "Planet of the Apes" (1968). In addition to his Oscar and DGA Awards for "Patton," Schaffner also won Sylvania Awards in 1953 and 1954, Emmy Awards in 1954, 1955, and 1962, and a Variety Critics Poll Award in 1960.