Chris Smith | |
---|---|
![]() Smith at the 40th Sundance Film Festival in 2024 | |
Born | 1970 (age 54–55) |
Alma mater | University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee |
Occupation | Filmmaker |
Known for |
Chris Smith (born 1970) is an American filmmaker. He directed American Movie , [1] which was awarded the Grand Jury Prize for Documentary at the 1999 Sundance Film Festival. [2]
Smith has since directed several high-profile documentary projects for Netflix including the films, Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond (2017), Fyre (2019), "Sr." (2022), and Wham! (2023); alongside the mini-series, The Disappearance of Madeleine McCann (2019), Bad Vegan: Fame. Fraud. Fugitives. (2022), Biggest Heist Ever (2024) and Mr. McMahon (2024). Smith was an executive producer on Tiger King which was nominated for Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Series in 2020.
Smith's HBO documentary television series, 100 Foot Wave (2021–present), has been nominated for several awards, and won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Cinematography for a Nonfiction Program in 2023.
Smith completed his first film, American Job , while attending the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee's Graduate Film Program. He was nominated for a "Someone to Watch Award" from the Independent Spirit Awards. [3] Smith met Mark Borchardt, the subject of American Movie, while editing American Job, and began filming a documentary about the making of Borchardt's psychological thriller Coven . Both films played at the Sundance Film Festival, [4] and American Movie was bought by Sony Pictures for $1 million. [5]
His resume includes the Emmy-nominated Jim & Andy (2017), about the making of the 1999 Andy Kaufman biopic Man on the Moon . [6]
Smith wrote and directed the documentary Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened (2019), about the Fyre Festival fraud. [7]
He also made a documentary about director Robert Downey Sr., [8] co-directing together with Kevin Ford. The project, simply titled "Sr." , [9] [10] was produced by Team Downey, Robert Downey Jr.'s production company.
In 2024, Smith also directed a six-part docusereies about the former President and CEO of the WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment), Vince McMahon, titled Mr. McMahon . [11]
Year | Film | Notes |
---|---|---|
1996 | American Job | Narrative feature |
1999 | American Movie | Sundance Film Festival winner |
2001 | Home Movie [12] | |
2003 | The Yes Men | |
2007 | The Pool | Narrative feature |
2009 | Collapse | |
2017 | Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond | Primetime Emmy Award nomination [13] |
2019 | Fyre | Primetime Emmy Award nominations [14] |
2019 | The Disappearance of Madeleine McCann | 8-part Netflix docuseries |
2020 | Tiger King | 7-part Netflix docuseries, Executive Producer only |
2021 | 100 Foot Wave | 6-part HBO docuseries Winner, 2023 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Cinematography for a Nonfiction Program [14] |
2022 | Bad Vegan: Fame. Fraud. Fugitives. | 4-part Netflix docuseries |
2022 | "Sr." | |
2022 | Branson | 4-part HBO Max docuseries |
2023 | Wham! | |
2023 | Save the Watermelon | short film |
2024 | Biggest Heist Ever | Netflix documentary 15 |
2024 | DEVO | |
2024 | Hollywood Con Queen | 3-part Apple TV+ docuseries |
2024 | Mr. McMahon | six-part Netflix docuseries |
2025 | Don't Die: The Man Who Wants to Live Forever | Netflix documentary [15] |
Marc Levin is an American independent film producer and director. He is best known for his Brick City TV series, which won the 2010 Peabody award and was nominated for an Emmy for Exceptional Merit in Nonfiction Filmmaking and his dramatic feature film, Slam, which won the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival and the Caméra d'Or at Cannes in 1998. He also has received three Emmy Awards and the 1997 DuPont-Columbia Award.
Jeffrey Leib Nettler Zimbalist is an American filmmaker. He has been Academy Award shortlisted, has won a Peabody, a DuPont, 5 Emmy Awards with 17 Emmy nominations. He is the owner of film and television production company All Rise Films.
Ellen Kuras is an American cinematographer whose work includes narrative and documentary films, music videos and commercials in both the studio and independent worlds. One of few female members of the American Society of Cinematographers, she is a pioneer best known for her work in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004). She has collaborated with directors such as Michel Gondry, Spike Lee, Sam Mendes, Jim Jarmusch, Rebecca Miller, Martin Scorsese and more. She is the three-time winner of the Award for Excellence in Dramatic Cinematography at the Sundance Film Festival, for her films Personal Velocity: Three Portraits, Angela and Swoon, which was her first dramatic feature after getting her start in political documentaries.
Eddie Schmidt is an American director, showrunner, producer, writer, commentator and satirist. He is perhaps best known for producing several feature documentaries that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, including Valentine Road (2013), This Film Is Not Yet Rated (2006), and Twist of Faith (2005), and for directing and showrunning television projects including Ugly Delicious (2018), Chelsea Does (2016), The Case of: JonBenét Ramsey (2016), and Good One: A Show About Jokes (2024).
Andrew Rossi is an American filmmaker, Emmy nominated for directing, writing and producing The Andy Warhol Diaries (2022), Ivory Tower (2014) and Page One: Inside the New York Times (2011).
Freedom Riders is a 2010 American historical documentary film, produced by Firelight Media for the twenty-third season of American Experience on PBS. The film is based in part on the book Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice by historian Raymond Arsenault. Directed by Stanley Nelson, it marked the 50th anniversary of the first Freedom Ride in May 1961 and first aired on May 16, 2011. It was funded in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities. The film was also featured on The Oprah Winfrey Show program titled, Freedom Riders: 50th Anniversary. Nelson was helped in the making of the documentary by Arsenault and Derek Catsam, an associate professor at the University of Texas of the Permian Basin.
The Square is a 2013 Egyptian-American documentary film by Jehane Noujaim, which depicts the Egyptian Crisis until 2013, starting with the Egyptian Revolution of 2011 at Tahrir Square. The film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature at the 86th Academy Awards. It also won three Emmy Awards at the 66th Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards, out of four for which it was nominated.
Brett D. Morgen is an American documentary filmmaker. His directorial credits include The Kid Stays in the Picture (2002), Crossfire Hurricane (2012), Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck (2015), Jane (2017), and Moonage Daydream (2022).
What Happened, Miss Simone? is a 2015 American biographical documentary film about Nina Simone directed by Liz Garbus. The film opened the 2015 Sundance Film Festival. The screening was followed by a tribute performance by John Legend. The film was released by Netflix on June 26, 2015. It was nominated for Best Documentary Feature at the 88th Academy Awards.
Mark Daniel Bailey is an American writer, best known for his documentary films, including Last Days in Vietnam (2014), Downfall: The Case Against Boeing (2022), and The Volcano: Rescue from Whakaari (2022). Bailey, together with his wife, filmmaker Rory Kennedy, own Moxie Films, a documentary film production company. The company produces documentaries "for broadcast and cable networks, including Netflix, HBO, PBS, A&E, National Geographic, Showtime, Discovery Channel, MTV, TLC, Lifetime Television, the Oxygen Network, and the Sundance Channel as well as for educational foundations and philanthropic organizations."
13th is a 2016 American documentary film directed by Ava DuVernay. It explores the prison–industrial complex, and the "intersection of race, justice, and mass incarceration in the United States". The title refers to the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, adopted in 1865, which abolished slavery throughout the United States and ended involuntary servitude, except as punishment for convicted criminals. The film argues that this exemption has been used to continue the practice of involuntary servitude in the form of penal labor.
Ryan White is a documentary producer and director best known for his Netflix documentary film Pamela, a Love Story, Amazon Prime's Good Night Oppy, which won five Critics Choice Awards including Best Documentary and Best Director, and his Emmy-nominated Netflix series The Keepers. White's previous films include the HBO movie The Case Against 8, which won Sundance's Directing Award and was nominated for two Emmys, the documentary film Ask Dr. Ruth, and Coded, which was shortlisted for the Academy Award.
Strong Island is an American 2017 true-crime documentary film directed by Yance Ford.
Fyre is a 2019 American documentary film directed by Chris Smith. It chronicles the planning, failure, and aftermath of the 2017 Fyre Festival, putting the blame primarily on the event's organizer, businessman Billy McFarland. The film premiered on Netflix on January 18, 2019, and the site later reported that 20 million households streamed Fyre during its first month of release.
Fyre Fraud is a 2019 American documentary film about the fraudulent Fyre Festival, a 2017 music festival in the Bahamas. It was directed by Julia Willoughby Nason and Jenner Furst, and premiered on January 14, 2019, on Hulu.
Julia Bell Reichert was an American Academy Award-winning documentary filmmaker, activist, and feminist. She was a co-founder of New Day Films. Reichert's filmmaking career spanned over 50 years as a director and producer of documentaries.
Marilyn Ness is a documentary film producer and director based in New York City who made the social justice documentaries Bad Blood: A Cautionary Tale (2010), Cameraperson (2016), and Charm City (2018). More recent projects include the Netflix Original documentary Becoming with Michelle Obama, which was nominated for four Primetime Emmy awards and Netflix Original documentary Dick Johnson is Dead, which was on the Academy Award Shortlist for Best Documentary in 2021. She is as of 2021 an adjunct assistant professor at Columbia University.
Todd Douglas Miller is an American filmmaker known for directing the award-winning films Dinosaur 13 and Apollo 11.
Jeen-Yuhs: A Kanye Trilogy is a 2022 American documentary film directed by Coodie & Chike about the life of American rapper, record producer, and fashion designer Kanye West and, to a lesser extent, Coodie Simmons.
Concordia Studio is an American independent film production and television production company. The company has produced Boys State (2020), Time (2020), A Thousand Cuts (2020), Procession (2021), Swan Song (2021), Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie (2023), and Rita (2024).