Cutler’s work has been nominated for two Academy Award[2] and a Writers Guild Award. In 2009, the Museum of Television and Radio held a five-day retrospective of his work.[3] In 2021, he received the D.A. Pennebaker Award at The Critics’ Choice Documentary Awards for Lifetime Achievement in Documentary Film.[4]
Early life
Robert Jason Cutler (known as R. J. since birth) grew up in[1] Great Neck, New York. As a 14-year-old, Cutler was commissioned to spend several days with the remaining leaders of the Yippie Party, and to write a story about their underground newspaper and their plans to disrupt the upcoming 1976 Democratic Convention. The resulting article, "Behind the Scenes at Yipster Times," was published in the May/June 1976 issue of Alternative Journalism Review.[5][6]
Cutler began his career as a theater director, working in the mid-1980s as a director and producer at the American Repertory Theatre under the leadership of Robert Brustein.[11] Cutler then became director James Lapine’s assistant on the original Broadway production of the Sondheim/Lapine musical Into the Woods.[12] In 1988, he directed the workshop production of Jonathan Larson’s first musical Superbia at Playwrights Horizons.[13]
Productions directed by Cutler between 1988 and 1990 include the premiere of Right Behind the Flag by Kevin Heelan at Playwrights Horizons,[14] the American premiere of Emerald City by David Williamson at New York Theatre Workshop,[15] and the premiere of The Secret Garden by Marsha Norman and Lucy Simon at Virginia Stage Company.[16]
In 1990, Cutler produced the National Public Radio program Heat with John Hockenberry. The show received a Peabody Award.[17]
Filmmaking
Cutler first turned to filmmaking as the producer of The War Room, a feature documentary directed by D. A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus that chronicles Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign. The War Room premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 1993 and was subsequently screened at the New York Film Festival and the Berlin International Film Festival. It won the National Board of Review Award for Best Documentary and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.[18]
The War Room (1993) holds a 96 percent approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes and earned praise as “a valuable time-capsule and a riveting study in the art of politicking.”[19][20] In 2013, the Cinema Eye Honors presented The War Room with its Legacy Award, “intended to honor classic films that inspire a new generation of filmmakers.”[21]
In April 1996, Cutler and co-director David Van Taylor made A Perfect Candidate, a documentary following the U.S. Senate campaign of Oliver North. The film was released theatrically by Seventh Art Releasing and aired on the PBS series POV.[22] It was nominated for an Emmy Award.[citation needed] In 2013, The Washington Post included both A Perfect Candidate and The War Room on its list of “Best Political Movies Ever.”[23]
In 2000, Cutler created American High, a “nonfiction drama,” a form of documentary serial storytelling that was new to American network television.[24][25] In the wake of the 1999 Columbine shootings, Cutler and his team spent a school year filming fourteen high-school students outside Chicago and provided them with cameras to record “video diaries.” The thirteen-episode series premiered on Fox in 2000 and was described by The Nation as “a vivid and affecting slice of life on the verge,” and by the New York Daily News as “absolutely riveting.”[26][27][28] Fox canceled the series after four episodes, citing low ratings as it aired opposite the premiere season of CBS’s Big Brother.[29][30]
The following year, PBS broadcast American High twice. During its run, viewership among 12- to 24-year-olds surged, as did traffic to its website.[31] Cutler later reflected, “Rescuing American High by taking it to PBS was very satisfying. I’m as proud of that as anything I’ve ever done.”[26][32]American High won the 2001 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Nonfiction Program. It was nominated again in 2002, when PBS aired the series in its entirety.[33][26]
In 2007, Cutler spent eight months filming Vogue editor Anna Wintour and her staff as they produced what was then the largest single issue of a magazine ever published. The September Issue, directed and produced by Cutler, premiered at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, where it received the Grand Jury Prize for Cinematography.[34] The film later won the 2010 Cinema Eye Honors Audience Choice Award.[35] Distributed theatrically by Roadside Attractions, The September Issue grossed more than US$6 million worldwide, ranking it among the top 30 highest-grossing documentaries in U.S. box-office history.[36] The film holds an 83% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and was described by Entertainment Weekly as “dishy, glitzy, vibrant, and sensationally fun.”[37]
In the 2010s, Cutler helped to create and executive produce the television drama series Nashville, and directed the pilot and second episode. Nominated for a Writers Guild of America Award for Best New Series, Nashville aired on ABC and CMT from 2012 to 2018.[38] Cutler also directed the feature film If I Stay and created, wrote, directed, and produced the weekly podcast The Oval Office Tapes (2018).[39][40]
Cutler continued his work in feature documentaries and nonfiction series, producing and directing The World According to Dick Cheney (2013), producing the documentary Listen to Me Marlon (2015),[citation needed] and creating and executive producing the series Dear… (2020) for Apple TV+.[41]
Production company
In 2020, Cutler launched his production company This Machine Filmworks with the backing of Industrial Media (now Sony Pictures Television Nonfiction).[42][43]
The first film released under the This Machine banner was Billie Eilish: The World’s a Little Blurry. Directed by Cutler, the film follows Eilish for a year starting just before her 17th birthday and tells the story of how she and her brother Finneas wrote, produced, and recorded her debut album in their family home in Highland Park, Los Angeles. The film was nominated for multiple Emmy Awards, shortlisted for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, and longlisted for both the BAFTA Award for Best Documentary and the Grierson Award for Best Music Documentary.[citation needed]Blurry holds a 96% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.[44] Variety wrote, “It reinvents the music-film form by turning teenage vulnerability and creative process into something grandly cinematic.”[45] The Wrap described it as “An intimate epic that changes what we expect from a music documentary—a film about creation, not celebrity.”[46] The film is featured in media-studies courses on pop-culture storytelling at Boston University and the University of Arizona.[47][48]
Among Cutler’s other directing and producing work for This Machine have been Netflix series Big Vape (2023) [49] and the Disney+ feature documentary Elton John: Never Too Late (2024), which received an Academy Award nomination for Best Song.[50]
In 2024, Cutler directed, wrote, and produced the Netflix documentary Martha, which has a 90% rating on Rotten Tomatoes[51] and was nominated for two Emmys and a WGA award.[52] Variety described it as “a transfixing saga,”[53] while The Guardian called it “hilarious, piercing, and unexpectedly moving.”[54] People magazine noted that “fans can’t stop talking about the emotional honesty and humor of the film.”[55] As of June 2025, Martha had been streamed more than 22 million times worldwide for a total of 40.7 million viewing hours.[56]
In May 2025, Netflix released the This Machine documentary Karol G: Tomorrow Was Beautiful. Directed by Cristina Costantini, the film debuted at No. 1 on Netflix’s Daily Top Ten film chart in the United States, and appeared in the Top 10 in 27 countries.[57][58][59]
In September 2025, the Venice Film Festival premiered This Machine’s feature documentary Marc by Sofia, Sofia Coppola’s first documentary film, which explores her longtime creative collaboration with designer Marc Jacobs.[60]
In August 2025, New York's Paris Theater hosted a two-night program titled "Martha, Billie and Anna: Portraits by R. J. Cutler", screening three of his documentaries and featuring a live Q&A with the director.[61]
Personal life
Cutler lives in Los Angeles, with his wife, producer Jane Cha Cutler and their three children.[62]
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