Matthew Heineman

Matthew Heineman is an Academy Award-nominated, nine-time Emmy Award-winning, and two-time DGA Award-winning filmmaker. The Sundance Film Festival called Heineman “one of the most talented and exciting documentary filmmakers working today,” while Anne Thompson of IndieWire wrote that Heineman is a “respected and gifted filmmaker who combines gonzo fearlessness with empathetic sensitivity.”

In 2019, he received a nomination for Outstanding Directorial Achievement of a First Time Feature Film Director from the Directors Guild of America for his narrative debut, A Private War – making Heineman and Martin Scorsese the only filmmakers ever nominated for both narrative and documentary DGA Awards. A Private War stars Jamie Dornan, Tom Hollander, Stanley Tucci, and Oscar-nominee Rosamund Pike as legendary war reporter Marie Colvin. The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival to widespread critical acclaim before being released nationwide by Aviron Pictures. It was a New York Times Critics’ Pick, and Variety hailed the film as “Heineman’s astonishing narrative debut” and “an incredibly sophisticated, psychologically immersive film.” A Private War also earned two Golden Globe nominations for Best Actress and Best Original Song.

His latest film, American Symphony, is a portrait of Academy Award and Grammy-winning musician Jon Batiste. While composing an original symphony for Carnegie Hall, Batiste receives 11 Grammy nominations and is at a career high. But this trajectory is upended when his life partner — best-selling author Suleika Jaouad — learns that her long dormant cancer has returned in this film about two artists at a crossroads. It premiered at the 2023 Telluride Film Festival where it was lauded by both audiences and critics, and was subsequently acquired by Netflix and Barack and Michelle Obama’s Higher Ground. Clayton Davis of Variety hailed the film as “quite possibly one of the best love stories seen on film in over two decades” while Daniel Feinberg of The Hollywood Reporter called the film “a celebration of art, resilience and the mutability of the human spirit.” American Symphony was shortlisted for an Academy Award, won the PGA Award for Outstanding Producer of Documentary Motion Pictures, and has received over 40 nominations including the BAFTA Film Award, Critics Choice Award, and NAACP Image Award. The film is available to stream on Netflix.

Heineman previously directed and produced Retrograde, which offers a cinematic and historic window onto the end of America’s twenty-year war in Afghanistan and the costs endured for those most intimately involved from rarely seen operational control rooms to the frontlines of battle to the chaotic Kabul airport during the final U.S. withdrawal. The feature documentary from National Geographic Films premiered at the Telluride Film Festival in 2022, where it received wide-spread critical acclaim. Retrograde was shortlisted for an Academy Award, nominated for a DGA and PGA Award, and was nominated for six Emmy awards, winning for Outstanding Current Affairs Documentary, Outstanding Cinematography, and Outstanding Editing. It also received a Producing Award from DOC NYC, and was honored with the Edward R. Murrow Award for Feature Documentary. The Wrap commended the film as “a triumph of access and unbelievable bravery,” while Salon called it “chilling” extolling that “Heineman has become famous for his cinema verité approach that avoids both interviews and voiceovers, but this film takes that signature style to an entirely new level of art.” The Times proclaimed it “hair-raising” and that Heineman “creates some of the most beautiful images in documentary film-making today.” Following the November 2022 theatrical release, Retrograde premiered on National Geographic Channel on December 8th, 2022 and is now available to stream on Disney+ and Hulu.

Prior to Retrograde, Heineman directed, produced, shot, and edited The First Wave, a feature documentary film with exclusive access inside one of New York City’s hardest-hit hospital systems during the harrowing first four months of the Covid-19 pandemic. The First Wave received the International Documentary Association’s prestigious Pare Lorentz Award, was shortlisted for an Academy Award, and was nominated for seven Emmy awards, winning Best Documentary, Best Cinematography, and Best Editing. The film was a New York Times Critics’ Pick hailed by The Hollywood Reporter as a “masterfully crafted film” and Variety as “a courageous and astonishing cinematic time capsule.” Released by National Geographic Documentary Films and NEON, the film is available on Hulu.

Previously, Heineman directed Amazon’s The Boy From Medellin, an astonishingly intimate portrait of international superstar J Balvin that premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival before being released by Amazon Studios. Additionally, Heineman co-directed with Matthew Hamachek the Emmy winning two-part documentary Tiger, which he also executive produced. The documentary, which was released by HBO in two parts in January 2021, offers a revealing look at the rise, fall, and epic comeback of global icon Tiger Woods.

Heineman directed and executive produced The Trade, a Showtime docu-series that chronicles a different topic each season, from the opioid crisis to human trafficking, through the eyes of those most affected. It was described by The Hollywood Reporter as “a thriller… like Traffic only current and real”, while the New York Times said, “Heineman has shown an uncanny ability to gain access to hard-to-reach people and places.” Both seasons of the show premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and received overwhelming critical acclaim and awards recognition. It won Best Episodic Series at the 2018 IDA Awards for season one, as well as two News & Documentary Emmy Awards for season two, including Outstanding Direction for Heineman.

His documentary film City of Ghosts, which follows a group of citizen-journalists exposing the horrors of ISIS, premiered at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival and was distributed worldwide by Amazon Studios before having its broadcast premiere on A&E. Heineman won his second Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Documentary Award from the DGA for the film- one of only three directors to win the prestigious honor twice. City of Ghosts also won the Courage Under Fire Award from the International Documentary Association “in recognition of conspicuous bravery in the pursuit of the truth” and was listed on over 20 critics year-end lists for Best Documentary of 2017. The film was also nominated for a BAFTA Award, PGA Award, IDA Award, and Primetime Emmy for Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking.

Cartel Land, which explores vigilantes taking on the Mexican drug cartels, was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature and won three Primetime Emmy Awards, including Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking and Best Cinematography. The film premiered in the U.S. Documentary Competition at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival, where Heineman won the Best Director Award and Special Jury Prize for Cinematography. Cartel Land was also awarded the Courage Under Fire Award, the DGA Award for Outstanding Achievement in Documentary, and the George Polk Award in Journalism. The film was released theatrically nationwide by The Orchard and had its broadcast premiere on A&E.

He previously co-directed and produced the feature-length, Emmy-nominated documentary Escape Fire: The Fight to Rescure American Healthcare; collaborated for two years on the Emmy-nominated HBO series, The Alzheimer’s Project; and also directed and produced Our Time, his first documentary about what it’s like to be young in America.

Heineman founded Our Time Projects, a New York based production company that produced some of Heineman’s gripping and unprecedented films such as City of Ghosts and Retrograde, in 2009. Heineman, a 2005 graduate of Dartmouth College, is based in New York City.