Alex Ross Perry

Directing

Alex Ross Perry

Born 1984-07-14 · Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, USA

Alex Ross Perry is an American filmmaker and actor. He has written and directed a series of feature films centred on unconventional characters and rife with the anxieties and joys of creation. His films have been internationally acclaimed at film festivals such as Sundance, Toronto, Locarno, Berlin, and others. He is most known for Listen Up Philip, which premiered in 2014 at the Sundance Film Festival and later won the Special Jury Prize at the 2014 Locarno International Film Festival, and Her Smell (2018), which premiered at the Toronto Film Festival and screened at the New York Film Festival the same year. Besides being a prolific independent filmmaker with many of his fiction feature films internationally recognised, he also experimented with documentary, non-fiction, and music. His documentary-fiction hybrid, Pavements (2024), is an experimental musical biopic concert film that premiered at the 2024 Venice Film Festival.

Acting credits

An Almost Christmas Story poster
7.0

A young owl meets a lost little girl in New York City. Together, they try to get home for Christmas.

An Almost Christmas Story

2024

Pavements poster
6.7

'90s indie-rock band Pavement reunites for their sold-out 2022 tour. But as preparations get underway, surreal tributes emerge: an off-Broadway musical adaptation of their songs, a museum devoted entirely to the band’s legacy, and a shamelessly awards-baiting Hollywood biopic.

Pavements

2025

Joshy poster
5.6

After his engagement ends badly, Josh decides to take advantage of his bachelor-party plans in Ojai, California, with the few friends still willing to join him. Focused on drugs and their own hangups, his self-absorbed friends refuse to confront the elephant in the room and ask Josh how he’s feeling. As welcome and unwelcome guests stop by, Josh will attempt to find some closure over this weekend with the guys.

Joshy

2016

Paul Schrader: Man in a Room poster
6.0

In the sixth installment of the Criterion Channel's Meet the Filmmakers series, director Alex Ross Perry (Her Smell, Listen Up Philip) visits the ever-iconoclastic auteur Paul Schrader during the making of his 2017 masterpiece First Reformed. On set and at home- where, for his own pleasure, he continues to work and rework his previous films- Schrader reflects on the highs and lows of his legendary career, the challenges and rewards of slow cinema, and the influences and experiences that continue to shape his approach to filmmaking. With this insightful portrait of one of his filmmaking heroes, Perry captures an artist who is continually at play, intentionally provocative, and never less than vital.

Paul Schrader: Man in a Room

2020

The Color Wheel poster
6.3

JR, an aspiring news-anchor, forces her younger brother Colin to embark on a road trip to move her belongings out of her professor-turned-lover’s place. Traveling through New England, they uncomfortably run into old school-mates or revisit familial history from which they have long since diverged.

The Color Wheel

2012

Tiny Furniture poster
5.6

After graduating from film school, Aura returns to New York to live with her photographer mother, Siri, and her sister, Nadine, who has just finished high school. Aura is directionless and wonders where to go next in her career and her life. She takes a job in a restaurant and tries unsuccessfully to develop relationships with men, including Keith, a chef where she works, and cult Internet star Jed.

Tiny Furniture

2010

Kim's Video poster
6.9

Since 1987, and for almost three decades, New York cinephiles had access to a vast treasure trove of rare films thanks to Kim's Video, a small empire run by Yongman Kim, an enigmatic character who amassed more than fifty thousand VHS tapes.

Kim's Video

2023

Somebody Up There Likes Me poster
5.2

Thirty-five years in the life of Max, his best friend Sal and a woman they both adore, Lyla. The trio stumble through mandatory but seemingly unfulfilling entanglements, at weddings, funerals, hospitals, eateries, divorce courts and the tool shed. A deadpan fable about time sneaking up on and swerving right around us.

Somebody Up There Likes Me

2013

7 Chinese Brothers poster
5.3

Larry is an unqualified, unemployable, inebriated prankster who rides a tide of booze onto the glorious shores of an undiscriminating Quick-Lube. Taking a part-time job vacuuming and washing windshields, Larry finds himself mixed up with hostile co-workers and unsatisfied customers, while also finding himself smitten with his lovely boss, Lupe Torrez. Will Larry keep it together long enough to win the girl, provide for man's best friend (his dog Arrow), and do his grandmother proud?

7 Chinese Brothers

2015

At the Video Store poster
10.0

Equal parts personal essay, intense rumination, and playful satire, this movie laments the death of the American Video Store while it searches for the missing human element in today's digital landscape.

At the Video Store

2019

90 Years of the Music Box Theatre poster
NR

Nominated for two Chicago/Midwest Emmy awards including Outstanding Historical Documentary and Outstanding Off-Camera Directing, "90 Years of the Music Box Theatre" depicts filmmakers Werner Herzog, Lana Wachowski, Michael Shannon, Joe Swanberg, and more as they celebrate a 90-year-old cinema institution in Chicago, IL.

90 Years of the Music Box Theatre

2019

Joel Calls Indie Film Type Dudes poster
NR

Joel Potrykus calls fellow indie filmmakers during the pandemic crisis to check in and see how they're holding up.

Joel Calls Indie Film Type Dudes

2020

Honky Kong poster
NR

A soul-battered New York chef begins unraveling during a trip to Hong Kong.

Honky Kong

2021

Green poster
5.1

A New Yorker moves to the country with her boyfriend, where her new friendship causes a problem as her partner also takes an interest in the woman.

Green

2011

Devil Town poster
5.0

A young woman's sister goes missing. She then sets out on a quest through Brooklyn to find her on her own, enlisting the help of a motley crew of New York weirdos.

Devil Town

2015

Impolex poster
5.1

Impolex tells the story of Tyrone S., a United States soldier in Operation Paperclip, the mission to locate and retrieve German rockets and rocket science after the end of World War II. Tyrone is tasked with finding what he believes are the last V-2’s. Lost in the woods of an undefined European country, people from Tyrone’s past begin to appear in unusual ways, bearing strange tidings. A loved one he abandoned for the war is especially prominent in Tyrone’s journey, as is a fellow soldier and a mysterious man with tidings of the present and the future that are not yet known to Tyrone.

Impolex

2009

Happy Life poster
5.0

New York Tunez, an all techno record store, is going under. The owner, Keith, a down and out trance DJ, struggles to cope with the changing cultural climate. In a final effort to save the store he organizes a rave. Unfortunately, 2009 is a far cry from the early '90s.

Happy Life

2011

Not Getting Stoned with Alex Ross Perry poster
NR

Caveh gets stoned but Alex Ross Perry doesn't.

Not Getting Stoned with Alex Ross Perry

2019

The Last Film poster
6.5

A famous American filmmaker travels to the Yucatán to scout locations for his last movie. The Mayan Apocalypse intercedes.

The Last Film

2013

Alex Ross Perry poster
NR

Interview with filmmaker Alex Ross Perry.

Alex Ross Perry

2014

Behind the camera

Christopher Robin poster
7.3

Christopher Robin, the boy who had countless adventures in the Hundred Acre Wood, has grown up and lost his way. Now it’s up to his spirited and loveable stuffed animals, Winnie The Pooh, Tigger, Piglet, and the rest of the gang, to rekindle their friendship and remind him of endless days of childlike wonder and make-believe, when doing nothing was the very best something.

Christopher Robin

2018

Rite Here Rite Now poster
8.9

Whether you’re a devoted disciple looking to relive treasured memories of the GHOST live spectacle or among the curious uninitiated, RITE HERE RITE NOW will put you right there: putting your phones down and living in the moment—as a shadow of uncertainty looms—completely spellbound and in the thrall of this bombastic yet intimate cinematic portrait of GHOST.

Rite Here Rite Now

2024

V/H/S/Halloween poster
6.2

A collection of Halloween-themed videotapes unleashes a series of twisted, blood-soaked tales, turning trick-or-treat into a struggle for survival.

V/H/S/Halloween

2025

V/H/S/Halloween poster
6.2

A collection of Halloween-themed videotapes unleashes a series of twisted, blood-soaked tales, turning trick-or-treat into a struggle for survival.

V/H/S/Halloween

2025

The Sweet East poster
6.5

A picaresque journey through contemporary America, undertaken by a young woman granted access to the strange sects and cults that proliferate in this country by a series of gatekeepers eager to win her over.

The Sweet East

2023

Her Smell poster
5.7

A self-destructive punk rocker struggles with sobriety while trying to recapture the creative inspiration that led her band to success.

Her Smell

2019

Her Smell poster
5.7

A self-destructive punk rocker struggles with sobriety while trying to recapture the creative inspiration that led her band to success.

Her Smell

2019

Her Smell poster
5.7

A self-destructive punk rocker struggles with sobriety while trying to recapture the creative inspiration that led her band to success.

Her Smell

2019

Nostalgia poster
5.5

A mosaic of stories about love and loss, exploring our relationship to the objects, artifacts, and memories that shape our lives.

Nostalgia

2018

Pavements poster
6.7

'90s indie-rock band Pavement reunites for their sold-out 2022 tour. But as preparations get underway, surreal tributes emerge: an off-Broadway musical adaptation of their songs, a museum devoted entirely to the band’s legacy, and a shamelessly awards-baiting Hollywood biopic.

Pavements

2025

Pavements poster
6.7

'90s indie-rock band Pavement reunites for their sold-out 2022 tour. But as preparations get underway, surreal tributes emerge: an off-Broadway musical adaptation of their songs, a museum devoted entirely to the band’s legacy, and a shamelessly awards-baiting Hollywood biopic.

Pavements

2025

Pavements poster
6.7

'90s indie-rock band Pavement reunites for their sold-out 2022 tour. But as preparations get underway, surreal tributes emerge: an off-Broadway musical adaptation of their songs, a museum devoted entirely to the band’s legacy, and a shamelessly awards-baiting Hollywood biopic.

Pavements

2025

Listen Up Philip poster
5.8

Anger rages in Philip as he awaits the publication of his second novel. He feels pushed out of his adopted home city by the constant crowds and noise, a deteriorating relationship with his photographer girlfriend Ashley, and his own indifference to promoting the novel. When Philip's idol Ike Zimmerman offers his isolated summer home as a refuge, he finally gets the peace and quiet to focus on his favorite subject: himself.

Listen Up Philip

2014

Listen Up Philip poster
5.8

Anger rages in Philip as he awaits the publication of his second novel. He feels pushed out of his adopted home city by the constant crowds and noise, a deteriorating relationship with his photographer girlfriend Ashley, and his own indifference to promoting the novel. When Philip's idol Ike Zimmerman offers his isolated summer home as a refuge, he finally gets the peace and quiet to focus on his favorite subject: himself.

Listen Up Philip

2014

Golden Exits poster
5.8

An intersectional narrative of two families in Brooklyn and the unraveling of unspoken unhappiness that occurs when a young foreign girl spending time abroad upsets the balance on both sides.

Golden Exits

2018

Golden Exits poster
5.8

An intersectional narrative of two families in Brooklyn and the unraveling of unspoken unhappiness that occurs when a young foreign girl spending time abroad upsets the balance on both sides.

Golden Exits

2018

Golden Exits poster
5.8

An intersectional narrative of two families in Brooklyn and the unraveling of unspoken unhappiness that occurs when a young foreign girl spending time abroad upsets the balance on both sides.

Golden Exits

2018

Paul Schrader: Man in a Room poster
6.0

In the sixth installment of the Criterion Channel's Meet the Filmmakers series, director Alex Ross Perry (Her Smell, Listen Up Philip) visits the ever-iconoclastic auteur Paul Schrader during the making of his 2017 masterpiece First Reformed. On set and at home- where, for his own pleasure, he continues to work and rework his previous films- Schrader reflects on the highs and lows of his legendary career, the challenges and rewards of slow cinema, and the influences and experiences that continue to shape his approach to filmmaking. With this insightful portrait of one of his filmmaking heroes, Perry captures an artist who is continually at play, intentionally provocative, and never less than vital.

Paul Schrader: Man in a Room

2020

Queen of Earth poster
6.0

Two women retreat to a lake house to get a break from the pressures of the outside world, only to realize how disconnected from each other they have become, allowing their suspicions to bleed into reality.

Queen of Earth

2015

Queen of Earth poster
6.0

Two women retreat to a lake house to get a break from the pressures of the outside world, only to realize how disconnected from each other they have become, allowing their suspicions to bleed into reality.

Queen of Earth

2015

Queen of Earth poster
6.0

Two women retreat to a lake house to get a break from the pressures of the outside world, only to realize how disconnected from each other they have become, allowing their suspicions to bleed into reality.

Queen of Earth

2015

The Color Wheel poster
6.3

JR, an aspiring news-anchor, forces her younger brother Colin to embark on a road trip to move her belongings out of her professor-turned-lover’s place. Traveling through New England, they uncomfortably run into old school-mates or revisit familial history from which they have long since diverged.

The Color Wheel

2012

The Color Wheel poster
6.3

JR, an aspiring news-anchor, forces her younger brother Colin to embark on a road trip to move her belongings out of her professor-turned-lover’s place. Traveling through New England, they uncomfortably run into old school-mates or revisit familial history from which they have long since diverged.

The Color Wheel

2012

The Color Wheel poster
6.3

JR, an aspiring news-anchor, forces her younger brother Colin to embark on a road trip to move her belongings out of her professor-turned-lover’s place. Traveling through New England, they uncomfortably run into old school-mates or revisit familial history from which they have long since diverged.

The Color Wheel

2012