Errol Morris

Directing

Errol Morris

Born

1948-02-05 (78)

Place of birth

Hewlett, Long Island, New York, USA

Known for

Directing

Credits

63 titles

Errol Morris (born February 5, 1948) is an American director. In 2003, The Guardian put him seventh in its list of the world's 40 best directors. As of 2010, Morris has won one Academy Award for Best Documentary Film. Description above from the Wikipedia article Errol Morris, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Known for

Late Night with David Letterman poster
6.2

Late Night with David Letterman is a nightly hour-long comedy talk show on NBC that was created and hosted by David Letterman. It premiered in 1982 as the first incarnation of the Late Night franchise and went off the air in 1993, after Letterman left NBC and moved to Late Show on CBS. Late Night with Conan O'Brien then filled the time slot. As of March 2, 2009, the slot has been filled by Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. It will be filled by Seth Meyers in the spring of 2014, after Fallon becomes host of The Tonight Show.

Late Night with David Letterman

1982

The Pigeon Tunnel poster
6.6

Academy Award winner Errol Morris pulls back the curtain on the storied life and career of David Cornwell, the former spy known to the literary world as John le Carré.

The Pigeon Tunnel

2023

The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley poster
7.0

With a magical new invention that promised to revolutionize blood testing, Elizabeth Holmes became the world’s youngest self-made billionaire, heralded as the next Steve Jobs. Then, overnight, her 10-billion-dollar company dissolved. The rise and fall of Theranos is a window into the psychology of fraud.

The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley

2019

Chaos: The Manson Murders poster
6.1

In August 1969, Charles Manson's followers killed seven people on his orders. Why? Explore a conspiracy of mind control, CIA experiments, and murder.

Chaos: The Manson Murders

2025

A Wilderness of Error poster
6.0

When Army surgeon Jeffrey MacDonald is sent to prison for killing his family, a storm of swirling narratives challenges our very ability to find the truth all the while overshadowing a chilling possibility: MacDonald may be an innocent man. Based on the best-selling book by Errol Morris.

A Wilderness of Error

2020

The Fog of War poster
7.7

Former corporate whiz kid Robert McNamara was the controversial Secretary of Defense in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, during the height of the Vietnam War. Augmented by archival footage and cabinet conversation recordings, Errol Morris gives the conflicted McNamara a platform on which he attempts to confront his and the U.S. government's actions in Southeast Asia in light of the horrors of modern warfare, the end of ideology and the punitive judgment of history.

The Fog of War

2003

Film credits

2020s · 2 titles

2010s · 8 titles

The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley poster
7.0

With a magical new invention that promised to revolutionize blood testing, Elizabeth Holmes became the world’s youngest self-made billionaire, heralded as the next Steve Jobs. Then, overnight, her 10-billion-dollar company dissolved. The rise and fall of Theranos is a window into the psychology of fraud.

The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley

2019

The B-Side: Elsa Dorfman's Portrait Photography poster
6.8

Portrait photographer Elsa Dorfman found her medium in 1980: the larger-than-life Polaroid Land 20x24 camera. For the next 35 years, she captures the 'surfaces' of those who visit her studio: families, Beat poets, rock stars, and Harvard notables. As pictures begin to fade and her retirement looms, Dorfman gives Errol Morris an inside tour of her backyard archive.

The B-Side: Elsa Dorfman's Portrait Photography

2017

Life Itself poster
7.5

The surprising and entertaining life of renowned film critic and social commentator Roger Ebert (1942-2013): his early days as a freewheeling bachelor and Pulitzer Prize winner, his famously contentious partnership with Gene Siskel, his life-altering marriage, and his brave and transcendent battle with cancer.

Life Itself

2014

American Dharma poster
6.6

A portrait of controversial Breitbart honcho and Donald Trump advisor, Stephen K. Bannon. In a wide ranging conversation spanning over 16 hours, documentarian Errol Morris questions Bannon on his background, belief system, his worldview, his current feelings on Donald Trump, and how filmmakers including Henry King, John Ford, and Orson Welles helped form part of Bannon’s understanding of the world.

American Dharma

2019

An Art That Nature Makes: The Work of Rosamond Purcell poster
5.0

Finding unexpected beauty in the discarded and decayed, photographer Rosamond Purcell has developed an oeuvre of work that has garnered international acclaim, graced the pages of National Geographic and over 20 published books, and has enlisted admirers such as Jonathan Safran Foer, Errol Morris and Stephen Jay Gould. AN ART THAT NATURE MAKES details Purcell’s fascination with the natural world—from a mastodon tooth to a hydrocephalic skull—offering insight into her unique way of recontextualizing objects both ordinary and strange into sometimes disturbing but always breathtaking imagery.

An Art That Nature Makes: The Work of Rosamond Purcell

2016

Werner Herzog and Errol Morris on 'The Act of Killing' poster
NR

Directors Errol Morris and Werner Herzog describe and discuss the film The Act of Killing (2012).

Werner Herzog and Errol Morris on 'The Act of Killing'

2013

The Unknown Known poster
6.8

Former United States Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld discusses his career in Washington D.C. from his days as a congressman in the early 1960s to planning the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

The Unknown Known

2013

Bob Geldof: The Moment poster
NR

Bob Geldof grew up listening to the radio on the outskirts of Dublin, where his loneliness and resentment of prescribed drudgery manifested itself in an all-consuming desire to escape. It was an almost quintessential rock-star story — rebellion, transgression, fame, drugs, escapades, fading glory. That is, until he turned on the news one late-October evening in 1984 and saw a short story about a famine that moved him and changed his life. The next year, Mr. Geldof was in the Sahel region of Africa, overseeing distribution of the $140 million he and his fellow musicians ultimately helped to raise in one of the largest charity efforts ever organized.

Bob Geldof: The Moment

2014

2000s · 3 titles

1990s · 2 titles

1980s · 4 titles

Series credits

Late Night with David Letterman poster
6.2

Late Night with David Letterman is a nightly hour-long comedy talk show on NBC that was created and hosted by David Letterman. It premiered in 1982 as the first incarnation of the Late Night franchise and went off the air in 1993, after Letterman left NBC and moved to Late Show on CBS. Late Night with Conan O'Brien then filled the time slot. As of March 2, 2009, the slot has been filled by Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. It will be filled by Seth Meyers in the spring of 2014, after Fallon becomes host of The Tonight Show.

Late Night with David Letterman

1982

A Wilderness of Error poster
6.0

When Army surgeon Jeffrey MacDonald is sent to prison for killing his family, a storm of swirling narratives challenges our very ability to find the truth all the while overshadowing a chilling possibility: MacDonald may be an innocent man. Based on the best-selling book by Errol Morris.

A Wilderness of Error

2020

First Person poster
8.2

First Person was an American TV series produced and directed by Errol Morris. The show engaged a varied group of individuals from civil advocates to criminals. Interviews were conducted with "The Interrotron", a device similar to a teleprompter: Errol and his subject each sit facing a camera. The image of each person's face is then projected onto a two-way mirror positioned in front of the lens of the other's camera. Instead of looking at a blank lens, then, both Morris and his subject are looking directly at a human face. Morris believes that the machine encourages monologue in the interview process, while also encouraging the interviewees to "express themselves to camera".

First Person

2000

No artwork available
8.3

In these insightful one-on-one interviews, the industry’s biggest and brightest join host Elvis Mitchell (film authoritarian and critic for The New York Times) in front of a live audience for an in-depth look at the art of filmmaking and a discussion about their latest and greatest works.

Independent Focus

1998

Behind the camera

The Pigeon Tunnel poster
6.6

Academy Award winner Errol Morris pulls back the curtain on the storied life and career of David Cornwell, the former spy known to the literary world as John le Carré.

The Pigeon Tunnel

2023

The Pigeon Tunnel poster
6.6

Academy Award winner Errol Morris pulls back the curtain on the storied life and career of David Cornwell, the former spy known to the literary world as John le Carré.

The Pigeon Tunnel

2023

The Pigeon Tunnel poster
6.6

Academy Award winner Errol Morris pulls back the curtain on the storied life and career of David Cornwell, the former spy known to the literary world as John le Carré.

The Pigeon Tunnel

2023

Chaos: The Manson Murders poster
6.1

In August 1969, Charles Manson's followers killed seven people on his orders. Why? Explore a conspiracy of mind control, CIA experiments, and murder.

Chaos: The Manson Murders

2025

Chaos: The Manson Murders poster
6.1

In August 1969, Charles Manson's followers killed seven people on his orders. Why? Explore a conspiracy of mind control, CIA experiments, and murder.

Chaos: The Manson Murders

2025

The Fog of War poster
7.7

Former corporate whiz kid Robert McNamara was the controversial Secretary of Defense in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, during the height of the Vietnam War. Augmented by archival footage and cabinet conversation recordings, Errol Morris gives the conflicted McNamara a platform on which he attempts to confront his and the U.S. government's actions in Southeast Asia in light of the horrors of modern warfare, the end of ideology and the punitive judgment of history.

The Fog of War

2003

The Fog of War poster
7.7

Former corporate whiz kid Robert McNamara was the controversial Secretary of Defense in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, during the height of the Vietnam War. Augmented by archival footage and cabinet conversation recordings, Errol Morris gives the conflicted McNamara a platform on which he attempts to confront his and the U.S. government's actions in Southeast Asia in light of the horrors of modern warfare, the end of ideology and the punitive judgment of history.

The Fog of War

2003

The B-Side: Elsa Dorfman's Portrait Photography poster
6.8

Portrait photographer Elsa Dorfman found her medium in 1980: the larger-than-life Polaroid Land 20x24 camera. For the next 35 years, she captures the 'surfaces' of those who visit her studio: families, Beat poets, rock stars, and Harvard notables. As pictures begin to fade and her retirement looms, Dorfman gives Errol Morris an inside tour of her backyard archive.

The B-Side: Elsa Dorfman's Portrait Photography

2017

My Psychedelic Love Story poster
6.0

An examination of the notorious high priest of LSD Timothy Leary through the eyes of his famed lover Joanna Harcourt-Smith.

My Psychedelic Love Story

2020

The Thin Blue Line poster
7.7

One night in November 1976, after his car breaks down on a road outside Dallas, Randall Dale Adams accepts a ride from teenager David Harris. Harris is driving a stolen vehicle and, later that night, when Dallas police officer Robert Wood pulls the car over to check its headlights, he is shot and killed. A jury believes Adams is the killer, but stylized reenactments and interviews with key figures, conflicting testimonies and evidence are presented to argue that Adams was framed by a corrupt justice system, ultimately leading to his exoneration.

The Thin Blue Line

1988

The Thin Blue Line poster
7.7

One night in November 1976, after his car breaks down on a road outside Dallas, Randall Dale Adams accepts a ride from teenager David Harris. Harris is driving a stolen vehicle and, later that night, when Dallas police officer Robert Wood pulls the car over to check its headlights, he is shot and killed. A jury believes Adams is the killer, but stylized reenactments and interviews with key figures, conflicting testimonies and evidence are presented to argue that Adams was framed by a corrupt justice system, ultimately leading to his exoneration.

The Thin Blue Line

1988

A Brief History of Time poster
7.2

Partly adapted from cosmologist Stephen Hawking's popular book about his theories of the universe, this in-depth documentary also presents Hawking's daily life as he deals with the ALS that renders him virtually immobile and unable to speak without the use of a computer. Hawking's friends, family, former classmates and peers are interviewed about not only his theories but the man himself.

A Brief History of Time

1991

The Dark Wind poster
5.5

What begins as a Navajo officer's investigation into a prop plane crash on his Southwest reservation gives way to a drug smuggling ring and murder.

The Dark Wind

1992

Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter, Jr. poster
7.0

Documentary filmmaker Errol Morris investigates the case of a man who became an authority on capital punishment, but was discredited when he got involved on the wrong side of a court case. Leuchter, a meek man whose appearance belies his grim expertise, develops what he says is a more effective electric chair. Before long, he's in demand from officials who want his opinions on other execution methods. But when called to aid the case of an accused Holocaust denier, Leuchter's problems begin.

Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter, Jr.

1999

Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter, Jr. poster
7.0

Documentary filmmaker Errol Morris investigates the case of a man who became an authority on capital punishment, but was discredited when he got involved on the wrong side of a court case. Leuchter, a meek man whose appearance belies his grim expertise, develops what he says is a more effective electric chair. Before long, he's in demand from officials who want his opinions on other execution methods. But when called to aid the case of an accused Holocaust denier, Leuchter's problems begin.

Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter, Jr.

1999

Vernon, Florida poster
6.8

Early Errol Morris documentary intersplices random chatter he captured on film of the genuinely eccentric residents of Vernon, Florida. A few examples? The preacher giving a sermon on the definition of the word "Therefore," and the obsessive turkey hunter who speaks reverentially of the "gobblers" he likes to track down and kill.

Vernon, Florida

1981

Vernon, Florida poster
6.8

Early Errol Morris documentary intersplices random chatter he captured on film of the genuinely eccentric residents of Vernon, Florida. A few examples? The preacher giving a sermon on the definition of the word "Therefore," and the obsessive turkey hunter who speaks reverentially of the "gobblers" he likes to track down and kill.

Vernon, Florida

1981

Standard Operating Procedure poster
6.8

Investigating the infamous Abu Ghraib scandal, Errol Morris interviews American guards and Iraqi prisoners who were at the military jail before images of prisoner torture emerged in 2004. One female guard, who posed alongside fallen Iraqis in notorious images, tells Morris that her crimes were inspired by her love for another soldier, and another explains why she took photographs of her fellow troops. In the process, Morris suggests that the scandal resulted from systemic flaws in the military.

Standard Operating Procedure

2008

Standard Operating Procedure poster
6.8

Investigating the infamous Abu Ghraib scandal, Errol Morris interviews American guards and Iraqi prisoners who were at the military jail before images of prisoner torture emerged in 2004. One female guard, who posed alongside fallen Iraqis in notorious images, tells Morris that her crimes were inspired by her love for another soldier, and another explains why she took photographs of her fellow troops. In the process, Morris suggests that the scandal resulted from systemic flaws in the military.

Standard Operating Procedure

2008

Fast, Cheap & Out of Control poster
6.8

Errol Morris interweaves the stories of four men, each driven to create eccentric worlds from their unique obsessions, all of which involve animals: a lion tamer shares his theories on the mental processes of wild animals; a topiary gardener devotes a lifetime to shaping bears and giraffes out of hedges and trees; a man fascinated with hairless mole rats; and an MIT scientist who has designed complex, autonomous robots that can crawl like bugs.

Fast, Cheap & Out of Control

1997

Fast, Cheap & Out of Control poster
6.8

Errol Morris interweaves the stories of four men, each driven to create eccentric worlds from their unique obsessions, all of which involve animals: a lion tamer shares his theories on the mental processes of wild animals; a topiary gardener devotes a lifetime to shaping bears and giraffes out of hedges and trees; a man fascinated with hairless mole rats; and an MIT scientist who has designed complex, autonomous robots that can crawl like bugs.

Fast, Cheap & Out of Control

1997

Wormwood poster
6.9

In this genre-bending tale, Errol Morris explores the mysterious death of a U.S. scientist entangled in a secret Cold War program known as MK-Ultra.

Wormwood

2017

Gates of Heaven poster
6.8

A showcase of workers in the animal burial industry while dealing with heavier existential questions regarding mortality and the afterlife. Floyd 'Mac' McClure believes that a graceful burial is as important for pets as it is for people; he chronicles his struggles to keep his niche business afloat, and interviews several of his associates and one of his competitors, the manager of a rendering plant.

Gates of Heaven

1978

Gates of Heaven poster
6.8

A showcase of workers in the animal burial industry while dealing with heavier existential questions regarding mortality and the afterlife. Floyd 'Mac' McClure believes that a graceful burial is as important for pets as it is for people; he chronicles his struggles to keep his niche business afloat, and interviews several of his associates and one of his competitors, the manager of a rendering plant.

Gates of Heaven

1978

Separated poster
6.0

Academy Award®-winning filmmaker Errol Morris confronts one of the darkest chapters in recent American history: family separations. Based on NBC News Political and National Correspondent Jacob Soboroff’s book, Separated: Inside an American Tragedy, Morris merges bombshell interviews with government officials and artful narrative vignettes tracing one migrant family’s plight. Together they show that the cruelty at the heart of this policy was its very purpose. Against this backdrop, audiences can begin to absorb the U.S. government’s role in developing and implementing policies that have kept over 1300 children without confirmed reunifications years later, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

Separated

2024

Separated poster
6.0

Academy Award®-winning filmmaker Errol Morris confronts one of the darkest chapters in recent American history: family separations. Based on NBC News Political and National Correspondent Jacob Soboroff’s book, Separated: Inside an American Tragedy, Morris merges bombshell interviews with government officials and artful narrative vignettes tracing one migrant family’s plight. Together they show that the cruelty at the heart of this policy was its very purpose. Against this backdrop, audiences can begin to absorb the U.S. government’s role in developing and implementing policies that have kept over 1300 children without confirmed reunifications years later, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

Separated

2024

American Dharma poster
6.6

A portrait of controversial Breitbart honcho and Donald Trump advisor, Stephen K. Bannon. In a wide ranging conversation spanning over 16 hours, documentarian Errol Morris questions Bannon on his background, belief system, his worldview, his current feelings on Donald Trump, and how filmmakers including Henry King, John Ford, and Orson Welles helped form part of Bannon’s understanding of the world.

American Dharma

2019

American Dharma poster
6.6

A portrait of controversial Breitbart honcho and Donald Trump advisor, Stephen K. Bannon. In a wide ranging conversation spanning over 16 hours, documentarian Errol Morris questions Bannon on his background, belief system, his worldview, his current feelings on Donald Trump, and how filmmakers including Henry King, John Ford, and Orson Welles helped form part of Bannon’s understanding of the world.

American Dharma

2019

Tune Out the Noise poster
NR

TUNE OUT THE NOISE is about a group of unlikely upstarts who crossed paths at the University of Chicago in the middle of the 20th century, just as computers were first being used to analyze data. That serendipitous, monumental shift enabled them to develop, and then apply, research that turned Wall Street upside down, from its ineffectual investing methods to how those were sold to the public. This is a story about a decades-long revolution of science triumphing over speculation in the financial services industry. It's an illuminating exploration of how markets work, and why that matters.

Tune Out the Noise

2023

Tune Out the Noise poster
NR

TUNE OUT THE NOISE is about a group of unlikely upstarts who crossed paths at the University of Chicago in the middle of the 20th century, just as computers were first being used to analyze data. That serendipitous, monumental shift enabled them to develop, and then apply, research that turned Wall Street upside down, from its ineffectual investing methods to how those were sold to the public. This is a story about a decades-long revolution of science triumphing over speculation in the financial services industry. It's an illuminating exploration of how markets work, and why that matters.

Tune Out the Noise

2023

Demon in the Freezer poster
6.0

Errol Morris' "Demon in the Freezer" is a short 17-minute documentary about the stockpiles of the smallpox virus that remain stored for research purposes.

Demon in the Freezer

2016

Tabloid poster
6.4

One of America's top documentary filmmakers turns his attention to the outrageous and nearly unbelievable story of Joyce McKinney, a former Miss Wyoming beauty queen who gained a great deal of notoriety after being accused of kidnapping a young Mormon missionary, restraining him in chains and raping him in 1977 England. The unbalanced McKinney is extensively interviewed, particularly about her ambition to write a memoir telling her side of the tale.

Tabloid

2011

The Movie Movie (An Excerpt) poster
NR

A documentary featuring Donald Trump discussing Citizen Kane.

The Movie Movie (An Excerpt)

2002

The Movie Movie (An Excerpt) poster
NR

A documentary featuring Donald Trump discussing Citizen Kane.

The Movie Movie (An Excerpt)

2002

The Unknown Known poster
6.8

Former United States Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld discusses his career in Washington D.C. from his days as a congressman in the early 1960s to planning the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

The Unknown Known

2013

The Unknown Known poster
6.8

Former United States Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld discusses his career in Washington D.C. from his days as a congressman in the early 1960s to planning the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

The Unknown Known

2013

11 Excellent Reasons Not to Vote? poster
NR

Do we have reasons not to vote? How can we hear so much about the election, and not participate? If hope isn’t doing it, isn’t the fear of the other guy winning enough to brave the roads, the long lines?

11 Excellent Reasons Not to Vote?

2012

They Were There poster
5.3

What does it mean to be an IBMer? Every employee experiences the company in different ways, but the global impact IBM has made on business and society over the last 100 years gives us all a common framework. "They Were There" is told by first-hand witnesses—current and retired employees and clients—who were there when IBM helped to change the way world works.

They Were There

2011

No artwork available
NR

Lech Walesa, a shipyard worker and electrician in Soviet-bloc Poland, earned a reputation as an agitator and rabble-rouser in the 1970s for speaking out against Communist control of labor unions. Mr. Walesa was subjected to frequent firings and intense police scrutiny. But he was undeterred, continuing his fight for fairer labor laws — in particular, the right to strike — until it grew into something even he could not have expected: an independent political movement that became one of the nails in the coffin of the Soviet Union.

Lech Walesa: The Shipyard

2014

Bob Geldof: The Moment poster
NR

Bob Geldof grew up listening to the radio on the outskirts of Dublin, where his loneliness and resentment of prescribed drudgery manifested itself in an all-consuming desire to escape. It was an almost quintessential rock-star story — rebellion, transgression, fame, drugs, escapades, fading glory. That is, until he turned on the news one late-October evening in 1984 and saw a short story about a famine that moved him and changed his life. The next year, Mr. Geldof was in the Sahel region of Africa, overseeing distribution of the $140 million he and his fellow musicians ultimately helped to raise in one of the largest charity efforts ever organized.

Bob Geldof: The Moment

2014