Julie Cohen

Directing

Julie Cohen

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA

Julie Cohen is the Academy Award® nominated, Emmy winning director and producer of RBG (2018) along with Betsy West. Also with West, she directed Julia (2021) and My Name is Pauli Murray (2021). Previous films include The Sturgeon Queens, American Veteran and I Live to Sing. Before making documentaries, Julie was a producer for NBC News.

Acting credits

Behind the camera

RBG poster
7.5

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg now 84, and still inspired by the lawyers who defended free speech during the Red Scare, Ginsburg refuses to relinquish her passionate duty, steadily fighting for equal rights for all citizens under the law. Through intimate interviews and unprecedented access to Ginsburg’s life outside the court, RBG tells the electric story of Ginsburg’s consuming love affairs with both the Constitution and her beloved husband Marty—and of a life’s work that led her to become an icon of justice in the highest court in the land.

RBG

2018

RBG poster
7.5

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg now 84, and still inspired by the lawyers who defended free speech during the Red Scare, Ginsburg refuses to relinquish her passionate duty, steadily fighting for equal rights for all citizens under the law. Through intimate interviews and unprecedented access to Ginsburg’s life outside the court, RBG tells the electric story of Ginsburg’s consuming love affairs with both the Constitution and her beloved husband Marty—and of a life’s work that led her to become an icon of justice in the highest court in the land.

RBG

2018

Top of the World poster
NR

Explores Windows on the World, the iconic restaurant that occupied the 106th and 107th floors of the North Tower of the World Trade Center.

Top of the World

2026

Julia poster
6.2

Using never-before-seen archival footage, personal photos, first-person narratives, and cutting-edge, mouth-watering food cinematography, the film traces Julia Child's surprising path, from her struggles to create and publish the revolutionary Mastering the Art of French Cooking (1961) which has sold more than 2.5 million copies to date, to her empowering story of a woman who found fame in her 50s, and her calling as an unlikely television sensation.

Julia

2021

Julia poster
6.2

Using never-before-seen archival footage, personal photos, first-person narratives, and cutting-edge, mouth-watering food cinematography, the film traces Julia Child's surprising path, from her struggles to create and publish the revolutionary Mastering the Art of French Cooking (1961) which has sold more than 2.5 million copies to date, to her empowering story of a woman who found fame in her 50s, and her calling as an unlikely television sensation.

Julia

2021

Every Body poster
5.2

Three intersex individuals overcame shame, secrecy and unauthorized surgery throughout their childhoods to enjoy successful adulthoods, choosing to ignore medical advice to conceal their bodies and coming out as who they truly are.

Every Body

2023

Natours Grocery poster
NR

Filmmaker Nadine Natour turns her lens on her parents and her hometown, Appomattox, VA, to capture the story of her parents' emigration from Palestine to the United States. An uplifting, layered and often funny portrait of Palestinian Muslim immigrants Gehad and Sabah Natour, as the success of their popular grocery store defies xenophobia in the conservative rural town where the Civil War ended.

Natours Grocery

2020

My Name Is Pauli Murray poster
8.2

Overlooked by history, Pauli Murray was a legal trailblazer whose ideas influenced RBG's fight for gender equality and Thurgood Marshall's landmark civil rights arguments. Featuring never-before-seen footage and audio recordings, a portrait of Murray's impact as a non-binary Black luminary: lawyer, activist, poet, and priest who transformed our world.

My Name Is Pauli Murray

2021

Gabby Giffords Won't Back Down poster
8.5

The extraordinary story of former Arizona Congresswoman Gabby Giffords: her relentless fight to recover following an assassination attempt in 2011, and her new life as one of the most effective activists in the battle against gun violence.

Gabby Giffords Won't Back Down

2022

The Sturgeon Queens poster
6.0

Four generations of a Jewish immigrant family create Russ and Daughters, a Lower East Side lox and herring emporium that survives and thrives. Produced to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the store, this documentary features an extensive interview with two of the original daughters for whom the store was named, now 100 and 92 years old, and interviews with prominent enthusiasts of the store including Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, actress Maggie Gyllenhaal, chef Mario Batali, New Yorker writer Calvin Trillin, and 60 Minutes correspondent Morley Safer. Rather than a conventional narrator, the filmmakers bring together six colorful longtime fans of the store, in their 80s and 90s, who sit around a table of fish reading the script in the style of a passover Seder. - Written by Julie Cohen

The Sturgeon Queens

2014

The Sturgeon Queens poster
6.0

Four generations of a Jewish immigrant family create Russ and Daughters, a Lower East Side lox and herring emporium that survives and thrives. Produced to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the store, this documentary features an extensive interview with two of the original daughters for whom the store was named, now 100 and 92 years old, and interviews with prominent enthusiasts of the store including Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, actress Maggie Gyllenhaal, chef Mario Batali, New Yorker writer Calvin Trillin, and 60 Minutes correspondent Morley Safer. Rather than a conventional narrator, the filmmakers bring together six colorful longtime fans of the store, in their 80s and 90s, who sit around a table of fish reading the script in the style of a passover Seder. - Written by Julie Cohen

The Sturgeon Queens

2014

The Path Forward poster
NR

A growing chorus of Palestinians and Israeli Jews speak up often in cross-cultural pairs against war, occupation and violence, and for peace, justice, empathy and sanity.

The Path Forward

2024

The Path Forward poster
NR

A growing chorus of Palestinians and Israeli Jews speak up often in cross-cultural pairs against war, occupation and violence, and for peace, justice, empathy and sanity.

The Path Forward

2024

No artwork available
NR

Two decades after Mandela's election, opera students struggle to fulfill the promises of a new South Africa. Some of the world's brightest new opera stars are emerging from the black townships of South Africa. When the University of Cape Town's once all white opera school opened its doors to black students after apartheid, a wave of remarkable talent came in. Recent graduates are singing at The Met and La Scala. This documentary musical follows three students from their home townships to Cape Town where they perform at the country's premier opera house, to New York where they sing at the prestigious Glimmerglass Festival. Along the way they confront everything from tuberculosis and racial politics to their parents' fears that music is not a suitable career.

Ndiphilela Ukucula: I Live to Sing

2013

No artwork available
NR

Giovanni Sollima on the cello.

A Joyous Sound

2011

No artwork available
NR

Pedro Ruiz: Coming Home chronicles the dancer and choreographer's journey back to his native Cuba to become the first Cuban-American to choreograph a work with a Cuban dance company. The documentary witnesses the creation of Ruiz's extraordinary work, Horizonte (Horizons), and profiles the dancers of Danza Contemporanea de Cuba who bring it to life. It follows Ruiz from Havana back to his home town, Santa Clara, for emotional reunions with old friends and family. After an intimate portrait of creation and a new window into life in Cuba, the film follows the dance back to New York, where Danza Contemporanea performs at the Joyce Theater.

Pedro Ruiz: Coming Home

2011

No artwork available
NR

Deacon Clark Hampton, a son of slaves, lifted his twelve children out of poverty by making them into successful musicians.

The Unforgettable Hampton Family

2011

American Veteran poster
NR

A documentary following Army Sergeant Nick Mendes as he adapts to life after surviving a massive improvised explosive device in Afghanistan.

American Veteran

2017