Sam Pollard

Biography

Samuel D. Pollard (born 20 April, 1945; Harlem) is an American documentary director, producer and editor. His films have garnered numerous awards such as Peabodys, Emmys, and an Academy Award nomination. In 2020, the International Documentary Association gave him a career achievement award. Spike Lee, whose films Pollard has edited and produced, described him as being "a master filmmaker." Henry Louis Gates Jr. characterizes his work in this way: "When I think about his documentaries, they add up to a corpus — a way of telling African-American history in its various dimensions."

Directed

1. American Experience (1988) — Director
2. American Masters (1986) — Director
3. Bill Russell: Legend (2023) — Director
4. MLK/FBI (2020) — Director
5. Atlanta's Missing and Murdered: The Lost Children (2020) — Director
6. Independent Lens (1999) — Director
7. Black Art: In the Absence of Light (2021) — Director
8. Sammy Davis, Jr.: I've Gotta Be Me (2017) — Director
9. Why We Hate (2019) — Director
10. Hostages (2022) — Director
11. Citizen Ashe (2021) — Director
12. Slavery by Another Name (2012) — Director
13. Two Trains Runnin' (2016) — Director
14. The League (2023) — Director
15. Maynard (2017) — Director
16. Eyes on the Prize (1987) — Director
17. Acorn and the Firestorm (2017) — Director
18. Ol' Dirty Bastard: A Tale of Two Dirtys (2024) — Director
19. Mr. SOUL! (2018) — Director
20. Lowndes County and the Road to Black Power (2022) — Director
21. South to Black Power (2023) — Director
22. The Making of 'Bamboozled' (2001) — Director
23. Photographer (2024) — Director
24. The Harvest: Integrating Mississippi's Schools (2023) — Director
25. The Talk: Race in America (2017) — Director
26. I Was Born This Way (2025) — Director
27. Zora Neale Hurston: Jump at the Sun (2008) — Director
28. I'll Make Me a World (1999) — Director
29. The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow (2002) — Director
30. Goin' Back to T-Town (1993) — Director
31. Murder in America: The Lynching of Emmett Till — Director
32. John Ford/John Wayne: The Filmmaker and the Legend (2006) — Director
33. August Wilson: The Ground on Which I Stand (2015) — Director
34. Max Roach: The Drum Also Waltzes (2023) — Director
35. Counting The Ballots — Director
36. Mr. Soul: Ellis Haizlip and the Birth of Black Power TV (2010) — Director
37. Love That Movie (2009) — Director
38. The Sound of Philadelphia — Director
39. Chinatown Film Project (2009) — Director
40. Marvin Gaye: What's Going On (2008) — Director

Also appeared in

1. Subject (2023) — Self
2. Style Wars In The Cutting Room (2014) — Himself / Editor of Style Wars