- published: 16 Sep 2015
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Alex Gibney is an American documentary film director and producer. In 2010, Esquire magazine said Gibney "is becoming the most important documentarian of our time."
His works as director include Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (nominated in 2005 for Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature); Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer (short-listed in 2011 for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature); Casino Jack and the United States of Money; and Taxi to the Dark Side (winner of the 2007 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature), focusing on an innocent taxi driver in Afghanistan who was tortured and killed at Bagram Air Force Base in 2002.
After attending Pomfret School, Gibney earned his bachelor's degree from Yale University and later attended the UCLA Film School. He is the son of journalist Frank Gibney and the stepson of the late Rev. William Sloane Coffin.
He served as executive producer of the documentary No End in Sight (2007). His film Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson (2008) is documentary based on Hunter S. Thompson and his "Gonzo" style of journalism. Under executive producer Martin Scorsese, Gibney was series producer for the PBS television series The Blues (2003) producing individual episodes directed by Wim Wenders and Charles Burnett, and writer and producer of the series The Pacific Century (1992) which won the News & Documentary Emmy for Outstanding Historical Program. Several films he directed and/or produced have been screened at the Cannes, Sundance, and Tribeca Film Festivals.