Directing • AGE 71
Stanley Earl Nelson Jr. (born June 7, 1951) is an American documentary filmmaker and a MacArthur Fellow known as a director, writer and producer of documentaries examining African-American history and...


American Pachuco: The Legend of Luis Valdez
Executive Producer
2026

Becoming Thurgood: America's Social Architect
Executive Producer
2025

True North: Canadian Myths and Black Power
Executive Producer
2025

Sun Ra: Do the Impossible
Executive Producer
2025

The Inquisitor
Executive Producer
2025

Free for All: The Public Library
Executive Producer
2025

Critical Condition: Health in Black America
Director
2025

We Want the Funk!
Director
2025

San Juan Hill: Manhattan’s Lost Neighborhood
Director
2024

Sister Úna Lived a Good Death
Executive Producer
2024

Hollywood Black
Self
2024

Disco's Revenge
Executive Producer
2024

Bulls and Saints
Executive Producer
2023

Sound of the Police
Director
2023

Birthing a Nation: The Resistance of Mary Gaffney
Executive Producer
2023

Sydney G. James: How We See Us
Executive Producer
2023

Jonathan Thunder: Good Mythology
Executive Producer
2023

Becoming Frederick Douglass
Director
2022

After Jackie
Producer
2022

Hazing
Executive Producer
2022

Harriet Tubman: Visions of Freedom
Director
2021

Lynching Postcards: Token of a Great Day
Executive Producer
2021

Attica
Director
2021

Tulsa Burning: The 1921 Race Massacre
Director
2021

Crack: Cocaine, Corruption & Conspiracy
Director
2021

Black Panthers
Director
2020

Vick
Director
2020

Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool
Director
2019

BOSS: The Black Experience in Business
Director
2019

The Story of Access
Director
2018

Black Memorabilia
Script Supervisor
2018

American Carnage
Executive Producer
2017

Gavin Grimm vs.
Executive Producer
2017

Picket Line
Executive Producer
2017

Tell Them We Are Rising: The Story of Black Colleges and Universities
Director
2017

Mary Lou Williams: The Lady Who Swings the Band
Executive Producer
2015

The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution
Director
2015

Freedom Summer
Director
2014

Focus Forward: Short Films, Big Ideas
Director
2012

Jesse Owens
Producer
2012

Freedom Riders
Writer
2010

30 for 30
Director
2009

We Shall Remain
Director
2009

Faubourg Tremé: The Untold Story of Black New Orleans
Executive Producer
2008

Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple
Director
2006

A Place of Our Own
Self - Narrator (voice)
2004

Beyond Brown: Pursuing the Promise
Director
2004

The Murder of Emmett Till
Director
2003

Marcus Garvey: Look for Me in the Whirlwind
Director
2001

The Black Press: Soldiers Without Swords
Producer
1999

The Daily Show
Self
1996

American Experience
Writer
1988

Two Dollars and A Dream: The Story of Madame C.J. Walker
Director
1987

Frederick Douglass: An American Life
Sound Recordist
1985

Just Doin’ It (A Tale of Two Barbershops)
Sound
1976