Elizabeth Freya Garbus (born April 11, 1970) is an American documentary film director and producer. Notable documentaries Garbus has made are The Farm: Angola, USA, Ghosts of Abu Ghraib, Bobby Fischer Against the World, Love, Marilyn, and What Happened, Miss Simone? She is a two-time Oscar Nominee, two-time Emmy Winner, Peabody Winner, Grammy Nominee, and DGA-Nominated director
A personal look at the life, work and untimely death of celebrated indie cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, who was shot and killed in a tragic accident on the set of the film Rust in 2021.
Release Date: 2025-03-11
Department: Production
Job: Executive Producer
Sally Ride's groundbreaking journey as the first American woman in space concealed a deeply personal story. Her life partner, Tam O'Shaughnessy, unveils their covert 27-year romance and its accompanying sacrifices.
Release Date: 2025-01-28
Department: Production
Job: Executive Producer
Vote Count: 1
Two legends contested their identities as women in the court of public opinion: April Ashley, who was immortalized as a trailblazer by embracing her transgender history; and Amanda Lear, who has consciously denied and obfuscated her history for decades. Their divergent paths reveal disparate but intertwined legacies.
Release Date: 2025-01-28
Department: Production
Job: Executive Producer
Explores the disappearance of Alissa Turney in 2001, with her sister Sarah giving unprecedented access to the continuation of her story, including a recently unearthed trove of home videos, as she re-examines her and Alissa’s childhood. Sarah makes chilling discoveries, breaking through years of manipulation to reconstruct the truth of the past and be free of her father’s influence. Sarah’s final conversation with her father is haunting and a testament to her tenacity and unending search for Alissa.
Release Date: 2024-10-13
Department: Production
Job: Executive Producer
Vote Count: 3
Tegan Quin (from Tegan and Sara) has been the victim of identity theft and an ongoing catfishing scam for over 15 years. While investigating, she shares for the first time, how she was ensnared in toxic fan culture that revealed the dark side of fame.
Release Date: 2024-09-05
Department: Production
Job: Executive Producer
Vote Count: 2
Driven to maintain social order, policing in the United States has exploded in scope and scale over hundreds of years. Now, American policing embodies one word: power.
Release Date: 2024-05-10
Department: Production
Job: Executive Producer
Vote Count: 12
A family fights to stay together in the face of persecution by the Texas government for loving their transgender kid.
Release Date: 2024-04-03
Department: Production
Job: Executive Producer
In a candid, first-time interview with Rachel Lee, the so-called teenage mastermind behind a string of high-profile celebrity robberies in 2008 and 2009, the film examines the motivations of Lee and a group of her friends who broke into celebrity homes in Hollywood to ransack and steal, exploring the possible reasons behind her actions including mental health issues and addictions, as well as the climate of celebrity excess that fueled the teens, recontextualizing the events behind the sensational headlines.
Release Date: 2023-10-01
Department: Production
Job: Executive Producer
Vote Count: 4
A unique behind-the-scenes access to NASA’s ambitious mission to launch the James Webb Space Telescope, following a team of engineers and scientists as they take the next giant leap in our quest to understand the universe.
Release Date: 2023-07-24
Department: Production
Job: Executive Producer
Vote Count: 56
Explores the racial wealth gap in America through the story of People Trust, a homegrown community bank in Little Rock, Arkansas, working to uplift a community that has been largely excluded from the financial engines that create wealth.
Release Date: 2023-07-21
Department: Production
Job: Executive Producer
Vote Count: 33
Journey to South Africa’s Cradle of Mankind, where Paleoanthropologist Lee Berger has found the world’s oldest graveyard — which is not human. If Lee and his team can prove that this ancient, small brained, ape-like creature practiced complex burial rituals, it will change everything we know about hominid evolution and the origins of belief.
Release Date: 2023-07-17
Department: Production
Job: Executive Producer
Vote Count: 40
What happens when a machine makes life-or-death decisions? This documentary explores the dangers of artificial intelligence in military application.
Release Date: 2023-07-10
Department: Production
Job: Executive Producer
Vote Count: 53
In the early 1990s, with homophobia and hate crimes on the rise as the AIDS crisis worsens, a serial killer preys upon gay men in New York City, infiltrating queer nightlife to find his victims.
Release Date: 2023-07-09
Department: Production
Job: Executive Producer
Episode Count: 4
Vote Count: 11
Egyptian archeologists dig into history, discovering tombs and artifacts over 4,000 years old as they search for a buried pyramid in this documentary.
Release Date: 2023-07-03
Department: Production
Job: Executive Producer
Vote Count: 38
When Jack and Beata Kowalski are wrongfully accused of child abuse after their 10-year-old daughter Maya visits the ER, a nightmare unfolds.
Release Date: 2023-06-10
Department: Production
Job: Executive Producer
Vote Count: 95
A college student is shot in Central Park on July 4, 2003. The investigation connects a series of mysterious citywide fires, the downtown music scene, and a wealthy uptown real estate family fraying under the strain of the many secrets they keep.
Release Date: 2023-05-11
Department: Directing
Job: Director
Episode Count: 2
Vote Count: 47
A group of bright Sarah Lawrence College students fall under the dark influence of a friend's father, Larry Ray. With unprecedented access to the survivors who lived with Ray, the series follows the cult from its origins through its still-unfolding aftermath.
Release Date: 2023-02-09
Department: Production
Job: Executive Producer
Episode Count: 3
Vote Count: 22
An exploration of the sexual misconduct allegations against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
Release Date: 2023-01-20
Department: Production
Job: Executive Producer
Vote Count: 1
The world is in crisis as it misses target after target to stop climate change. The Green New Deal has captured the imagination of millions with its visionary promise for systemic economic and environmental change that will build a better and more just world. In this moment of political upheaval with clashes in the streets and the halls of Congress, climate policy is taking center stage for the first time in American history, and the fight is on.
Release Date: 2022-12-08
Department: Production
Job: Executive Producer
Vote Count: 4
From their courtship to their exit from royal life, Harry and Meghan share their complex journey in their own words in this docuseries.
Release Date: 2022-12-08
Department: Production
Job: Executive Producer
Episode Count: 6
Vote Count: 99
It’s an insidious, centuries-old conspiracy theory that continues to rear its ugly head today: Jews have a secret international plot to control the world. How do such preposterous ideas get started, and why do they flourish? Filmmaker Maxim Pozdorovkin orchestrates bold, striking animation and exceptionally talented voice artists to walk us through almost 250 years of anti-Semitic ideology, focusing on how times of uncertainty give rise to anxieties in marginalized populations, and how three Jewish family dynasties came to bear the brunt of irrational scapegoating.
Release Date: 2022-11-17
Department: Production
Job: Executive Producer
Vanessa Guillen was 20 years old when she was found murdered at a US Army base. Rather than submit to silence, her family fought for justice and change.
Release Date: 2022-11-16
Department: Production
Job: Executive Producer
Vote Count: 49
A community of amateur traders enacts a daring plan to get rich quick and wreak havoc on the stock market. But can they beat Wall Street at its own game?
Release Date: 2022-09-28
Department: Production
Job: Executive Producer
Episode Count: 3
Vote Count: 35
Journalist Susan Zalkind investigates the triple murder that took her friend’s life, the national tragedy that shook her city, and the haunting question that connects the two events: if the murders had been solved, could the Boston Marathon bombing could have been prevented?
Release Date: 2022-09-05
Department: Production
Job: Executive Producer
Episode Count: 3
Vote Count: 2
The pulse-pounding true story of charismatic vigilante Faye Yager, who built a vast underground network that hid hundreds of mothers and children, saving them from the alleged abuse of husbands and fathers when a broken court system would not.
Release Date: 2022-08-12
Department: Production
Job: Executive Producer
Episode Count: 5
Vote Count: 3
Samuel L. Jackson narrates this provocative series that upends everything you think you know about addiction—from why we use drugs to how they’re brought to market. This docuseries exposes the true history of the war on drugs and its impact worldwide.
Release Date: 2022-01-21
Department: Production
Job: Executive Producer
Episode Count: 8
This equal parts survival epic, psychological horror story and coming-of-age drama tells the saga of a team of wildly talented high school girls soccer players who become the (un)lucky survivors of a plane crash deep in the remote northern wilderness. The series chronicles their descent from a complicated but thriving team to savage clans, while also tracking the lives they’ve attempted to piece back together nearly 25 years later.
Release Date: 2021-11-14
Department: Directing
Job: Director
Episode Count: 1
Vote Count: 763
Pete Buttigieg, the Mayor of South Bend, Indiana runs for President of the United States. With extraordinary access to the candidate, his husband Chasten and members of the campaign team, the film follows Buttigieg from before he officially announced his candidacy, through the campaign and his victory in the Iowa Caucus and his appointment to the Biden Administration as the first LGBTQ Cabinet member in history.
Release Date: 2021-11-12
Department: Production
Job: Executive Producer
Vote Count: 10
Adventurer, filmmaker, inventor, author, unlikely celebrity and conservationist: For over four decades, Jacques-Yves Cousteau and his explorations under the ocean became synonymous with a love of science and the natural world. As he learned to protect the environment, he brought the whole world with him, sounding alarms more than 50 years ago about the warming seas and our planet’s vulnerability. In BECOMING COUSTEAU, from National Geographic Documentary Films, two-time Academy Award®-nominated filmmaker Liz Garbus takes an inside look at Cousteau and his life, his iconic films and inventions, and the experiences that made him the 20th century’s most unique and renowned environmental voice — and the man who inspired generations to protect the Earth.
Release Date: 2021-10-22
Department: Directing
Job: Director
Vote Count: 29
Journalist Jenny Eliscu and filmmaker Erin Lee Carr investigate Britney Spears' fight for freedom by way of exclusive interviews and confidential evidence.
Release Date: 2021-09-27
Department: Production
Job: Executive Producer
Vote Count: 166
Ry Russo-Young turns the camera on her own past to explore the meaning of family. In the late 70s/early 80s, when the concept of a gay family was inconceivable to most, Ry and her sister Cade were born to two lesbian mothers through sperm donors. Ry’s idyllic childhood was threatened by an unexpected lawsuit which sent shockwaves through her family’s lives and continues to reverberate today.
Release Date: 2021-09-26
Department: Production
Job: Executive Producer
Episode Count: 3
Vote Count: 6
Exclusive access into the career and life of the public servant who has advised seven U.S. presidents beginning with the AIDS pandemic in the 1980s and through SARS, Ebola and COVID-19.
Release Date: 2021-09-10
Department: Production
Job: Executive Producer
Vote Count: 26
Live the real-life drama of Sacha Baron Cohen, as Borat Sagdivev, where he spends five days at the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic with two conspiracy theorists. Then, in Debunking Borat, see the two conspiracy theorists have their theories debunked by some of the world’s leading experts.
Release Date: 2021-05-24
Department: Production
Job: Producer
Episode Count: 7
Vote Count: 19
Ariana Grande takes the stage in London for her Sweetener World Tour and shares a behind-the-scenes look at her life in rehearsal and on the road.
Release Date: 2020-12-21
Department: Production
Job: Producer
Vote Count: 362
Examines the often overlooked, yet insidious issue of voter suppression in the United States in anticipation of the 2020 presidential election. With the perspective and expertise of Stacey Abrams, the former Minority Leader of the Georgia House of Representatives, the film offers an insider’s look into laws and barriers to voting that most people don’t even know is a threat to their basic rights as citizens of the United States.
Release Date: 2020-09-09
Department: Production
Job: Producer
Vote Count: 20
An exploration of the case of the Golden State Killer who terrorized California in the 1970s and 1980s, committing 50 sexual assaults and 10 murders, and true crime author Michelle McNamara's obsessive quest to find justice on behalf of his victims.
Release Date: 2020-06-28
Department: Directing
Job: Director
Episode Count: 2
Vote Count: 119
The personal stories behind eight cases of wrongful conviction that the Innocence Project and organizations within the Innocence Network have worked to highlight and overturn.
Release Date: 2020-04-15
Department: Production
Job: Executive Producer
Episode Count: 9
Vote Count: 28
When Mari Gilbert's daughter disappears, police inaction drives her own investigation into the gated Long Island community where Shannan was last seen. Her search brings attention to over a dozen murdered prostitutes.
Release Date: 2020-01-28
Department: Directing
Job: Director
Vote Count: 705
Former news host and journalist Tamron Hall discusses all things topical and engages those she interviews in thorough meaningful and entertaining conversations.
Release Date: 2019-09-09
Character: Self - Guest
Episode Count: 1
Vote Count: 16
The documentary examines and chronicles the years following the 2011 murder of 12-year-old Garrett Phillips and the subsequent trial of Clarkson University soccer coach Oral "Nick" Hillary.
Release Date: 2019-07-23
Department: Creator
Job: Creator
Vote Count: 23
On the heels of The New York Times' breaking news story revealing new information about President Trump’s financial history, David Barstow, Russell Buettner and Susanne Craig expose the untold story of how Donald Trump became rich.
Release Date: 2018-10-07
Department: Production
Job: Producer
Vote Count: 4
Explore the process and progress of The New York Times and its journalists in covering the Trump administration. Through extraordinary access, on-the-scene filmmaking, and exclusive sit-down interviews, this documentary series illuminates critical issues facing journalism today – including the challenge to the bedrock concept of truth, the changing role of the media, and the Times’ response to President Trump’s war of words.
Release Date: 2018-05-27
Department: Production
Job: Producer
Episode Count: 4
Vote Count: 12
Documentary following three families each coping with a child affected by serious emotional or mental illness. The families explore treatment opportunities and grapple with the struggle of living with their child's condition.
Release Date: 2018-05-07
Department: Directing
Job: Director
Vote Count: 11
Set in a dystopian future, a woman is forced to live as a concubine under a fundamentalist theocratic dictatorship. A TV adaptation of Margaret Atwood's novel.
Release Date: 2017-04-26
Department: Directing
Job: Director
Episode Count: 1
Vote Count: 2799
Born into one of the wealthiest and best-known families in American history, Gloria Vanderbilt has lived in the public eye for more than 90 years, unapologetically pursuing love, family and career, while experiencing extreme tragedy and tremendous success side by side. This documentary features a series of candid conversations as Vanderbilt and her youngest son, Anderson Cooper, look back at her remarkable life.
Release Date: 2016-01-23
Department: Directing
Job: Director
Vote Count: 20
Some of this year's most talked about talent open up about the challenges and triumphs of creating critically acclaimed series and performances.
Release Date: 2015-08-02
Character: Self
Episode Count: 1
Vote Count: 17
The film chronicles Nina Simone's journey from child piano prodigy to iconic musician and passionate activist, told in her own words.
Release Date: 2015-01-22
Department: Directing
Job: Director
Vote Count: 362
Acclaimed actor and FDNY veteran Steve Buscemi looks at what it's like to work as a New York City firefighter. Utilizing exclusive behind-the-scenes footage and firsthand accounts from past and present firefighters, explore life in one of the world's most demanding fire departments while illuminating the lives of the often 'strong and silent' heroes.
Release Date: 2014-09-08
Department: Directing
Job: Director
Vote Count: 27
Using the book 'Fragments', which collects Marilyn Monroe's poems, notes and letters, and with participation from the Arthur Miller and Truman Capote estates who have contributed more material, each of the actresses will embody the legend at various stages in her life.
Release Date: 2013-05-30
Department: Directing
Job: Director
Vote Count: 65
Focus Forward: Short Films, Big Ideas is an award-winning series of 30 three-minute stories about innovators—people who are reshaping the world through act or invention—directed by the world's most celebrated documentary filmmakers.
Release Date: 2012-10-01
Department: Directing
Job: Director
Filmmaker Liz Garbus investigates the mysterious tragedy of Diane Schuler in an effort to understand what went wrong.
Release Date: 2011-07-25
Department: Directing
Job: Director
Character: Self - Interviewer (voice)
Vote Count: 89
The first documentary feature to explore the tragic and bizarre life of the late chess master Bobby Fischer.
Release Date: 2011-06-06
Department: Directing
Job: Director
Vote Count: 116
Depicts how Bobby Fischer tortuously considers his next move-hands gripping his head and eyes fastened to the board-as his 1972 World Chess Championship opponent, Boris Spassky, looks on.
Release Date: 2011-01-01
Department: Directing
Job: Director
Short documentary that was published as an extra on the DVD of “Bobby Fisher Against the World”.
Release Date: 2011-01-01
Department: Directing
Job: Director
Chico Colvard interviews family members 30 years after a dirty family secret is revealed. He finds out how his three sisters survived severe abuse at the hands of their father and how they cope as adults.
Release Date: 2010-01-20
Department: Production
Job: Producer
A documentary look at the changing interpretations of the first amendment of the U.S. Constitution - laws and court cases that have alternatively broadened and narrowed the amendment's protection of free speech and assembly. The film's thesis is that post-9/11 the government has seized unprecedented license to surveil, intimidate, arrest, and detain citizens and foreigners alike. The film also looks back to the Pentagon Papers' case and compares it to cases since 9/11 dealing with high school students' speech and protesters marching in New York City during the 2004 Republican convention. Comment comes from a range of scholars, pundits, and advocates.
Release Date: 2009-01-20
Department: Directing
Job: Director
Vote Count: 3
Four young Americans who've each suffered a Traumatic Brain Injury emerge from their comas at a New Jersey medical facility. Their eyes may be open, but now the real challenge for each of the patients, their families, their doctors and their therapists begins. Brain healing isn't predictable, we're told, and certainly is not guaranteed. So with each 'major' step forward that is observed (opening one's eyes, bending a thumb upon command, vocalizing a word, answering a question correctly) comes a sense of jubilant relief and hope from the families of these patients, but as we soon see, the more a patient progresses, the more difficult things can be for all involved. Moments of faith & hope contrast with disappointments & frustrations, moments of confidence with moments of doubt. It's difficult to watch, and unimaginable to have to ever live through.
Release Date: 2007-07-04
Department: Directing
Job: Director
Vote Count: 3
Assembled by some of the nation's top documentary filmmakers, this centerpiece film in HBO's 'Addiction' campaign features insights from experts on trends and treatments in the ongoing battle against drug and alcohol abuse. This documentary consists of nine segments that focus on case studies and cutting-edge treatments that challenge traditional beliefs about addiction.
Release Date: 2007-03-15
Department: Directing
Job: Director
Vote Count: 3
Actress Rosie Perez makes a stunning directorial debut in this heartfelt tribute to Puerto Rican pride. She takes an in-depth look at the complex and often controversial history of Puerto Rican-U.S. relations. By turns shocking and celebratory, this wide-ranging documentary examines such rich themes of the Puerto Rican experience as family, language, and racism, all with careful consideration of historical context.
Release Date: 2006-04-27
Department: Production
Job: Producer
Vote Count: 1
Xiara Trujillo is a precocious seven-year-old who moved from the Bronx to Maryland with her mom, Aracelli Guzman, four years ago. Though she seems happy hanging out and playing with her pal Melissa, Xiara becomes defensive and emotional when talking about her father, Harold Linares. As we see and learn, Harold is in jail serving a ten-year sentence for weapons possession; Xiara seems to blame his incarceration on her mother, whom she says "kept calling the police." Xiara, who has always been extremely close to her father, acts out with her mother.
Release Date: 2005-06-19
Department: Production
Job: Producer
Vote Count: 2
This documentary follows the 2002 mayoral campaign in Newark, New Jersey, in which a City Councilman, Cory Booker, attempted to unseat longtime mayor Sharpe James.
Release Date: 2005-04-23
Department: Production
Job: Executive Producer
Vote Count: 27
Twenty million people live within a 50-mile radius of the Indian Point Energy Center and its three nuclear reactors. This film takes a cautionary look at the possible consequences of an accident or terrorist attack on the facility--a catastrophe that could potentially render much of the Hudson River Valley and New York City uninhabitable.
Release Date: 2004-09-13
Department: Production
Job: Producer
Vote Count: 2
Documentary chronicling America's justice system. Follows two female inmates – victims of horrific violence and tragedy – who are serving time in a Maryland juvenile detention center.
Release Date: 2003-10-13
Department: Directing
Job: Director
Vote Count: 10
In 1938 Edith Hahn was a Viennese law student - a "Christmas-tree Jew" with a gentile boyfriend. In 1942 she was living under an assumed name in Munich and married to Werner Vetter, a Nazi party member who was later drafted into the Wehrmacht. Based on Hahn's acclaimed memoir, "The Nazi Officer's Wife" is the riveting account of how she survived the Holocaust by posing as an Aryan hausfrau. Despite the risks, she kept painstaking records including real and falsified documents and photos of labor camps. These moving artifacts along with testimony from Hahn and her daughter bring this tale of survival resilience and redemption to life.
Release Date: 2003-05-09
Department: Directing
Job: Director
Vote Count: 5
The Execution of Wanda Jean chronicles the life-and-death battle of Wanda Jean Allen, the first black woman to be put to death in the United States in the modern era.
Release Date: 2002-01-10
Department: Directing
Job: Director
Vote Count: 4
Showtime's "In the 20th Century" is a millennium-related series of feature-length documentaries in which famous directors take on major subjects of their choosing. In the first of the six films, "In Search of the Happy Ending," filmmaker Garry Marshall delves into the institution of marriage as it has evolved in America throughout the past 100 years.
Release Date: 1999-06-14
Department: Production
Job: Producer
Documentary depicting day to day life in Angola Prison mostly from an inmate's perspective. Interviews are with several inmates including one with a life sentence who is about to die.
Release Date: 1998-01-17
Department: Directing
Job: Director
Vote Count: 13
British filmmaker Beeban Kidron ventures onto the mean streets of the South Bronx and other New York locales to examine the lives of those involved in the city's thriving sex industry.
Release Date: 1993-12-30
Department: Production
Job: Production Manager
Vote Count: 6
Examines the Titan submersible’s ill-fated journey to the ruins of the Titanic that dominated headlines in June 2023.
Department: Production
Job: Executive Producer
Release Date: 1991-09-27
Department: Production
Job: Producer
Episode Count: 5
Vote Count: 1