Who says you have to tell a story in under two hours? Here are 5 filmmakers who turned to television to get around the constricted running times traditionally imposed on feature films.
As filmmakers continue to experiment with narrative and structure, movies do seem to be getting longer. It is still rare though for a wide release to go past the two and a half hour mark (Martin Scorsese's The Wolf of Wall Street being an exception). Consequently, filmmakers like Todd Haynes (Mildred Pierce), Frank Daranbont (Mob City) and Jane Campion (Top of the Lake) have turned to television for long form storytelling. Here are 5 filmmakers who have joined this migration in 2014.
Cary Fukunaga
True Detective
The debut of True Detective, the new HBO mini-series starring Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson, is one of this year's most anticipated television events. Helmed by Cary Fukunaga, the visionary director behind Sin Nombre and Jane Eyre, this gripping crime drama follows a pair of detectives over the course of 17 years as they hunt for a serial killer in the Louisiana bayou. Fukunaga's keen eye and stylistic (but never over the top) flare will only enhance this exploration of masculinity, duty and depravity in the deep South.
Matt Piedmont
The Spoils of Babylon
While Matt Piedmont's only film directing credit is the underrated Spanish Language tele novella parody, Casa de mi Padre, his comedic chops are well established. As a former writer of SNL and a frequent collaborator of Will Ferrell, Piedmont was the perfect choice to direct The Spoils of Babylon, a spoof of epic mini-series events like The Thorn Birds. Starring Tobey Maguire, Kristen Wiig, Tim Robbins, Jessica Alba and Val Kilmer, this series covers 50 years in the lives of the powerful Morehouse family in just 180 minutes.
James Gray
The Red Road
James Gray (Little Odessa, The Yards, Two Lovers) is one of the most underappreciated auteurs working today. With his old school sensibilities and strange knack for gritty melodramas (a strange combination of skills we admit), Gray is a perfect choice to direct the first episode of The Red Road, the new Sundance Channel series helmed by Prisoners screenwriter Aaron Guzikowski. Starring Jason Momoa, Martin Henderson, Julianne Nicholson and Tom Sizemore, this drama revolves around a local sheriff, struggling to keep his family together as he keeps the peace between his town and the neighboring Ramapo Mountain Indians community.
Steven Soderbergh
The Knick
Retirement be damned! After his success on the small screen with Behind the Candelabra, Steven Soderbergh has teamed up with Cinemax for a new series entitled The Knick. Set in 1900 in downtown New York City, this mini-series stars Clive Owen and centers on the staff of the Knickerbocker Hospital who made important contributions to medicine despite incredibly adverse circumstances. So long as Soderbergh continues to push himself as an artist and storyteller, we will continue to watch him.
Lisa Cholodenko
Olive Kitteridge
Lisa Cholodenko (High Art, Laurel Canyon, The Kids Are All Right) recently has been announced as the director of Olive Kitteridge, the upcoming HBO mini-series starring Frances McDormand, Bill Murray, Richard Jenkins and John Gallagher Jr. McDormand herself bought the film rights to Elizabeth Strout's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name, and Cholodenko's ability to draw pathos and humor out of the tragic and mundane makes her to the perfect choice to direct this Maine based small-town drama.
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
Who says you have to tell a story in under two hours? Here are 5 filmmakers who turned to television to get around the constricted running times traditionally imposed on feature films. 
