Latest in R.J. Cutler

EXCLUSIVE: Award-winning documentary editor Lindsay Utz is turning her attention to directing. Utz, who edited 2020 Academy Award winner American Factory and this year's Oscar contender Billie Eilish: The World's a Little Blurry, has signed a first-look deal with This Machine to direct her own documentary films. This…

The bracingly intimate feel of the documentary Billie Eilish: The World’s a Little Blurry emerged because the pop singer at its center grew to trust the filmmakers enough to reveal her private pain on her own terms, the film's director revealed. "We achieved the intimacy because Billie and her family were open and…

There's an emotional realness to singer-songwriter Billie Eilish, a disinclination to disguise experience behind euphemism or pretense. It manifests in her music and in Billie Eilish: The World's a Little Blurry, the Oscar-contending documentary that follows her on her journey to global stardom. In the film directed…

Emmy-winning filmmaker R.J. Cutler will be presented with the Pennebaker Award at the Critics Choice Documentary Awards, honoring lifetime achievement, the Critics Choice Association announced Thursday. The presentation will take place Sunday, November 14, as part of the sixth annual edition of the documentary awards…

EXCLUSIVE: Margaret Yen has joined This Machine as Senior Vice President of Music. At the production company founded by Emmy-winning documentarian R.J. Cutler (Billie Eilish: The World's A Little Blurry), she'll work alongside senior execs Trevor Smith and Elise Pearlstein, overseeing and growing Cutler's slate of…

EXCLUSIVE: The Emmy-contending documentary Billie Eilish: The World's a Little Blurry creates a remarkably intimate portrait of the young recording artist, following her on tour, at home, revisiting dark moments in her life, negotiating fame and the ups and downs of romantic love. "We see her, the way she turns her…

EXCLUSIVE: Netflix has ordered a documentary series based on Big Vape: The Incendiary Rise of Juul, the new Henry Holt book by Time Magazine correspondent Jamie Ducharme. Series will be directed and executive produced by R.J. Cutler, who’s coming off the Showtime docu Belushi and Billie Eilish: The World’s A Little Blu…

Singer-songwriter Billie Eilish is not even out of her teens and she has already won awards in the Grammys' top four categories: Album of the Year, Record of the Year, Song of the Year, and Best New Artist. She's achieved something else rare for someone her age—having a documentary made about her by a major filmmaker…

EXCLUSIVE: Epix has landed Murf the Surf, the four-part docuseries from Imagine Documentaries and R.J. Cutler’s This Machine, about the famed jewel thief Jack Roland Murphy. Cutler, the two-time Emmy winner who’s coming off the docus Billie Eilish: The World’s a Little Blurry and Belushi, wrote and directed the…

Paul McCartney once told a Liverpool High School class that when it comes to songwriting, “‘I don’t know how to do this.” Of course, that’s only because songwriting comes so natural to him. While deconstructing songwriting might be a challenge to the great Beatle, sometimes there’s a lot to learn simply by watching…

EXCLUSIVE: R.J. Cutler will direct and produce the documentary series Big Vape, an adaptation of Jamie Ducharme’s upcoming nonfiction book about the rise of the controversial e-cigarette company Juul. Cutler just directed the Showtime docu Belushi and has upcoming Billie Eilish: The World’s a Little Blurry which will…

Bluto, the volcanic Samurai Futaba, "Joliet" Jake Blues, the Cheeseburger Man, a spasmodic Joe Cocker—the list of characters John Belushi brought to life in his all-too-brief but remarkable career only hints at his outsized role in American comedy. "This guy was pure visionary," marvels R.J. Cutler, director of the Sho…