Marc Smerling
Marc Smerling is an American film producer, screenwriter, cinematographer, and director. He was nominated for an Oscar for Capturing the Friedmans in 2003, and co-wrote and produced The Jinx, a six-part HBO documentary on suspected murderer Robert Durst. He directed the FX docuseries A Wilderness of Error based on the book of the same name.
Marc Smerling
Rhododendrites · CC BY-SA 4.0
- Born
- 2000
- Nationality
- United States
- Occupation
- film director · podcaster · screenwriter
- Education
- University of Southern California · USC School of Cinematic Arts · S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications
- Honours
- Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Series
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Marc Smerling is an American film producer, screenwriter, cinematographer, and director. He was nominated for an Oscar for Capturing the Friedmans in 2003, and co-wrote and produced The Jinx, a six-part HBO documentary on suspected murderer Robert Durst. He directed the FX docuseries A Wilderness of Error based on the book of the same name.
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Marc Smerling (born 2000) is an American film director, podcaster and screenwriter. The film director studied at University of Southern California and USC School of Cinematic Arts.
Composed from admitted, traceable facts · 27 September 2026
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In this article
Education
Education
Smerling attended S. I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University and has earned a Master of Arts degree in film production from University of Southern California.
Career
Career
Early in his career, Smerling was the associate producer of NBC's Gangs, Cops and Drugs with Tom Brokaw, and The New Hollywood. He then founded production company Notorious Pictures, producing and directing more than a hundred television commercials and music videos. Smerling partnered up with Andrew Jarecki to form their own production company Hit the Ground Running. He produced 2003's Capturing the Friedmans, which was the winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival and nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary and 2010's documentary film Catfish, which inspired the television series Catfish: The TV Show. In 2010, Smerling produced and wrote his first narrative feature film All Good Things, starring Ryan Gosling, Kirsten Dunst and Frank Langella, about the suspected murderer and real estate scion Robert Durst. The film was the predecessor to the 2015 HBO documentary miniseries The Jinx, which Smerling co-wrote and produced with Andrew Jarecki and Zachary Stuart-Pontier. He won the 2015 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Documentary Series and was nominated for Outstanding Cinematography for Nonfiction Programming. Smerling and Stuart-Pontier co-created the podcast Crimetown, which debuted in 2016 and quickly became the most popular U.S. podcast on iTunes. Each season of Crimetown examines how organized crime shaped an American city, starting with Providence, Rhode Island, in season one. They also co-created The RFK Tapes a Crimetown Presents podcast about the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy. In 2022, he hosted a 15-part podcast series focused on the Mahoning Valley mafia and Congressman Jim Traficant called "Crooked City: Youngstown OH."
Television
Television
• Year — Title — Director — Producer — Writer — Cinematographer • 2013 — Catfish: The TV Show • 2015 — The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst • 2020 — A Wilderness of Error
Film
• Year — Title — Producer — Writer • 2003 — Capturing the Friedmans • 2010 — All Good Things • 2010 — Catfish
Notes from the source article
Cited by Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
These works are cited by the source article, in its own numbering. They are recorded as its citations, not as sources VALÉORINE has verified.
- 1.'The Jinx' creators cancel interviews, release statement | EW.com. Entertainment Weekly.
- 2.N'Duka, Amanda. Emmy Winner, 'All Good Things' Writer-Producer Marc Smerling Launches Truth Media. Deadline. 2020-04-24.
- 3.Marc Smerling — KCRW.
- 4.Who's Who — THE JINX.
- 5.Longworth, Karina. Doc or Not, Catfish Is Stranger Than Fiction. The Village Voice. December 1987.
- 6.Marc Smerling | Television Academy.
- 7.Ducker, Eric. Not-So-Divine Providence. The Ringer. 13 December 2016.
- 8.Marc Smerling, Zac Stuart-Pontier, and the Expanding Web of Crimetown. Interview Magazine. 2017-03-20.
- 9.Crooked City: Youngstown, OH on Apple Podcasts. 7 November 2022.
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The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 20 August 2026.
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