RYAN SUFFERN is a Grammy-winning and Emmy-nominated director and producer. Over the past decade, he has helped to produce over 30 documentaries, ranging in topics from music to sports to social causes, but always with an emphasis on the human interest at the heart of the story. As a director, Suffern helmed the award-winning Finding Oscar, which Steven Spielberg executive produced in association with USC Shoah Foundation. Suffern also co-directed and produced Jazz Fest: A New Orleans Story, which won a Grammy for Best Music Film. Suffern directed a two-part documentary on the legendary A&M Records for EPIX, along with A Final Cut For Orson: 40 Years in the Making for Netflix, documenting the finishing of Orson Welles’s The Other Side of The Wind. Suffern has produced numerous other documentary titles, including Watershed, Satan & Adam, The China Hustle and the Emmy-nominated docuseries Laurel Canyon: A Place in Time. He served as an executive producer on The Gift: The Journey of Johnny Cash, a YouTube Originals release, and HBO’s The Bee Gees: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart, as well as the Paul McCartney / Rick Rubin docuseries for Hulu, McCartney 3,2,1.
Suffern is originally from the Chicago suburbs and was an English major at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. After college, Suffern cut his teeth in the film industry, working as a set PA within the independent film scene in Chicago. He eventually came to Los Angeles in 2002, continuing to be a set PA, until he was fortunate enough to earn a spot as one of Steven Spielberg’s assistants. While working for Spielberg, Suffern had the responsibility of documenting the behind-the-scenes on video for four different films, which was essentially the beginning of his documentary filmmaking career.
After teaming up with Frank Marshall on ESPN’s award-winning Right to Play, which Suffern edited and helped to film, he went on to co-found the documentary division for The Kennedy/Marshall Company, which he headed up until 2021. Suffern has worked extensively with the Belfast singer-songwriter Duke Special, producing and directing numerous music videos and short documentaries. He also co-directed, produced and edited Out & Around, which documented a lesbian couple’s year-long journey to 15 different countries, seeking out the leaders of the LGBTQ movement.
Suffern is a member of the Directors Guild of America and the Producers Guild of America, and he is repped by the United Talent Agency.