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Seth Gordon

Seth Gordon has become a favorite of many moviegoers for his candid approach, true-to-life storytelling and the ability to find humor in life's everyday situations—as a writer, director and producer.

For television, Gordon co-created and currently serves as executive producer on Breaking In, a half hour comedy starring Christian Slater, which premiered to great ratings and reviews on Fox this April. The series is about a high-tech security firm that takes extreme, and often questionable, measures to sell their protection services. His other television credits include directing episodes of The Office, Modern Family and Parks and Recreation.

Gordon made his feature narrative film debut with Four Christmases, starring Vince Vaughn and Oscar winner Reese Witherspoon as a holiday-hating couple traveling to visit all four of their divorced parents on Christmas day.

Most notably, he directed the critically-acclaimed documentary The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters. The film, chronicling the intense rivalry between two Donkey Kong aficionados in the quest to obtain the highest-ever recorded score in the game, won Best Documentary awards at a number of festivals, including the Online Film Critics Society Awards, Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association Awards and Central Ohio Film Critics Association. Gordon is currently in development on the narrative remake of The King of Kong.

Gordon was one of the directors and executive producers on the documentary Freakonomics. The film was divided into sections, with Gordon's focusing on the bestselling book's authors Stephen Levitt and Stephen Dubnar. Freakonomics takes everyday situations and uses economics to explain them to moviegoers in a much more thrilling way than any college textbook.

Most recently, Gordon executive produced Dan Lindsay and T.J. Martin's documentary Undefeated, which was picked up by The Weinstein Company for distribution and remake rights at South by Southwest. It tells the Cinderella story of an underprivileged football team from the perspective of three student athletes from inner city Memphis and a volunteer coach. He also executive produced J. Clay Tweel's documentary Make Believe, which premiered at the Los Angeles Film Festival and aired on Showtime. It follows six adolescent outsiders who all share an extraordinary passion: the art of magic.

Gordon directed several short films: Squirt, Fears of a Clown and The Problem with Percival, that won awards at the Sundance and Slamdance Film Festivals. He also produced and edited the acclaimed Sundance documentary New York Doll, theatrically released in 2005, and was a contributing producer and cinematographer on the Dixie Chicks' 2006 Oscar-nominated documentary Shut Up and Sing.

Gordon is a graduate of Yale University, where he specialized in architecture and documentary film. As a director, he is entirely self-taught, as his alma mater had no film program. Gordon spent his first years out of school as a public high school teacher, and first picked up the camera while living and teaching in Kenya, to capture the stories that unfolded in his village.


Note: This profile was written in or before 2011.
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Seth Gordon Facts

OccupationDirector

Selected Filmography

Pilot
Horrible Bosses
Identity Thief
Kickboxer
Four Christmases
Horrible Bosses: Totally Inappropriate Edition
The Stakeout
King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters
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