Rory Kennedy

Rory Kennedy is an Academy Award–nominated, Primetime Emmy–winning documentary filmmaker who has directed and produced more than forty films. Her films have appeared across major platforms including Netflix, HBO, National Geographic, PBS, and Hulu. Kennedy and her husband, Emmy-nominated writer and producer Mark Bailey, co-founded Moxie Films. Most recently, Kennedy directed and produced QUEEN OF CHESS, a Netflix feature documentary about Judit Polgár, the Hungarian prodigy who broke into the male-dominated world of international chess. The film premiered at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival, marking Kennedy’s tenth documentary to debut there, and launched globally on Netflix on February 6.

Recent projects include the HBO documentary series THE SYNANON FIX (2024), examining the rise and transformation of the controversial addiction treatment organization, and THE VOLCANO: RESCUE FROM WHAKAARI, a Netflix feature documentary about the deadly 2019 eruption of New Zealand’s Whakaari/White Island volcano that became the platform’s #1 film worldwide. Kennedy’s earlier work includes TAKE EVERY WAVE: THE LIFE OF LAIRD HAMILTON, the Academy Award–nominated LAST DAYS IN VIETNAM, and HBO’s ETHEL, which received five Primetime Emmy nominations. In 2007, her HBO film GHOSTS OF ABU GHRAIB premiered at Sundance and went on to win a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Nonfiction Special. Kennedy has served two terms as a Governor of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and is the founder of the Climate Emergency Fund.