Sarah Adina Smith

Smith was born in Fort Collins, Colorado. She graduated from Poudre High School in 2001, and studied philosophy at Columbia University in New York.^[7]

Smith's first feature as director, The Midnight Swim, was released in 2014. The film was noted for its shifts in visual style,^[8] and won six awards on the festival circuit, including the audience award from AFI Fest.^[9][10]

Her sophomore feature, Buster's Mal Heart,^[11] premiered at the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival, and stars Rami Malek, DJ Qualls, and Kate Lyn Sheil.^[12]

Smith co-wrote the screenplay for the film Unlovable, which screened at the SXSW festival in 2018.^[13]

In 2018 Smith was chosen to direct the first two episodes of television adaptation of the film Hanna.^[14][15] In 2019, she directed one episode of the television adaptation of the novel Looking for Alaska.

She wrote and directed the 2021 film Birds of Paradise^[16] and the 2022 film The Drop.^[17]

In 2023, Smith directed two episodes of Lessons in Chemistry for Apple TV+.^[18][19] In 2024, she won the Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Movies for Television and Limited Series for directing "Her and Him" from Lessons in Chemistry.^[20] In June 2024, it was announced that Smith would direct three episodes of the Game of Thrones prequel series A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms.^[21] Smith directed the pilot for the 2026 Netflix series Little House on the Prairie.^[22][23]

Short film

Feature film

Television