# RaMell Ross

RaMell Ross is an American filmmaker, photographer, academic, and writer. His directorial debut, Hale County This Morning, This Evening (2018), earned him a Peabody Award, and nominations for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature Film and the Primetime Emmy Award for Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking. Ross directed and co-wrote the screenplay for the 2024 film adaptation of the novel The Nickel Boys (2019), for which he won the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Director, and received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay (shared with Joslyn Barnes).

## Early life and education

Ross was born in Frankfurt, Germany, and raised in Fairfax, Virginia, where he attended Lake Braddock Secondary School.
In 2005, Ross graduated from Georgetown University, where he majored in English and sociology and played on the Georgetown Hoyas men's basketball team. He later earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in photography from the Rhode Island School of Design.

## Career

In 2006, Ross moved to Ireland to work for Playing For Peace's Northern Ireland initiative. While in Ireland he played professional basketball for MDS Star of the Sea Belfast, a team in Ireland's SuperLeague North Division. It was here he would first get an interest in directing and video editing as he worked as an apprentice of the video editor for North Star Basketball.
In 2009, Ross moved to Greensboro, Alabama for a position as a basketball coach and photography teacher. These experiences inspired multiple collections of photographs and art installments inspired by black life in the American South.
Filmmaker Magazine named Ross among "25 New Faces of Independent Film" in 2015. That year, he was a Sundance Institute New Frontier Artist in Residence at the MIT Media Lab. He joined faculty of the Brown Arts Initiative at Brown University in 2016, where he currently serves as an assistant professor of visual art. Soon after, he was awarded a two-year Mellon Gateway Fellowship.
Ross' directorial debut, Hale County This Morning, This Evening, an experimental documentary about black life in Hale County, Alabama, premiered at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival. He was awarded the Special Jury Award for Creative Vision at the festival. The film went on to win a Peabody Award and in 2019 was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature Film and the Primetime Emmy Award for Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking.
Easter Snap, Ross' documentary short depicting five men preparing a hog to be butchered in a ritualistic fashion, debuted at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival.
The Ogden Museum of Southern Art presented a retrospective of Ross' artwork, titled Spell, Time, Practice, American, Body: The Work of RaMell Ross from October 2021 to March 2022. A book of Ross' work titled Spell, Time, Practice, American, Body was released in 2023.
Nickel Boys, Ross' film adaptation of the Colson Whitehead novel The Nickel Boys, debuted at the Telluride Film Festival on August 30, 2024. The film opened the 2024 New York Film Festival.

## Filmography

| Year | Title | Notes |
| 2018 | Hale County This Morning, This Evening | Documentary film |
| 2019 | Easter Snap | Documentary short |
| 2024 | Nickel Boys | Narrative feature film |

## Awards and nominations

| Year | Award | Category | Nominated work | Result | Ref. |
| 2018 | Sundance Film Festival | Special Jury Award for Creative Vision | Hale County This Morning, This Evening | Won | |
| 2018 | Gotham Awards | Best Documentary | Hale County This Morning, This Evening | Won | |
| 2019 | Academy Awards | Best Documentary Feature Film | Hale County This Morning, This Evening | Nominated | |
| 2019 | Primetime Emmy Awards | Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking | Hale County This Morning, This Evening | Nominated | |
| 2019 | Peabody Awards | Documentary Category | Hale County This Morning, This Evening | Won | |
| 2019 | Chicago International Film Festival | Best Documentary Short | Easter Snap | Won | |
| 2024 | Gotham Awards | Best Director | Nickel Boys | Won | |
| 2024 | New York Film Critics Circle | Best Director | Nickel Boys | Won | |
| 2024 | Astras Film Awards | Best Adapted Screenplay | Nickel Boys | Nominated | |
| 2024 | Boston Society of Film Critics | Best Adapted Screenplay | Nickel Boys | Won | |
| 2024 | Chicago Film Critics Association | Best Director | Nickel Boys | Won | |
| 2024 | Chicago Film Critics Association | Best Adapted Screenplay | Nickel Boys | Won | |
| 2024 | Chicago Film Critics Association | Breakthrough Filmmaker | Nickel Boys | Won | |
| 2024 | Toronto Film Critics Association | Best Director | Nickel Boys | Won | |
| 2024 | Toronto Film Critics Association | Best Screenplay | Nickel Boys | Won | |
| 2025 | National Society of Film Critics | Best Director | Nickel Boys | Runner-up | |
| 2025 | Georgia Film Critics Association | Best Director | Nickel Boys | Nominated | |
| 2025 | Georgia Film Critics Association | Best Adapted Screenplay | Nickel Boys | Won | |
| 2025 | Georgia Film Critics Association | Breakthrough Award | Nickel Boys | Won | |
| 2025 | Satellite Awards | Best Director | Nickel Boys | Nominated | |
| 2025 | Satellite Awards | Best Adapted Screenplay | Nickel Boys | Won | |
| 2025 | London Film Critics' Circle | Director of the Year | Nickel Boys | Won | |
| 2025 | Critics' Choice Awards | Best Director | Nickel Boys | Nominated | |
| 2025 | Critics' Choice Awards | Best Adapted Screenplay | Nickel Boys | Nominated | |
| 2025 | Directors Guild of America Awards | First-Time Theatrical Feature Film | Nickel Boys | Won | |
| 2025 | Writers Guild of America Awards | Best Adapted Screenplay | Nickel Boys | Won | [30] [31] |
| 2025 | Writers Guild of America Awards | Paul Selvin Award | Nickel Boys | Honored | [30] [31] |
| 2025 | British Academy Film Awards | Best Adapted Screenplay | Nickel Boys | Nominated | |
| 2025 | Black Reel Awards | Outstanding Director | Nickel Boys | Won | [33] [34] |
| 2025 | Black Reel Awards | Outstanding Screenplay | Nickel Boys | Won | [33] [34] |
| 2025 | Black Reel Awards | Outstanding Emerging Director | Nickel Boys | Won | [33] [34] |
| 2025 | Black Reel Awards | Outstanding First Screenplay | Nickel Boys | Won | [33] [34] |
| 2025 | NAACP Image Awards | Outstanding Directing in a Motion Picture | Nickel Boys | Won | |
| 2025 | NAACP Image Awards | Outstanding Writing in a Motion Picture | Nickel Boys | Won | |
| 2025 | USC Scripter Awards | Film | Nickel Boys | Nominated | |
| 2025 | Academy Awards | Best Adapted Screenplay | Nickel Boys | Nominated | |