--- name: "J.C. Chandor" canonical: "https://film.one/person/j-c-chandor" fi1m_id: "j-c-chandor" imdb_id: "nm1170855" tmdb_id: 556172 wikidata_id: "Q1676295" roles: ["Director","Writer","Producer"] born: "24 November 1973" reviewed_on_fi1m: 5 average_fi1m_score: 70 average_as: "director" average_over: 4 updated: "2026-10-01T22:17:56.664395+00:00" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # J.C. Chandor ## Identity J.C. Chandor - **Canonical:** https://film.one/person/j-c-chandor - **Type:** Person - **Fi1m ID:** j-c-chandor - **IMDb ID:** nm1170855 - **TMDB ID:** 556172 - **Wikidata ID:** Q1676295 - **Same entity:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._C._Chandor, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1676295, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1170855/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/556172 Director and writer. Born 24 November 1973 in Morristown. ## Details - **Work:** Director, Writer, Producer - **Born:** 24 November 1973, Morristown - **Active:** 2011–present - **Also known as:** Jeffrey McDonald Chandor, جی. سی. چاندور - **Titles on Fi1m:** 5: 4 directing, 1 producing - **Frequently works with:** [Neal Dodson](https://film.one/person/neal-dodson.md), [Alessandro Nivola](https://film.one/person/alessandro-nivola.md) - **Academy Awards:** 1 Oscar nomination - **Average Fi1m score:** 70, as director, over 4 titles - **Fi1m score by decade:** 2010s 81 (4), 2020s 41 (1) - **Fi1m against the critics:** 70 to 67 across 4 titles - **Score spread:** 2 at 80+, 1 at 60–79, 1 under 60 - **Genres:** Drama 3, Thriller 3, Action 2, Adventure 2, Crime 1 - **Screen time:** 8 hours of reviewed films - **Box office:** $100m across 4 films with figures - **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._C._Chandor, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1676295, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1170855/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/556172 ## Streaming the US now - **Amazon Prime Video:** [*All Is Lost*](https://film.one/film/all-is-lost.md) (82) - **HBO Max:** [*A Most Violent Year*](https://film.one/film/a-most-violent-year.md) (77) - **Netflix:** [*Kraven the Hunter*](https://film.one/film/kraven-the-hunter.md) (41) For United States; add `?region=XX` for another country. ## Fi1m on J.C. Chandor > J.C. Chandor makes films about people in small spaces working out what to do, and he is at his best when the space is a boardroom or a boat. Give him a lion and three countries and the grip loosens. The Chandor shot is a face deciding something. In *Margin Call* (2011) nobody trades anything; a dozen frightened, well-paid people sit in rooms between a Thursday afternoon and the following morning and work out what a number means and what it will cost to act on it. In *Kraven the Hunter* (2024), the one stretch that feels like his is the opening fight in a Russian prison corridor, where Ben Davis keeps the camera near enough to the bodies that we could tell whose elbow was whose. He likes to hold a shot and let the actor carry it. When the material allows that, he is a fine director. When it does not, he is a competent one. He came to features late, after fifteen years of commercials, documentaries and corporate videos, and *Margin Call* arrived only after another project collapsed. He wrote it himself, and wrote *All Is Lost* (2013) while still editing it: a film in which Robert Redford spends most of the running time on a boat saying almost nothing. *A Most Violent Year* (2014) put the same interest in ethical compromise into a period business drama. Then the scale grew. *Triple Frontier* (2019) is a heist with an ensemble, and *Kraven* is a comic-book film with a cast of a dozen, three countries and a lion. What he does well is pressure in a confined space, without spectacle. *Margin Call* is the best film we know about the 2008 crash because it is not about the crash at all; it is about a meeting, and it declines to say whose fault any of it was. We have watched it several times, late, and the point where a roomful of people finally understand the figure in front of them still tightens our chest more than most car chases manage. The flaws are his too. His people talk in finished paragraphs, and after the second hour of the night the speeches start to sound like speeches. *Kraven* is the problem, and most critics have said so. The script explains everything twice, the lion never once looks like one, and the tension comes and goes in ninety-second pieces where *All Is Lost* held it for a whole film. Russell Crowe and Alessandro Nivola enjoy themselves, and Craig Wood cuts the brawls to be followed rather than hidden, but the film around them belongs to a studio, not a director. The later studio work is plainer than the early films, and Chandor has not yet shown he can make a big picture feel as small as it needs to. He has kept the same producers, Neal Dodson and Anna Gerb, across three films, which suggests a man who knows what he is for. He once said, "I try to ground characters in the choices we all make." Few of us have had to decide whether to fight a lion. Start with *Margin Call*, alone, with the lights off, and come to the rest when you trust him. ## Biography J. C. Chandor is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. Born Jeffrey McDonald Chandor on 24 November 1973 in Morristown, New Jersey, he grew up in the Basking Ridge section of Bernards Township. He graduated from Ridge High School in 1992 and received a bachelor's degree from the College of Wooster in 1996. For fifteen years before his feature debut he directed commercials. Chandor wrote and directed the financial drama *Margin Call* (2011), which premiered at Sundance and was nominated for the Golden Bear at Berlin. He followed it with the survival film *All Is Lost* (2013), the crime drama *A Most Violent Year* (2014) and the action film *Triple Frontier* (2019). He directed *Kraven the Hunter* (2024). His work has received Academy Award and Golden Bear nominations, and *A Most Violent Year* won a National Board of Review award for Best Picture. *Sources: en.wikipedia.org, imdb.com, collider.com.* ## On Fi1m (5) ### Directed (4) — the average rests on these - *Kraven the Hunter* (2024), Fi1m 41, Director — [page](https://film.one/film/kraven-the-hunter.md) - *A Most Violent Year* (2014), Fi1m 77, Producer, Director, Writer — [page](https://film.one/film/a-most-violent-year.md) - *All Is Lost* (2013), Fi1m 82, Screenplay, Director — [page](https://film.one/film/all-is-lost.md) - *Margin Call* (2011), Fi1m 82, Writer, Director — [page](https://film.one/film/margin-call.md) ### Produced (1) - *Monos* (2019), Fi1m 82, Executive Producer — [page](https://film.one/film/monos.md) ## Complete filmography (10) Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page. - *Kraven the Hunter* (2024), Director — Fi1m 41, [page](https://film.one/film/kraven-the-hunter.md) - *Run This Town* (2020), Executive Producer - *Monos* (2019), Executive Producer — Fi1m 82, [page](https://film.one/film/monos.md) - *Triple Frontier* (2019), Director, Screenplay - *So Good to See You* (2016), Executive Producer - *A Most Violent Year* (2014), Director, Producer, Writer — Fi1m 77, [page](https://film.one/film/a-most-violent-year.md) - *All Is Lost* (2013), Director, Screenplay — Fi1m 82, [page](https://film.one/film/all-is-lost.md) - *Margin Call* (2011), Director, Writer — Fi1m 82, [page](https://film.one/film/margin-call.md) - *Zebra Killer*, Director, Screenplay - *The Liar's Ball*, Director, Producer ## Awards ### Academy Awards — 0 won, 1 nominated - 2012: Best Writing, Original Screenplay (nominated), for *Margin Call* *From Wikidata, which records wins more completely than nominations.* --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/person/j-c-chandor