--- name: "Jimmy Chin" canonical: "https://film.one/person/jimmy-chin" roles: ["Actor","Cinematographer","Director","Producer"] born: "12 October 1973" reviewed_on_fi1m: 2 average_fi1m_score: 80 updated: "2026-09-17T05:41:23.835920+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." --- # Jimmy Chin Actor and cinematographer. Born 12 October 1973 in Mankato, Minnesota, USA. ## Details - **Work:** Actor, Cinematographer, Director, Producer - **Born:** 12 October 1973, Mankato, Minnesota, USA - **Active:** 2018–present - **Works often with:** [Bob Eisenhardt](https://film.one/person/bob-eisenhardt.md), [Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi](https://film.one/person/elizabeth-chai-vasarhelyi.md) - **Fi1m score by decade:** 2010s 82 (1), 2020s 78 (1) - **Elsewhere:** https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6199802, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm3011011/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/1403129 ## Streaming the US now - **Disney+:** [*Free Solo*](https://film.one/film/free-solo.md) (82), [*The Rescue*](https://film.one/film/the-rescue.md) (78) For United States; add `?region=XX` for another country. ## Fi1m on Jimmy Chin > Jimmy Chin films climbers from the rock beside them, hanging where nobody else could, and the results are as frightening as documentary gets. He is less certain what to do once the climb is over and the talking begins. In *Free Solo* (2018) there is a shot of Alex Honnold as a red dot on a grey wall the size of a city, and the next shot is a pair of hands on a fingernail of rock. Somebody had to be up there for the second one. That somebody was often Chin, who came to directing after two decades as a climber and photographer, and it is the plainest fact about his films: the camera is where it is because the man holding it can climb to it. He shares the direction of everything with Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, so the films are properly theirs, but the wall shots are his trade. He sold his first photograph in 1999, shot expeditions for National Geographic from 2002, and did not direct a feature until *Meru* (2015), which followed three men, himself among them, up the Shark's Fin. *Free Solo* came three years later, and then the subjects widened: a cave in Thailand in *The Rescue* (2021), SpaceX in *Return to Space* (2022), and a first scripted feature, *Nyad* (2023), about Diana Nyad's swim from Cuba to Florida. We have reviewed only *Free Solo*, and we will not pretend to a view of the rest beyond noticing the pattern: a person, an impossible distance, and the people at the bottom worrying. What works is the climbing and, more surprisingly, the arguing about whether to film it. *Free Solo* spends a good part of its hundred minutes on Chin, Mikey Schaefer and Cheyne Lempe working out where to hang so that Honnold cannot see them, and whether a lens at his shoulder changes his odds. Some critics found that self-regarding. We found it the most honest thing in the film, because the crew's problem was ours: we had paid to watch this. Then the climb, twenty minutes at the end, and at the Boulder Problem we realised we had stopped breathing. Eisenhardt's cutting between Honnold's feet and Schaefer turning away from his monitor on the valley floor did that, along with the long lenses in the meadow that make the man vanish into the granite. What does not work is the hour before it. Chin and Vasarhelyi are less sure of themselves explaining Honnold than filming him, and the preparation stretch is thinner than the film thinks. Marco Beltrami's score presses where the pictures had already done the work. Critics have found little else to object to, and his reputation is about as warm as a documentary maker's gets, which makes us slightly suspicious and mostly persuaded. He has said, "I often say I’m a photographer and director. I never say “professional athlete.”" The films are still at their best when the athlete is doing the photographing. *Nyad* hands him actors instead of climbers, and nobody has to hang off anything. We would like to see what he does with a camera he can put on a tripod. ## Biography Jimmy Chin is an American director, producer and cinematographer. He co-directed the documentary *Free Solo* (2018) with Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi. He also served as producer and cinematographer on the film and appeared in it. Chin previously co-directed *Meru* (2015) with Vasarhelyi. Their other joint projects include *The Rescue* (2021) and *NYAD* (2023). He directed *Return to Space* (2022). *Free Solo* won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, a BAFTA and seven Primetime Emmys. *Meru* won the Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival and was shortlisted for an Academy Award. Chin was born on 12 October 1973 in Mankato, Minnesota. *Sources: imdb.com, en.wikipedia.org, jimmychin.com.* ## On Fi1m (2) - *The Rescue* (2021), Fi1m 78, Director, Producer — [page](https://film.one/film/the-rescue.md) - *Free Solo* (2018), Fi1m 82, as Self — [page](https://film.one/film/free-solo.md) ## Also known for - *Return to Space* (2022), Director - *NYAD* (2023), Director - *Meru* (2015), Director --- © 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/jimmy-chin