Jon Gunn is drawn to people finding help in a crisis, and we value his attention to family life. He is less persuasive when the leading character is underwritten or the dialogue insists on telling us what to feel.
Fi1m perspective
In House of David (2025), King Saul’s family is more interesting than David. We were frustrated by that imbalance: Ali Suliman has the stronger material, while the central character remains too thin to sustain our interest. The uneven spectacle does little to compensate, and the series is hard to recommend despite the life in those family scenes. Gunn co-writes and co-directs, so these are shared failures, but the contrast offers a useful way into his work.
Gunn began by doing several jobs at once on independent films: he wrote, directed, produced and edited Mercy Streets (2000). He then co-directed the documentary My Date with Drew (2004) with Brian Herzlinger and Brett Winn, also producing and editing it. The family drama Like Dandelion Dust (2009) points more clearly towards his continuing interest in ordinary people dealing with crisis. He favours stories of community support and personal change, with faith intended to emerge from what happens to people rather than from speeches.
Work with Jon and Andrew Erwin took him towards writing and executive producing on films including I Still Believe (2020). His return to directing, Ordinary Angels (2024), centres on community help during a medical crisis and blizzard, a premise well suited to that interest in practical kindness. Yet its emphatic dialogue and reliance on music to underline emotion suggest how easily reassurance can become over-explanation. Gunn’s concern for his characters is a virtue; his readiness to tell us what to feel is less welcome.
The larger scale of House of David makes its thin central character harder to overlook. Gunn has said he wants the series to work as human drama, and the stronger material around Saul supports that ambition. There is no reason a biblical story should lack convincing family life; his own series supplies some of it. David needs the same attention, rather than a script that leaves the people around him more interesting. We would sooner see Gunn spend more time on that character than attempt more spectacle.
Biography
Jon Gunn is an American director and writer. He has directed and written several faith-based films and television projects.
His directing credits include Mercy Streets (2000), Like Dandelion Dust (2009), Do You Believe? (2015), The Case for Christ (2017), Ordinary Angels (2024) and The Unbreakable Boy (2025). He wrote Jesus Revolution (2023) and co-wrote and co-directed episodes of the series House of David (2025).
Gunn was born on 30 June 1973 in the United States.
