---
name: "Nathan Zellner"
canonical: "https://film.one/person/nathan-zellner"
roles: ["Director"]
born: "2 August 1975"
reviewed_on_fi1m: 1
average_as: "director"
average_over: 1
updated: "2026-09-17T11:55:30.188998+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."
---

# Nathan Zellner

Director. Born 2 August 1975 in Greeley, Colorado, Stati Uniti.

## Details

- **Work:** Director
- **Born:** 2 August 1975, Greeley, Colorado, Stati Uniti
- **Also known as:** Натан Зеллнер
- **Elsewhere:** https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q63286189, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0954658/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/133356

## Streaming the US now

- **Apple TV:** [*The Curse*](https://film.one/tv/the-curse.md) (77)

For United States; add `?region=XX` for another country.

## Fi1m on Nathan Zellner

> One half of a two-man operation that puts deadpan patience around absurd premises and refuses to sneer at anyone in them. Our one close look at his direction, on *The Curse*, found we could not tell where he stopped and Nathan Fielder started, which is praise.

Somewhere in *The Curse* (2023) the direction changes hands. Nathan Fielder takes some episodes, David and Nathan Zellner take others, and we could not tell you which is which, because the seams do not show. That is the right result for a series, and it is also the difficulty with writing about Nathan Zellner at all. Almost everything he has made, he has made with his brother, and the two of them have never been much interested in letting you see who did what.

They started in Austin in the late 1990s, Nathan arriving with a computer science degree from Texas A&M, and spent the next decade on shorts and features made for almost nothing, among them *Goliath* (2008) and *Kid-Thing* (2012), on which he produced, shot and acted. *Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter* (2014) got them noticed: he co-wrote, produced and played Robert in a dark comedy about an obsession that plays out like a fable. *Damsel* (2018) was his first credit as co-director, a western comedy with Robert Pattinson and Mia Wasikowska that plays against the genre's expectations. *Sasquatch Sunset* (2024) put him in a suit as the Alpha of a wordless Sasquatch family, and in between came the television.

The habits are consistent. An absurd premise, then patience: long takes, pauses left uncomfortably long, and a refusal to mock anyone on screen, however strange. The brothers have said of Kumiko that they "wanted to have a sense of humanity and compassion and empathy for her", and that is the note most critics keep hearing in the work, along with the complaints that come with it: that it can be so particular it shuts people out, that the tone slides between earnest and ironic until the feeling drains away, and that *Sasquatch Sunset* struck some as a short film wearing a feature's runtime. We have not reviewed those films and will not judge them here. We will note that they kept a homemade Sasquatch costume from their shorts and used it again in the feature, which tells you something about how they work.

What we can speak to is *The Curse*, and there the patience works. The series follows a couple filming a do-gooding property programme, Whitney in cream linen and heavy silver, Asher in polo shirts a size wrong in one direction or the other, and it is as uncomfortable as anything we have watched on television. We wanted, repeatedly, to switch it off, and did not, because the shot holds, nobody rescues the moment, and the embarrassment becomes the point. The middle episodes circle the same anxieties for longer than they need to, and the direction does not hurry them along. That is a flaw, shared evenly among three directors.

Where he goes next presumably depends on where David goes. On the evidence, the pair will keep finding premises nobody else would attempt and then filming them as if they were perfectly ordinary. If a solo credit ever turns up, we will be curious to see what he has been doing all this time.

## Biography

Nathan Zellner is an American actor, director, producer and screenwriter. Born on 2 August 1975 in Greeley, Colorado, he began making films with his older brother David as a teenager and later founded the Zellner Bros. production company with him.

The brothers' early features include *Plastic Utopia* (1997) and *Goliath* (2008). Zellner has acted in *The Curve* (1998), *Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter* (2014) and *6 Years* (2015). He has directed, co-directed, written and produced several features with his brother, among them *Damsel* (2018) and *Sasquatch Sunset* (2024). He also directed episodes of the series *The Curse* (2023).

*Sources: tvinsider.com, imdb.com, en.wikipedia.org.*

## On Fi1m (1)

- *The Curse* (2023), Fi1m 77, Director — [page](https://film.one/tv/the-curse.md)

## Complete filmography (33)

Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page.

- *Alpha Gang* (2026), Producer, Director
- *Red vs. Blue: Restoration* (2024), as Andy (voice)
- *Sasquatch Sunset* (2024), The Alpha, Director, Producer, Editor, Visual Effects
- *The Curse* (2023), series, Director — Fi1m 77, [page](https://film.one/tv/the-curse.md)
- *The Art of Self-Defense* (2019), Executive Producer
- *Sister Aimee* (2019), as Butch
- *Support the Girls* (2018), Thanks
- *Damsel* (2018), Rufus Cornell, Director, Screenplay, Producer
- *Also Starring Austin* (2018), Acting
- *Black Something* (2016), Director
- *6 Years* (2015), as Jail Officer
- *Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter* (2014), Robert, Producer, Screenplay
- *Computer Chess* (2013), Thanks
- *Kid-Thing* (2012), as Marvin
- *The Best Red vs. Blue. Ever. Of All Time* (2012), as Andy (voice)
- *Dignity* (2012), as Rainbow
- *Rooster Teeth Shorts: Volume Three* (2011), as Nathan, Camera Operator, Producer, Visual Effects
- *Slacker 2011* (2011), as Kid with Soda #2
- *Sasquatch Birth Journal 2* (2010), Producer
- *Rooster Teeth Shorts: Volume Two* (2010), as Nathan, Camera Operator, Visual Effects, Editor
- *Rooster Teeth Shorts: Volume 1* (2009), as Nathan
- *Beeswax* (2009), as Lee
- *Goliath* (2008), as Chad P. Franklin
- *Pardon My Downfall* (2008), as Producer
- *Aftermath On Meadowlark Lane* (2007), as Mariachi Brother #2, Editor
- *Redemptitude* (2006), as Faithless Man
- *Who Is On First?* (2005), Producer
- *Flotsam/Jetsam* (2005), Director
- *Rummy* (2003), Director
- *Red Vs Blue Blood Gulch Chronicles I* (2003), Acting
- *Frontier* (2001), as Loner
- *The Curve* (1998), as Deadhead #2
- *Plastic Utopia* (1997), Frank, Screenplay

## Gallery

- ![Press conference of Damsel at Berlinale 2018. Robert Pattinson, Nathan Zellner, David Zellner, Mia Wasikowska](https://film.one/media/person/835415/gallery-c3207d6333c3.jpg) Press conference of Damsel at Berlinale 2018. Robert Pattinson, Nathan Zellner, David Zellner, Mia Wasikowska — Diana Ringo, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5b/Damsel_-_Press_Conference.jpg/1280px-Damsel_-_Press_Conference.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)
- ![Press conference of Damsel at Berlinale 2018. Robert Pattinson, Nathan Zellner, David Zellner, Mia Wasikowska](https://film.one/media/person/835415/gallery-5784c4da837e.jpg) Press conference of Damsel at Berlinale 2018. Robert Pattinson, Nathan Zellner, David Zellner, Mia Wasikowska — Diana Ringo, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f4/Damsel_-_Press_Conference_%28cropped%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled)
- ![L to R: David Zellner, Michelle Logsdon, Kent Logsdon, and Nathan Zellner, Berlinale Reception 2018](https://film.one/media/person/835415/gallery-b31518356e2a.jpg) L to R: David Zellner, Michelle Logsdon, Kent Logsdon, and Nathan Zellner, Berlinale Reception 2018 — usbotschaftberlin, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8b/David_Zellner%2C_Michelle_Logsdon%2C_Kent_Logsdon%2C_and_Nathan_Zellner%2C_Berlinale_Reception_2018.jpg/1280px-David_Zellner%2C_Michelle_Logsdon%2C_Kent_Logsdon%2C_and_Nathan_Zellner%2C_Berlinale_Reception_2018.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)
- ![L to R: David Zellner, Michelle Logsdon, Kent Logsdon, and Nathan Zellner, Berlinale Reception 2018](https://film.one/media/person/835415/gallery-29fb8b76835f.jpg) L to R: David Zellner, Michelle Logsdon, Kent Logsdon, and Nathan Zellner, Berlinale Reception 2018 — usbotschaftberlin, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/26/Nathan_Zellner%2C_Berlinale_Reception_2018_%28cropped%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled)
- ![Nathan Zellner](https://film.one/media/person/835415/gallery-7f6f4b738951.jpg) Nathan Zellner — usbotschaftberlin, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4c/Nathan_Zellner%2C_Berlinale_Reception_2018_%28cropped2%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled)

---
© 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/nathan-zellner