--- name: "Sarah Adina Smith" canonical: "https://film.one/person/sarah-adina-smith" fi1m_id: "sarah-adina-smith" imdb_id: "nm2262138" tmdb_id: 1182669 wikidata_id: "Q60399091" roles: ["Director","Producer"] reviewed_on_fi1m: 5 average_fi1m_score: 64 average_as: "director" average_over: 5 updated: "2026-09-30T23:57:38.950006+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." --- # Sarah Adina Smith ## Identity Sarah Adina Smith - **Canonical:** https://film.one/person/sarah-adina-smith - **Type:** Person - **Fi1m ID:** sarah-adina-smith - **IMDb ID:** nm2262138 - **TMDB ID:** 1182669 - **Wikidata ID:** Q60399091 - **Same entity:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Adina_Smith, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q60399091, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm2262138/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/1182669 Director and producer. Born in Fort Collins, Colorado, USA. ## Details - **Work:** Director, Producer - **Active:** 2017–present - **Also known as:** Sarah Adina, Sarah Smith - **Average Fi1m score:** 64, as director, over 5 titles - **Fi1m score by decade:** 2010s 77 (1), 2020s 61 (4) - **Fi1m against the critics:** 64 to 64 across 5 titles - **Score spread:** 0 at 80+, 4 at 60–79, 1 under 60 - **Genres:** Drama 5, Action & Adventure 2, Sci-Fi & Fantasy 2, Crime 1, Family 1, Western 1 - **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Adina_Smith, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q60399091, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm2262138/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/1182669 ## Streaming the US now - **Netflix:** [*Little House on the Prairie*](https://film.one/tv/little-house-on-the-prairie.md) (60), [*Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story*](https://film.one/tv/monster-the-lizzie-borden-story.md) (47) - **Disney+:** [*Legion*](https://film.one/tv/legion.md) (77) - **HBO Max:** [*A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms*](https://film.one/tv/a-knight-of-the-seven-kingdoms.md) (73) - **Amazon Prime Video:** [*Lessons in Chemistry*](https://film.one/tv/lessons-in-chemistry.md) (63) For United States; add `?region=XX` for another country. ## Fi1m on Sarah Adina Smith > Sarah Adina Smith’s care with actors makes the friendship in *A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms* worth following through its darker turns. We rate that warmth, while the tidiness of *Little House on the Prairie* gives us less to enjoy. The friendship between the characters played by Peter Claffey and Dexter Sol Ansell in *A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms* (2026) remains convincing when the mood darkens. Smith and fellow director Owen Harris keep the actors central to this small-scale fantasy. We warmed to the pair because testing their decency never makes their affection seem foolish. This is the strongest reason to seek out Smith’s work: she can make people worth spending time with, even when the story around them is thin. Her debut feature, *The Midnight Swim* (2014), explored family psychology and mysticism; *Buster’s Mal Heart* (2016) pursued faith and mental unravelling. Smith wrote, directed and edited both. *Birds of Paradise* (2021), which she also wrote and directed, used dance to examine control and perfection. On television, she directed the pilot and another episode of *Hanna* (2019). Her work on the first two episodes of *Lessons in Chemistry* (2023) drew on her strength with intimate scenes between actors, a useful quality when establishing characters whom other directors will take over. Her television work also includes *Little House on the Prairie* (2026), and our enthusiasm is more limited there. Rebecca Sonnenshine’s eight-part series is handsome and gentle, but too clean and tidy to be much more than pleasant. That is a judgement about the whole programme, not a fault we can assign to Smith alone. It does, however, show why a careful approach is not enough if so little is allowed to feel awkward or untidy. Neither Smith nor Harris can make the thin story in *A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms* disappear, and the coarse humour sometimes makes its company less appealing. Their handling of the central relationship keeps us interested, although some of the early pleasure diminishes as the mood darkens. Start there for Claffey and Ansell, provided toilet humour is not a disqualification. ## Biography Sarah Adina Smith is an American film and television director, writer and editor. She was born in Fort Collins, Colorado, and studied philosophy at Columbia University. Her feature films as director include *The Midnight Swim* (2014), *Buster's Mal Heart* (2016), *Birds of Paradise* (2021) and *The Drop* (2022). On television she has directed episodes of series including *Room 104* (2017), *Hanna* (2019), *Looking for Alaska* (2019), *Legion* (2018), *Lessons in Chemistry* (2023) and *A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms* (2026). She directed the pilot episode of *Little House on the Prairie* (2026). Smith won the Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Movies for Television and Limited Series for her work on *Lessons in Chemistry*. *Sources: en.wikipedia.org, imdb.com, press.wbd.com.* ## On Fi1m (5) - *A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms* (2026), Fi1m 73, Director, Co-Executive Producer — [page](https://film.one/tv/a-knight-of-the-seven-kingdoms.md) - *Little House on the Prairie* (2026), Fi1m 60, Director — [page](https://film.one/tv/little-house-on-the-prairie.md) - *Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story* (2026), Fi1m 47, Director — [page](https://film.one/tv/monster-the-lizzie-borden-story.md) - *Lessons in Chemistry* (2023), Fi1m 63, Director, Executive Producer — [page](https://film.one/tv/lessons-in-chemistry.md) - *Legion* (2017), Fi1m 77, Director — [page](https://film.one/tv/legion.md) ## Complete filmography (21) Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page. - *Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story* (2026), series, Director — Fi1m 47, [page](https://film.one/tv/monster-the-lizzie-borden-story.md) - *Little House on the Prairie* (2026), series, Director — Fi1m 60, [page](https://film.one/tv/little-house-on-the-prairie.md) - *A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms* (2026), series, Director, Co-Executive Producer — Fi1m 73, [page](https://film.one/tv/a-knight-of-the-seven-kingdoms.md) - *Ratified* (2024), Executive Producer - *Lessons in Chemistry* (2023), series, Director, Executive Producer — Fi1m 63, [page](https://film.one/tv/lessons-in-chemistry.md) - *Something in the Dirt* (2022), as Dr. Rita Miller - *The Drop* (2022), Director, Screenplay, Producer, Editor - *Birds of Paradise* (2021), Producer, Screenplay, Director - *Looking for Alaska* (2019), series, Director - *Hanna* (2019), series, Director - *Unlovable* (2018), Writer - *Room 104* (2017), series, Director - *Buster's Mal Heart* (2017), Director, Writer, Editor - *Legion* (2017), series, Director — Fi1m 77, [page](https://film.one/tv/legion.md) - *Holidays* (2016), Writer, Director, Editor - *The Midnight Swim* (2015), Director, Writer, Editor, Compositing Artist - *Goodbye World* (2013), Writer, Producer - *The Sirens* (2009), Director, Editor, Writer - *The Phoenix And The Turtle* (2007), Director - *Clean* (2005), as Mariel - *Monkey Hill*, Director, Screenplay, Executive Producer ## Gallery - ![Sarah Adina Smith](https://film.one/media/person/21994/gallery-8b16827a1da1.png) Sarah Adina Smith — vlogbrothers, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/27/Sarah_Adina_Smith_on_vlogbrothers_2019_%28cropped%29.png?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled) - ![Sarah Adina Smith visits Indian Springs School in Birmingham, Alabama, before shooting the TV adaptation of Looking for Alaska (2019)](https://film.one/media/person/21994/gallery-68c3b52e8731.png) Sarah Adina Smith visits Indian Springs School in Birmingham, Alabama, before shooting the TV adaptation of Looking for Alaska (2019) — vlogbrothers, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/47/Sarah_Adina_Smith_on_vlogbrothers_2019.png/1280px-Sarah_Adina_Smith_on_vlogbrothers_2019.png?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail) --- © 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/sarah-adina-smith