Ryan Kyle Coogler is an American filmmaker. He is a recipient of four NAACP Image Awards, four Black Reel Awards, a Golden Globe Award nomination, and two Academy Award nominations.
He made his feature-length debut with the independent film Fruitvale Station (2013), which won the Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Award for U.S. dramatic film at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival. It also won at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival, for Best First Film.
He has since co-written and directed films such as the Rocky series spinoff, Creed (2015), and the Marvel film Black Panther (2018), the latter of which broke numerous box office records and became the highest-grossing film of all time by an African American director. Coogler also co-wrote and directed its sequel Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022).
Coogler's films have received widespread acclaim and commercial success. His work has been hailed by critics for centering on often overlooked cultures and characters—most notably African Americans. He frequently collaborates with actor Michael B. Jordan, who appeared in all four feature films directed by Coogler, as well as composer Ludwig Göransson, who has scored all of his films.
In 2013, he was included on Time's list of the 30 people under 30 who are changing the world. In 2018, Coogler was named the runner-up of Time's Person of the Year and he was included in the annual Time 100 list of the most influential people in the world. In 2021, Coogler, his wife, Zinzi Coogler, and Sev Ohanian founded multimedia company Proximity Media to create event-driven content across various platforms.
