The Ramones, photo by Rex Miller
Rex Miller Bio
Director/Producer/DP
Durham, NC
646-262-9089
Director/Cinematographer Rex Miller is a visual storyteller with an extensive background as a photographer/filmmaker, having started originally as a photojournalist in N.Y.C, after growing up there on the blue collar streets of Queens.
As DP he has been part of 4 Peabody-Award-Winning projects, several Emmy wins and nominations, and has been twice nominated for an Emmy for Cinematography.
As director, his films have screened at Sundance, Tribeca, Telluride, London Film Festival, DOC NYC, Full Frame, Hamptons and on HBO Max, PBS, American Masters, CNN, Amazon. His films have won a Critics Choice, a Grierson and been nominated for a Sports Emmy.
-Film/TV credits include: HBO, Netflix, Amazon, Apple TV, ESPN, Hulu, American Masters/PBS, American Experience, Starz, and at Sundance, Telluride, Tribeca, Venice, SXSW, DOCNYC, SLAMDANCE, BFI London Film Festival, etc.
As a Photojournalist, his images appeared in dozens of national and international publications, including The New York Times, Time, Newsweek, Rolling Stone, Spin, Forbes, Fortune, etc. Rex made over 30 trips to the Mississippi Delta in the 80s/90s, documenting traditions around African-American Music and life. He completed the book Delta Blues: Music and Life in Mississippi.
Miller identifies as multiracial. His brown-skinned mother emigrated to NYC from Jamaica, West Indies. He is of Portuguese, African, Caucasian and Jewish descent. Ancestry.com has analyzed his DNA and identified his ancestry as 80% White/European and 20% African.
Rex and Africa:
Rex Miller has made 8 trips to Africa. In his 20s, he went overland, as an aspiring Photojournalist, from Cairo to Capetown, “which shaped me a lot more than my college experience”, riding, trains, buses, matatus and hitchhiking, spending a month in South Africa, hitchhiking from Capetown to Johannesburg, while the Apartheid-imposed State of Emergency was in effect.
He returned multiple times, in the 2000s to Uganda, where he Directed, Produced and shot 3 documentaries, including the award-winning “SOMAY KU: A Uganda Tennis Story”, about an aspiring Ugandan Tennis player, and war refugee, who escaped the LRA and war in Northern Uganda and came to the US to change his life through College and Tennis, and in July, 2025, shooting for 3 NGOs.
* Director/Producer/Director of Photography (DP):
-Harley Flanagan: Wired for Chaos (2025), Premiered at DOCNYC, 11/2024 , SLAMDANCE 2025, distributed by Lightyear Entertainment. Toured the US Summer of 2025 on a 21-city theatrical screening tour.
Screened at IN EDIT 2025 festivals in Sao Paulo (June) and Barcelona (November).
UK screening tour , November, 2025 (London, Manchester, Birmingham, Brighton, Brixton.
Blu-ray and streaming release (Amazon) November, 2025
-“Citizen Ashe”, CNN Films/HBO Max. 2021. Directed by Rex Miller/Sam Pollard. Premiered at Telluride, 2021; international primetime CNN broadcast, 6-24-22.
Critics Choice Award, Best Sports Documentary (2022).
Grierson Award (UK); Best Sports Documentary (2022).
Sports Emmys, Best Sports Documentary, nominee (2022).
THE NEW YORK TIMES – December 2, 2021 – ‘‘Citizen Ashe’ Review: Advantage, Arthur Ashe”
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/02/movies/citizen-ashe-review.html
-Althea (PBS/American Masters/Amazon Prime) Director/Producer/DP. Awarded best doc at ABFF.
-Ashe ‘68; a VR Film and exhibition on Arthur Ashe’s transcendent moment. Co-Director/Producer (Sundance and Tribeca, 2019).
-Behind These Walls, (Tennis Channel, 2008). An intimate look at life at and around the tennis court at San Quentin Penitentiary. Director/Producer/DP.
-Somay Ku: A Uganda Tennis Story, (Tennis Channel, 2005); chronicles a Ugandan war refugee who attempts to better his life through Tennis. Best Doc, Malibu Film Festival. Director/Producer/DP.
*Director of Photography (DP):
-Desperate Souls, Dark Sea and the Legend of Midnight Cowboy,(2022); shortlisted for the 2024 Academy Award for best Documentary, premiered at Venice Film festival. Director: Nancy Buirski.
-A Chef’s Life (6 seasons on PBS), Peabody winner, multiple Emmy winner, James Beard winner; Director: Cynthia Hill.
-Somewhere South series, (PBS, 2020), Director: Cynthia Hill
-A Crime on the Bayou (2020), Director: Nancy Buirski. Nominee, Critics Choice Doc Awards, DOC NYC.
-Private Violence (2015, HBO), Director: Cynthia Hill. Premiered at Sundance.
-The Loving Story (HBO, 2015, Peabody award, Emmy winner). Director: Nancy Buirski. Tribeca, Hamptons Festivals
-The Rape of Recy Taylor (2019), Director: Nancy Buirski. International Premiere, Venice Film Festival, 2017. Starz.
-What Happened, Brittany Murphy?; 2020. Doc series for HBO Max. Director: Cynthia Hill.
* Cinematographer:
-Kyle Larson, The Double, (2026) Amazon feature documentary on top NASCAR driver Kyle Larson. Cynthia Hill, director.
- American Coup: Wilmington, 1898 (2024),nominated for a Peabody and a News & Documentary Emmy (2025). Brad Lichtenstein/Yoruba Richen, directors.
-1619 Series, 2023, Emmy winner. Directed by Roger Ross Williams.
-Burden of Proof (2023, HBO), 4-part true-crime series; Cynthia Hill, Director.
-In the Same Breath (2021), Director: Nanfu Wang, opening night film at Sundance 2021. Peabody winner. Short-listed for Academy Awards.
-Sisters on Track (Netflix and Tribeca, 2021),
-Road to Race Day, 2018, 8-part verite series on NASCAR, Film 45 Prods.; Cynthia Hill, Director.