Lynn Novick

Lynn Novick is one of America's most accomplished documentary filmmakers, celebrated for her powerful storytelling and her decades-long contribution to historical nonfiction filmmaking. An Emmy, Peabody, and Alfred I. duPont–Columbia Award-winning director and producer, Novick has spent more than 30 years creating landmark documentaries that explore American history, culture, politics, sports, literature, architecture, and social issues.

A longtime creative partner of acclaimed filmmaker Ken Burns, Novick has helped shape many of PBS's most influential documentary series. Their collaborations include "Baseball," "Jazz," "Frank Lloyd Wright," "The War," "Prohibition," "The Vietnam War," "Hemingway," and "The U.S. and the Holocaust." Together, their films have earned widespread critical acclaim and numerous Emmy nominations while reaching millions of viewers worldwide.

In 2019, Novick made her solo directorial debut with the acclaimed four-part PBS documentary "College Behind Bars." The groundbreaking series follows incarcerated students pursuing college degrees through the Bard Prison Initiative, examining education, redemption, and the American criminal justice system with extraordinary depth and humanity.

Novick began her career as a researcher and producer, working with journalist Bill Moyers before joining Florentine Films in 1989. She first contributed to "The Civil War" and soon became one of the principal creative forces behind many of the studio's most ambitious productions. A magna cum laude graduate of Yale University with honors in American Studies, Novick is widely recognized for her meticulous research, compelling interviews, and ability to illuminate complex historical subjects through deeply human stories.