Ken Burns

Ken Burns is an American documentary filmmaker and producer widely known for his focus on history and Americana. His signature style involves using archival footage and photographs in his films. Burns's documentary films and series have been met with widespread critical acclaim.

Burns was born in Brooklyn, New York, on July 29, 1953. His father, Robert, was a Columbia University graduate student in anthropology, and his mother, Lyla, was a biologist. Ken spent his early years moving around the world following his father's research, going from the French Alps to the University of Delaware and Ann Arbor, Michigan. During this time, Ken's mother, Lyla, became seriously ill; she died of cancer in 1964, when Ken was eleven years old. Burns has referred to his mother's cancer as "the great forming force in my life."

Burns graduated high school in 1971 and worked at a record store in Ann Arbor to save money for college. He enrolled in Hampshire College, a newly-opened experimental liberal arts school in Massachusetts, where he worked at a bookstore to underwrite his college and expenses. It was at Hampshire College that Burns developed his signature style of pairing sweeping shots of photographs with historical narration, and it was there that he met his Florentine Films collaborators Roger Sherman and Buddy Squires.

After graduating from Hampshire College in 1975, Burns cofounded the production company Florentine Films with Sherman, Squires, and Larry Hott. In 1981, Burns produced and directed his first film for PBS, Brooklyn Bridge, after being inspired by David McCullough's book of the same name. The film was nominated for an Academy Award and led to Burns creating numerous historical films during the next decade. Burns huge critical break came in 1990 with the release of his miniseries The Civil War. When it aired in September 1990, the series was viewed by nearly 40 million people in its first week. The Civil War went on to generate more viewers than any other program in PBS history and garnered more than forty awards. The series is cited as creating a resurgence for historical programming in the United States.

Burns continued to produce many award-winning films in the decades that followed, his most recent being the six-hour miniseries The U.S. and the Holocaust, released in September 2022. In total, Ken Burns's films have earned a multitude of awards, including sixteen Emmy Awards, two Grammy Awards, and two Oscar nominations.