Toby Oppenheimer is an Emmy award-winning filmmaker, director, and executive producer. He’s best known for his work as director on multiple episodes of CNN’s Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown, his feature documentaries The Nine Lives of Marion Barry for HBO and Check It – which premiered at the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival – as well as the features he directed and executive produced with CNN Films – The End: Last Days Inside the Obama White House and On the Trail: Inside the 2020 Primaries.
He has worked as a creative showrunner for many projects – including HBO’s Murder on Middle Beach and Elvis Goes There for Epix – and is currently executive producer/director for David Blaine: Do Not Attempt – a visually epic 6-part adventure series for National Geographic/Disney+ set to premiere in March 2025.
Amongst his many gifts in the nonfiction space, Oppenheimer has become renowned in the industry for his work organically creating bespoke, nuanced, and visually striking spaces for A-list talent to work within and realize their most genuine selves on camera—almost always on location in cities and remote settings around the world.
He thrives in intimate collaborations with iconic personalities to help find their most authentic voices on screen and out in the real world, achieving this with celebrated writer/chef Anthony Bourdain, film journalist Elvis Mitchell, and investigative reporter Mariana Van Zeller, as well as musicians and performers such as David Blaine, Diplo, Jeff Goldblum, Mick Fleetwood, Kathy Griffin, and many others.
He has worked on everything from international long-form documentaries to feature film studio productions to numerous television episodics. Working in all phases from development to delivery, from shoestring to multimillion-dollar budgets, has given him a vast creative, technical, and logistical production experience to draw upon. Toby lives in Brooklyn with his family and is a proud member of the Director’s Guild of America.