Biography

Born in Colombia and raised in Mexico City, Rodrigo Garcia is a WGA Award-winning screenwriter, Emmy-nominated director, and Golden Globe-nominated producer who has been a defining voice in television and independent film for over two decades, with notable films including Nine Lives (2005), Mother and Child (2009), Albert Nobbs (2011), Raymond & Ray (2022), and Things You Can Tell Just by Looking at Her (2000), and on acclaimed series such as In Treatment (2008), Big Love (2006), Six Feet Under (2001), The Sopranos (1999), and The Affair (2014).

On April 22nd, Netflix will release Garcia’s latest television series Santita (2026), starring Paulina Dávila and Gael García Bernal, on which he directs and executive produces all seven episodes. It tells the story of María José Cano (Dávila), a woman who, after a car accident confines her to a wheelchair, abandons the love of her life (García Bernal) at the altar. Now, almost two decades later, she must face the consequences of her past when he unexpectedly reenters her life. Dubbed "Santita" despite being more sinner than saint, the now doctor María José’s journey is a wickedly irreverent and unconventional love story. The drama is created by Luis Cámara and Gabrielle Galanter and produced by Panorama Entertainment.

Garcia is currently in production on FX’s Cry Wolf, starring Academy Award winners Olivia Colman and Brie Larson. Garcia is executive producing the series, created by Sarah Treem (The Affair), and directing four of the eight episodes.

Garcia began his filmmaking career after graduating from the American Film Institute (AFI) and then working in cinematography, a role he held for over a decade on films such as Mi Vida Loca (1993), The Bird Cage (1996), Reality Bites (1994), Great Expectations (1998), and Gia (1998). In 1998, he was accepted into the Sundance Screenwriters Lab, where he developed his critically acclaimed directorial debut, Things You Can Tell Just by Looking at Her (2000), which went on to win the Un Certain Regard Award at the Cannes Film Festival and the NHK Award at the Sundance Film Festival. His second film, Nine Lives (2005), won the Golden Leopard at the Locarno Film Festival and earned Film Independent Spirit Award nominations for directing and screenwriting. He has continued to build a body of intimate, character-driven work, including films such as Deauville Film Festival winner Mother and Child (2009), San Sebastián Film Festival closing night film Albert Nobbs (2011) which earned Glenn Close and Janet McTeer Academy Award nominations, Last Days in the Desert (2015), Four Good Days (2020) which earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song, and Raymond & Ray (2022), as well as his recent Spanish-language features for Netflix, Familia (2023) and The Follies (2025), most of which he wrote and directed.

Garcia has directed episodes of acclaimed television series including The Sopranos (2004), Six Feet Under (2001-2003), and The Affair (2018), as well as the pilots of Carnivale (2002) and Big Love (2006), for which he earned an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Directing of a Drama Series. He created HBO’s U.S. adaptation of the Israeli series BeTipul (2005), In Treatment (2008), earning a Golden Globe nomination for Best Series and a WGA Award for Best New Series. More recently, Garcia executive produced limited series adaptations of News of a Kidnapping (2022) for Amazon Prime and Santa Evita (2022) for Hulu, and was pilot director of the latter. He is an executive producer of the Gotham Award-nominated Netflix adaptation of his father Gabriel García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude (2024), which will release its second and final season this August.

In 2021, he published a memoir, A Farewell to Gabo and Mercedes: A Son's Memoir of Gabriel García Márquez and Mercedes Barcha, reflecting on the life and loss of his parents, which went on to be a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award.

Among his many endeavors, Garcia served as a Governor-at-Large for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences from 2019 to 2025, where he advocated for the inclusion of diverse, multicultural voices in Hollywood. He is also the Co-CEO of Indigenous Media, producing original digital content, and co-created the digital drama channel WIGS (2012), which starred actresses including Julia Stiles, Jennifer Garner, America Ferrera, Dakota Fanning, and Allison Janney. He served on the Board of Trustees of the Sundance Institute, and has been on the Board of Trustees of CalArts since 2012.

Garcia resides in Los Angeles, CA.
- IMDb mini biography by: Rodrigo Garcia

Has directed 2 actresses to Oscar nominations: Glenn Close (Best Actress, Albert Nobbs (2011)), and Janet McTeer (Best Supporting Actress, Albert Nobbs (2011)).

Rodrigo Garcia attended the 2nd annual Hatch audiovisual festival in Bozeman, MT in October 2005 and his film, Nine Lives, was honored with a Hatch award for best feature-length film.