Academy-Award winning writer, director and renowned playwright Aaron Sorkin graduated from Syracuse University with a B.F.A. in Theatre.
He made his Broadway playwriting debut at the age of 28 with the military courtroom drama A Few Good Men, for which he received the John Gassner Award as Outstanding New American Playwright. The following year saw the debut of his off-Broadway play Making Movies, and in 2007, he returned to Broadway with The Farnsworth Invention, directed by Des McAnuff.
Sorkin made the jump to feature films with his 1993 adaptation of his own play A Few Good Men. The film was nominated for four Academy Awards including Best Picture. He followed this success with the screenplays for Malice, starring Alec Baldwin and Nicole Kidman, The American President, starring Michael Douglas and Annette Bening, and Charlie Wilson’s War, starring Tom Hanks, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Julia Roberts.
In 2011, Sorkin won the Academy Award, Critics’ Choice Award, British Academy of Film and Television Arts Award, and Writers Guild Award in the Best Adapted Screenplay category as well as the USC Scripter Award for The Social Network. The film, directed by David Fincher, was nominated for a total of eight Academy Awards including Best Picture and appeared on over 350 critics’ lists of the top ten films of 2010.
The following year, Sorkin adapted, alongside Steve Zaillian with story by Stan Chervin, Moneyball for the big screen. The film, which was directed by Bennett Miller and starred Brad Pitt, won Sorkin the Critics’ Choice Award and New York Film Critics’ Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, and went on to receive four Academy Award nominations including Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay. In 2015, Sorkin wrote the feature film Steve Jobs based on the Walter Isaacson biography of the late Apple co-founder. His adaptation garnered him nominations for a Broadcast Film Critics’ Association (BFCA) Critics’ Choice Award, Writers Guild Award, and multiple regional critics’ association awards.
Sorkin made his directorial debut in 2017 with Molly’s Game, which he also wrote based on the personal memoir by Molly Bloom. The film, starring Jessica Chastain, Idris Elba, and Kevin Costner, tells the story of Molly, a beautiful, young, Olympic-class skier who ran the world’s most exclusive high-stakes poker game. It made its world premiere at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival to rave reviews and garnered Sorkin Best Screenplay nominations for an Academy Award, Writers Guild Award, and BAFTA Award.
In 2020, Sorkin premiered his feature drama The Trial of the Chicago 7, which he wrote and directed for Netflix. The picture features an all-star ensemble cast and garnered Sorkin six Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay as well as three British Academy Film Award nominations, including Best Film and Best Original Screenplay.
The following year, Sorkin wrote and directed Being the Ricardos, a biographical film about Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz’s relationship starring Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem as Ball and Arnaz, respectively. The film received three Academy Award nominations and two British Academy Film Award (BAFTA) nominations, including Best Original Screenplay.
For television, Sorkin created and produced NBC’s renowned series The West Wing, which earned nine Emmy nominations in its first season. The series went on to win a total of 26 Primetime Emmy Awards, including Outstanding Drama Series for four consecutive years from 2000-2003. For his work on the series, Sorkin twice received the Peabody Award and Humanitas Prize, as well as three Television Critics Association Awards and Producers Guild Awards, and a Writers Guild Award. He also produced and wrote the television series Sports Night for ABC, which garnered eight Emmy nominations and won the Humanitas Prize and the Television Critics Association Award. Additionally, Sorkin created the series Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, which took place behind-the-scenes of a live sketch-comedy show and received five Emmy nominations in 2007.
In 2012, Sorkin made his return to television with the HBO drama The Newsroom, bringing in an average of 7 million viewers per episode. Set behind-the-scenes of a cable news show, the ensemble cast was led by Emily Mortimer, Sam Waterston, and Jeff Daniels, who went on to win an Emmy Award in the Outstanding Actor category for his performance on the show. The show won a Critics Choice Television Award for Most Exciting New Series and has been nominated for numerous awards, including five Primetime Emmy Awards, a Writers Guild Award, and Directors Guild Award. The third and final season aired on HBO in 2014, closing the series on a ratings season high.
In 2018, Sorkin premiered his Broadway stage adaptation of Harper Lee’s iconic American novel To Kill a Mockingbird. The production, staged by Tony-nominated director Bartlett Sher, currently holds the title of the highest grossing American play in Broadway history. It featured the original cast of Jeff Daniels, Celia Keenan-Bolger, Will Pullen, and Gbenga Akinnagbe, and went on to garner Keenan-Bolger the Tony Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role, as well as an additional eight nominations, including Daniels for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role.
In 2023, Sorkin’s adaptation of the classic Lerner & Loewe musical Camelot played at Lincoln Center’s Vivian Beaumont Theatre. Sorkin reteamed with To Kill a Mockingbird director Bartlett Sher.
