Known for Directing
Nathan Silver has written and directed nine feature films. His work has played festivals around the world, including NYFF, Venice, Tribeca, Mar del Plata, AFI, Locarno, Rotterdam and Viennale. The New Yorker recently called Silver “a modernistic master of melodrama,” and said that “he proves himself to be one of the most original American independent filmmakers working today.”
Filmography
40 films, 3 shows


Sounds From Home
2026 · 7m
country: France
When filmmaker Nathan Silver and his wife Nicole Fuentes moved halfway around the world, Nathan’s parents took up birdwatching and began sending them audio recordings from their bird identifying app. It wasn’t so much the birds you can hear on the recordings but discussions about the birds, life in the United States, and aging as a couple. From their new home in France, Nathan and Nicole began pairing these recordings with footage of the birds and life around them.


Carol & Joy
2025 · 39m
country: United States
98-year-old Joy Kane, a music teacher and ex-dancer, shares stories and plays piano with her daughter Carol. Their afternoon together reveals artistic lives, family bonds, and their paths across two centuries.


Between the Temples
2024 · 1h 51m
country: United States
A grief-stricken cantor in a crisis of faith finds his world turned upside down when his grade school music teacher re-enters his life as his new adult Bat Mitzvah student. The two forlorn souls develop a special connection.


Cutting My Mother
2019 · 40m
country: Unknown
When director Nathan Silver cuts his mother's scenes from one of his movies, her disappointment goes beyond creative differences. In this new documentary series, they try to repair their relationship.


The Great Pretender
2018 · 1h 11m
country: United States
The lives of a French theater director, her ex-boyfriend, and the two actors playing them intersect dramatically.


Thirst Street
2017 · 1h 24m
country: France
Gina, an American flight attendant, falls in with a Parisian bartender on a layover only to find herself tangled in a web of deception, delusion and unrequited amour fou.


Actor Martinez
2016 · 1h 15m
country: Unknown
Dreaming of fame and fortune, a local Denver performer hires two indie filmmakers to come to town and make a film with him as the star.


Stinking Heaven
2015 · 1h 10m
country: United States
A black-as-tar comedy charting the dissolution of a commune for sober living in suburban 1990s New Jersey.
Riot
Riot
2015 · 4m
country: United States
Filmmaker Silver directed his first film during his ninth birthday party in 1992. Together with friends, he re-enacted the riots that were underway in Los Angeles at the time. Images from both events were retained and edited together by Silver. The party and the riots share a characteristic element - chaos.


Uncertain Terms
2014 · 1h 14m
country: United States
Needing a sudden escape from the city, Robbie leaves Brooklyn to stay in the Hudson Valley with his aunt, who runs a home for pregnant teens. As the only man in the house, Robbie captures the attention of many of the girls, and when he strikes up a friendship with Nina, who is dealing with her own relationship troubles, tensions run high in the house.


Soft in the Head
2013 · 1h 11m
country: United States
Kicked out of her apartment, Natalia wanders New York City, crashing a family’s holiday meal, staying at a men's shelter, and dragging everyone down with her. An ode to anxiety and New York.


Exit Elena
2012 · 1h 12m
country: United States
A live-in aide adjusts to life with the family who employ her.


The Blind
2009 · 1h 30m
country: Unknown
Marcus and Kate moved to a residential neighborhood in New England. He is a frustrated architect, she is a young housewife who has discontinued her studies. The daily newspaper of a crisis is strictly narrated among the immutable spaces of the bourgeois suburbs: houses, gardens, shopping centers.


Anecdote
2008 · 30m
country: Unknown
After failing the Bar exam, Kate realizes that law is not for her. With no sense of a life-plan, Kate takes a job house cleaning and at first finds comfort in the repetition and routine of the work, but repetition and routine only go so far... A tragic farce in black-and-white