Bryan Buckley

Bryan Buckley is an American filmmaker, screenwriter, producer, and two-time Academy Award nominated director.

His successful career has led to him being dubbed the "King of the Super Bowl".

His parents were both activists involved in the anti-war and civil rights movements of the 1960s.

Bryan Buckley was born on September 3, 1963, in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

He spent his first years in Sudbury, a suburb of Boston, before moving in 1970 to live on a farm in Madbury, New Hampshire.

His father, a one-time Army reservist, worked as an art director in a small regional ad agency and later became chair of Boston's New England School of Art.

His mother worked as a top promotional executive at Jordan Marsh department store.

In 1976, his parents separated, and he returned to Massachusetts with his mother.

In his senior year of high school, Buckley was selected for the Short Term Institute at Phillips Andover preparatory school on a full art scholarship.

He was then admitted to Syracuse University's design program; he finished his first class in advertising design there in 1985, but never enrolled in a film class during his time in college.

In 1988, he co-founded his own agency, Buckley/DeCerchio, with his Chiat/Day co-worker Tom DeCerchio.

Their first client was the 4 million dollar Godfather's Pizza account.

Buckley and DeCerchio then hired friends and filmmakers who would work cheaply.

Within a few months, Buckley and DeCerchio were on the cover of Adweek.

In their first year open, their work for Godfather's Pizza was awarded with a Gold Pencil at the One Show, an advertising awards show.

The agency would go on to sign clients such as Yugo cars and Snapple, for whom they created the famous "Made From the Best Stuff on Earth" slogan.

SportsCenter was named the best commercial campaign of the 1990s by The One Club.

In December 1993, Buckley and DeCerchio made the cover of the New York Times business section.

The next day they announced that they had closed the agency.

In 1994, Buckley and his collaborator Frank Todaro were offered the chance to direct a few unscripted, very low-budget promos for ESPN's hockey telecasts.

Buckley had never been behind the camera before, and the job was not paid.

Over its 25-year run, the campaign has featured appearances from several sports stars, including Kobe Bryant, Wayne Gretzky, David Ortiz, LeBron James, Mike Tyson, and Michael Phelps.

In 1997, Buckley co-founded Hungry Man Productions along with "This is SportsCenter" creator Hank Perlman and long-time producer Steve Orent.

The company quickly added several directors to its roster, such as Jim Jenkins, David Shane, Bennett Miller, and Stacy Wall.

Buckley's directorial debut came with a series of commercials he created for NHL on ESPN, before creating the "This is SportsCenter" campaign for ESPN in 1999.

The work became a part of the ESPN brand, and launched Buckley into the commercial world.

Buckley would go on to direct 64 Super Bowl commercials.

He has directed two feature films and four short films.

Buckley's first major work came in 1999 with his first Super Bowl spot, a commercial for Monster.com called "When I Grow Up".

In the 30-second TV spot, kids answered the question "What do you want to be when you grow up?"

with responses such as "I want to be a 'yes' man" and "I want to be forced into early retirement".

Of his four shorts, Krug (2004) played at Sundance, Wake Up Caller (2004) played at the Tribeca Film Festival, while ASAD (2013) and SARIA (2019) have been nominated for Best Live Action Short Film at the Academy Awards.

His two nominations in the same decade mark the first time a director has managed to return to the category in over 30 years.

A 2010 Adweek Readers Poll named Buckley the Commercial Director of the Decade; he was also named one of the 50 best creative minds in the last 25 years by Creativity Magazine.

In 2022, Buckley won best director from the CLIOs, D&AD and One Show.

His direction of the NFL's Super Bowl commercial, Run With It, was recognized with a Sports Emmy in 2023.

His first feature film The Bronze (2015), opened the 2015 Sundance Film Festival, while his second, The Pirates of Somalia (2017), premiered at Tribeca in 2017.

In 2017, Buckley married actress Kiana Madani.

He has four children.

After graduating from Syracuse, Buckley began as an entry-level art director at Doyle Dane Bernbach.