Miguel Sapochnik

Miguel Sapochnik (born 1 July 1974) is an English film and television director of Argentine origin, and former storyboard artist. For his work as a director on the HBO epic fantasy series Game of Thrones, he won the award for Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series at the 68th Primetime Emmy Awards and Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directing – Drama Series at the 69th Directors Guild of America Awards.

In 2000, Sapochnik directed a 2000 short film titled The Dreamer, which he also wrote. He also directed the "Beautiful Inside" music video for singer Louise.

Between 2001 and 2005, he was a director of Snowflake in Hell Films Limited, a film and video production company in London.

Sapochnik's feature film directorial debut was Repo Men (2010), starring Jude Law and Forest Whitaker.

Sapochnik has since then worked mainly on American television and streaming series, directing episodes of Awake (2012), Fringe (2011–12), House (2011–12) and Mind Games (2014).

In 2015, Sapochnik directed two episodes of Game of Thrones for the show's fifth season, "The Gift" and "Hardhome." In 2016, he returned to direct the final two episodes of Game of Thrones sixth season, "Battle of the Bastards" and "The Winds of Winter". All of these episodes received acclaim from both critics and viewers. Sapochnik won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series at the 68th Primetime Emmy Awards, for directing "Battle of the Bastards".

In 2016, Sapochnik directed the series premiere of the show Altered Carbon for Netflix.

In 2017, he directed an episode of Iron Fist.

In April 2019, he directed the third ("The Long Night") and fifth ("The Bells") episodes of the final season of Game of Thrones. For the former, he was nominated once again for the “Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series”.

In 2022, he was co-showrunner of House of the Dragon, a prequel to Game of Thrones. He directed the series premiere "The Heirs of The Dragon" as well as "The Princess and the Queen" and "Driftmark". The first season premiered on August 21, 2022. In August 2022, it was announced that he would be stepping down as showrunner after the first season, though he will remain as an executive producer for future seasons.

In 2025 it was announced that he would be joining the second season of 3 Body Problem.

Personal life Sapochnik is of Argentine origin, and has been married to actress Alexis Raben since 2006.

He is Jewish.

Filmography Film Year Title Director Executiveproducer 2010 Repo Men 2021 Finch

Television Year Show Notes 2011–2012 House Directed 5 episodes 2011–2013 Fringe Directed 2 episodes 2012 Awake Director: "Turtles All the Way Down" Falling Skies Director: "Young Bloods" 2013 Under the Dome Director: "Imperfect Circles" Revolution Director: "Ghosts" Banshee Directed 2 episodes 2014 Mind Games Director: "Pilot" Extant Director: "Ascension" 2015–2019 Game of Thrones Directed 6 episodes2015 Masters of Sex Director: "The Excitement of Release" True Detective Director: "Church in Ruins" 2017 Iron Fist Director: "Eight Diagram Dragon Palm" 2018 Altered Carbon Director: "Out of the Past" 2022 House of the Dragon Directed 3 episodes; also showrunner and executive producer

Awards and nominations