A native Texan raised in a devout LDS home, Dustin Lance Black is now an Academy Award-winning filmmaker, writer, LGBTQ+ activist, husband, and father of two. He won the Academy Award and two WGA Awards for his screenplay for Milk, the film about activist Harvey Milk which starred Sean Penn. In 2018, Black received the Valentine Davies Award from the Writers Guild of America for his body of work.  

Black was a founding board member of the American Foundation for Equal Rights (AFER), which successfully led the federal cases for marriage equality in California and Virginia, putting an end to California’s discriminatory Proposition 8.

In 2022, Black created, executive produced, wrote, and directed the Emmy, Golden Globe, and Critics Choice nominated limited series “Under the Banner of Heaven” for FX and HULU based on the bestselling book by Jon Krakauer, starring Andrew Garfield. Black’s best-selling, award-winning memoir “Mama’s Boy” was released in 2019. Produced by Amblin TV and Playtone, acclaimed filmmaker Laurent Bouzereau adapted Black’s book into a feature documentary for HBO. Black also wrote the Academy Award nominated 2023 film Rustin, a biopic about the esteemed civil rights organizer Bayard Rustin, and Black is currently directing the feature documentary Rock Out with Live Nation and Bill Gerber producing.

In 2012, Black merged his creative and civil rights work with “8,” a play based on the Federal Proposition 8 trial. The play’s casts have included George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman, Jane Lynch, Martin Sheen, and John Lithgow. “8” broke viewership records when it was first broadcast online live from the Wilshire Ebell Theatre. The play has now been staged in eight countries and all fifty states with all proceeds benefiting LGBTQ+ equality efforts worldwide.

In 2011, Black earned his second “10 Best of the Year” award from the American Film Institute as the writer of J. Edgar, which starred Leonardo DiCaprio and was directed by Clint Eastwood. From 2004-2008, Black drew on his Mormon upbringing as a writer and co-producer on HBO’s Emmy® and Golden Globe® nominated drama Big Love starring Bill Paxton. During this period, Black also penned the screenplay Pedro about the life and legacy of famed, openly gay, HIV positive Real World cast member Pedro Zamora. The film premiered on MTV and VH1 in 2009 and earned Black his second WGA Award nomination.

In addition to his creative work, Black was a co-founders of the Uprising of Love Coalition that sought to raise awareness of violence and discrimination committed against LGBTQ+ people in the global community. Black also served for three years on the board of the Trevor Project, a national LGBTQ youth crisis hotline, where he established a hotline in Harvey Milk’s former camera shop in San Francisco. And in 2009, Black was one of a handful of organizers of the National Equality March where he demanded full federal LGBTQ equality before an audience of over 200,000 demonstrators on the steps of the Nation’s Capital.

An honors graduate of UCLA’s School of Film and Television, Black began his career as an art director before moving into directing documentaries and commercials. His documentaries On the Bus (2001) and My Life with Count Dracula (2003) led to producing and directing TLC and BBC’s hit program Faking It, which received notices for its unflinching sociological commentaries. Black has taught screenwriting at UCLA, Emerson, Bowling Green, USC, and has lectured at universities including Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, and Penn. He has appeared regularly on the BBC, MSNBC, and CNN as a political commentator and has been repeatedly named one of the 50 most powerful LGBTQ+ people in the United States.