Making his debut with the critically acclaimed Fruitvale Station in 2013, which premiered at the the 2013 Sundance Film Festival, Ryan Coogler is an American film director and screenwriter. The movie won the Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Award for U.S. dramatic film at the festival. Between college football and attending the USC School of Cinematic Arts, Coogler directed short films like Locks (2009), Fig (2011), The Sculptor (2011) and Gap (2011), which went on to win several awards at various film festivals.

In 2013 Coogler directed Fruitvale Station, with veteran actor Forest Whitaker producing the movie. It was based on the real life story of Oscar Grant, who was shot dead by a police officer at Oakland`s Fruitvale BART station in 2009. The movie was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the award for Best First Film. Coogler next worked with Aaron Covington on a screenplay of a story that he had written as a possible sequel to the 2006 movie, Rocky Balboa. It materialised into the 2015 Oscar-nominated hit movie, Creed. Sylvester Stallone was nominated for an Oscar in Best Supporting Actor category. Coogler won the "New Generation Award" from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association (LAFCA) and a Best Director award from the African-American Film Critics Association (AAFCA). In 2018 Coogler co-wrote and directed the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) superhero movie, Black Panther. Joe Robert Cole also served as a writer on the movie. The movie has Chadwick Boseman playing T`Challa a.k.a. Black Panther. The movie will be Coogler`s third collaboration with Michael B. Jordan, who has acted in all of his feature films. His other projects include Space Jam: A New Legacy (2021), Judas and the Black Messiah (2021) and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022)