Carrie Cracknell is a theatre and film director. Her debut feature film, PERSUASION for Netflix / MRC, starred Dakota Johnson and Cosmo Jarvis and was released on Netflix in 2022. It debuted as the #1 title in 55 countries globally.
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​She has worked with actors including Jake Gyllenhaal, Vanessa Kirby, Helen McRory, Andrew Scott, Michaela Coel, Anne Marie Duff, Tobias Menzies, Kathryn Parkinson, Richard E Grant and Dakota Johnson.
In 2024 she created a new production of Carmen for The Metropolitan Opera and opened a major revival of The Grapes of Wrath at the National Theatre starring Cherry Jones.
Her 2019 Broadway production of Sea Wall/ A Life was nominated for four Tony Awards (Best Play, twice for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role for Jake Gyllenhaal and Tom Sturridge, and for Best Sound Design in a Play for Daniel Kluger).
Carrie regularly collaborates with the National Theatre where her credits include her acclaimed productions of Medea, The Deep Blue Sea (both with Helen McCrory and which were live-streamed into cinemas internationally as part of NT Live), Blurred Lines and Julie (starring Vanessa Kirby in a new version by Polly Stenham, also NT Live.)
At university she set up a production company called Hush with a group of friends including the actor Ruth Wilson and the producer James Erskine. Their first show transferred to New York and London while they were still studying. At the age of 26 Carrie became the youngest Artistic Director in Britain when she and Natalie Abrahami took over The Gate Theatre in Notting Hill, which they ran for 5 years and where she directed extensively.
Her first dance/theatre collaboration at The Gate, I Am Falling, transferred to Sadler’s Wells and was nominated for a South Bank Show Award. After leaving The Gate, Carrie went on to create her iconic production of A Doll’s House which ran twice at the Young Vic before transferring to the Duke of York’s in the West End and BAM in New York and for which she was nominated for the Evening Standard Best Director Award. It led to her developing the short film Nora with Nick Payne in response to the play which was produced by the Young Vic. She then went on to direct her first opera, Berg’s Wozzeck, for the ENO at the Colliseum, which was nominated for an Olivier Award and an International Opera Award.
Other credits include Macbeth and Electra (Young Vic) Birdland and Pigeons (The Royal Court) Oil and Portia Coughlan (The Almeida) Doll’s and Stacy (National Theatre of Scotland.)
Carrie has been an Associate Director at both the Young Vic and the Royal Court Theatre, and was a member of the board at the Almeida Theatre. She is a member of BAFTA.