Duke Johnson is an American film director who specializes in stop-motion animation. He currently serves as a director and junior partner for Dino Stamatopoulos's animation production studio Starburns Industries in Burbank, California.
Early life Johnson was raised in St. Louis, Missouri, where he attended St. John Vianney High School. Between his second and third years at St John Vianney, he attended a summer film course at Columbia College Chicago. He graduated from the film school at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University, where he spent a semester studying animation in Prague. After graduating, he spent three years working as a waiter in a New York restaurant before moving to Los Angeles, where he obtained a Master of Fine Arts degree in directing from the AFI Conservatory in 2006.
Career Johnson has been nominated for Annie Awards in 2011 and 2012 for directing stop-motion episodes of shows such as Mary Shelley's Frankenhole and Community.
In 2016, he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature in the 88th Academy Awards for co-directing the stop-motion comedy-drama film Anomalisa with Charlie Kaufman.
Johnson made his solo directing debut with the 2025 film The Actor, based on the 2010 novel Memory by Donald E. Westlake.
Filmography Short film Year Title Director Producer 2006 Marrying God 2017 Moonwrapped
Feature film Year Title Director Producer Writer Notes 2015 Anomalisa Co-directed with Charlie Kaufman 2025 The Actor TBA In production
Television Year Title Director Writer Producer Notes 2008 Moral Orel Episode "Help" 2010 Community Episode "Abed's Uncontrollable Christmas" 2010–2012 Mary Shelley's Frankenhole Also matte painter 2012 Beforel Orel: Trust TV special; also animator 2020 Cosmos: Possible Worlds Supervising animation directorEpisode "Vavilov"
Other credits Year Title Role Notes 2003 Just an American Boy Cinematographer Documentary film 2020 I'm Thinking of Ending Things Producer of animation 2025 Severance Animator of "Lumon is Listening" video Episode "Hello, Ms. Cobel"
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