British documentary filmmaker at the BBC who made The Living Dead, The Century of the Self, The Power of Nightmares, The Trap, It Felt Like a Kiss, All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace, and HyperNormalisation — known for his distinctive style (archive footage, ambient music, voice-over narration) and his thesis that hidden power structures shape our perception of reality.
Created the most distinctive political documentary style of the 21st century — Curtis's combination of BBC archive footage, music (Brian Eno, Burial, Boards of Canada), and hypnotic narration to make arguments about how power operates through ideas and feelings (not just force) produced documentaries that function more like political poetry than journalism.
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