Louis Theroux

Louis Theroux is an award-winning documentary filmmaker, journalist, broadcaster, and author. He is a genre-defining documentary presenter best known for producing immersive documentaries that explore the controversial and complex aspects of the human condition.

Using a gentle questioning style and an informal approach, Louis has shone light on intriguing beliefs, behaviours, and institutions by getting to know the people at the heart of them – from the officers and inmates at San Quentin prison to the extreme believers of the Westboro Baptist Church; from male porn performers in California to young women with eating disorders in London.

Louis graduated from Oxford in 1991 and got his break in television in 1994 working for the American documentary maker Michael Moore, who hired him as a writer and correspondent on his show, TV Nation.  He then went on to make the BAFTA-winning series Louis Theroux’s Weird Weekends, When Louis Met…, and a series of award-winning specials including The Most Hated Family in America, Miami Mega Jail, Altered States and the feature-length documentary, My Scientology Movie. 

Over the years, Louis has kept true to a way of working that is uniquely his own: by charming his subjects, he’s able to offer rounded portraits of the people involved in complex social issues and human dilemmas, while always resisting easy judgements.

Louis has won numerous awards, including three BAFTAs, an RTS award, and Grierson’s Trustees’ Award, and in 2019, he set up his own independent television production company, Mindhouse, alongside Arron Fellows and Nancy Strang.

Louis released his first book in 2018. The Call of the Weird is a hilarious, thought-provoking and at times surreal voyage into the heart of weirdness.

His second book, Gotta Get Theroux This, was released in 2020 and is a funny, heartfelt and entertaining account of his life and strange times in TV.

Theroux The Keyhole was published in 2021. This book is an honest, hilarious and ultimately heartwarming diary of the weirdness of family life in Covid World.

Louis lives in North West London with his wife and three children.