Samuel D. Pollard is an American film director, editor, producer, and screenwriter. His films have garnered Peabodys, Emmys, and an Academy Award nomination. In 2020, the International Documentary Association gave him a career achievement award. Spike Lee, whose films Pollard has edited and produced, described him as "a master filmmaker." Henry Louis Gates Jr. said of his work: "When I think about his documentaries, they add up to a corpus — a way of telling African-American history in its various dimensions."