Elaine McMillion Sheldon is an Academy Award-nominated, Peabody-winning, and two-time Emmy-winning documentary filmmaker. She has been nominated for six Emmy awards, three Peabody awards, is a 2021 Creative Capital Awardee, a 2021 Livingston Award Finalist, and a 2020 John Simon Guggenheim Fellow. She premiered her latest feature-length documentary, “King Coal,” at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. The New York Times named it a Critics’ Pick,  Esquire and Marie Claire named it one of the best documentaries of the year (so far). The film is screening in select theaters across the U.S. throughout the fall of 2023.

Sheldon is the director of two Netflix Original Documentaries -  "Heroin(e)" and "Recovery Boys" - that explore America's opioid crisis. "Heroin(e)" was nominated for a 2018 Academy Award and won the 2018 News and Documentary Emmy Award for Outstanding Short Documentary. The short film premiered at the 2017 Telluride Film Festival and went on to screen hundreds of times across America as part of a community-driven impact campaign. 

In 2020, she released "Tutwiler," a rare and intimate look at motherhood inside one of America's most notorious prisons. "Tutwiler,” a collaboration with The Marshall Project and PBS Frontline, raises questions about how America is handling the growing crisis of incarcerated pregnant women, and what happens to their newborns. The 34-minute film was nominated for a 2021 News and Documentary Emmy Award, won a 2021 Deadline Club Award, and was a finalist in the ONA Journalism Awards. 

Her 2019 film "Coal's Deadly Dust" - a PBS Frontline and NPR collaboration - investigates the rise of severe black lung disease among coal miners. This joint investigation with NPR's veteran reporter, Howard Berkes, reveals the biggest disease clusters ever documented, and how the industry and the government failed to protect miners. "Coal's Deadly Dust" was nominated for a 2019 Peabody Award, 2020 Writers Guild of America (WGA) Award, and two 2020 News and Documentary Emmy nominations for Outstanding Investigative Report in a Newsmagazine and Best Story in a Newsmagazine.

In 2013, she released "Hollow," an interactive documentary that examines the future of rural America through the eyes and voices of West Virginians. Hollow received a Peabody, News and Documentary Emmy Award nomination and 3rd Prize in the World Press Photo Multimedia Awards.

Her co-directed work with Curren Sheldon for Sesame Street in Communities won a 2020 Daytime Emmy Award. The short film explores addiction and recovery from the viewpoint of a child and her family’s resilience.

Other honors include being named a 2018 USA Fellow by United States Artists, Chicken and Egg Pictures’ Breakthrough Filmmaker Award in 2016, one of the "25 New Faces of Independent Film" by Filmmaker Magazine in 2013, and one of "50 People Changing The South" by Southern Living Magazine. 

She has been commissioned by Netflix, PBS Frontline, The Center for Investigative Reporting, Oxford American, The New York Times Op-Docs, TEDWomen, Field of Vision, and The Bitter Southerner. Sheldon has appeared on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, Anthony Bourdain's CNN Show Parts Unknown and Meet The Press with Chuck Todd. She's a founding member of All Y'all Southern Documentary Collective.

She lives in Knoxville, Tennessee with her husband and filmmaker, Curren Sheldon. She is the owner of Requisite Media, LLC. She teaches cinema studies at the University of Tennessee School of Art. She is represented by Amanda Lebow at CAA.