Lesli Linka Glatter (born July 26, 1953) is an American film and television director.^[1] She is best known for her work on the AMC drama series Mad Men and the Showtime series Homeland.^[2] For her work in these two shows, she has received eight Primetime Emmy Award nominations ^[3] and 7 Directors Guild of America Awards nominations, winning the latter 3 times.^[4][5] She has also received a nomination for Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film for Tales of Meeting and Parting (1985).^[6]

Glatter was born in Dallas and began her career as a dancer and choreographer. Her early choreography credits include William Friedkin's To Live and Die in L.A and the music video for Sheila E.'s "The Glamorous Life".^[7][8]

Her first film, Tales of Meeting and Parting (1984), produced by Sharon Oreck, was nominated for an Academy Award in the Live Action Short Film category.^[9] She made the film as part of the American Film Institute Directing Workshop for Women, of which she is an alumna.

In 1995, Glatter directed her first feature film, Now and Then, a coming-of-age story about four 12-year-old girls during an eventful summer in 1970.^[10]

She has made several television films for cable networks, but the majority of her work is in television series. Glatter has received five nominations for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series, for the Mad Men episode "Guy Walks Into an Advertising Agency" (2009), and the Homeland episodes "Q&A" (2012), "From A to B and Back Again" (2014) and "The Tradition of Hospitality" (2015) and "America First" (2016).^[11]

In 2018 it was announced that Glatter would serve as chair on the advisory council for NBC's Female Forward. An annual initiative to give ten women directors the opportunity to shadow a director on one of NBC's scripted television series for up to three episodes. The experience concludes with an in-season commitment for each finalist to direct at least one episode of the series they shadow.^[12]

On February 5, 2019, it was announced that Glatter would be credited as an executive producer alongside Bruna Papandrea and Charlotte Stoudt in the Netflix thriller series, Pieces of Her.^[13][14][15] More recently, she and Cheryl Bloch launched Backyard Pictures with a first look deal at Universal Television.^[16]

In 2021, Glatter was elected president of the Directors Guild of America.^[17][18]

In February 2023, she directed and executive produced Love & Death,^[19] an HBO Max limited series written by David E. Kelley and starring Elizabeth Olsen and Jesse Plemons. It premiered on April 27, 2023.^[20]