In 2011, The New York Times described Barker as “a filmmaker of artistic and political consequence.” Previous films include Sergio (short-listed in 2010 for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, winner of the Best Editing Award at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival); Ghosts of Rwanda (winner of the 2004 DuPont Columbia award and The Robert F. Kennedy Award for International Reporting); Manhunt: The Search for Bin Laden (Grand Jury Prize Sundance Film Festival 2013, Winner of Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Special and Outstanding Cinematography for Nonfiction Programming); and The Final Year (Toronto International Film Festival 2017).
He lived in London for most of his adult life, and became a freelance journalist and war correspondent, working with organizations such as CNN, BBC and Reuters.
He turned to filmmaking in 1998, and made a string of international films for the flagship PBS television series Frontline.
Barker spent seven years researching the Rwandan genocide, which resulted in the 2004 feature-length Frontline documentary Ghosts of Rwanda, which won numerous awards and established his reputation.
Together they have made Sergio, Koran By Heart, Manhunt, Homegrown: The Counter-Terror Dilemma, and The Final Year all of which Barker directed for HBO Documentary Films.