John Ridley IV[1] (born October 1, 1964)[2] is an American screenwriter, television director, novelist, and showrunner, known for 12 Years a Slave, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay.

[4] Moving to Los Angeles in 1990, he began writing for such television sitcoms as Martin, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, and The John Larroquette Show.

[4] After both writing and directing his film debut, the 1997 crime thriller Cold Around the Heart, he and Oliver Stone co-adapted Ridley's first novel, Stray Dogs (still unpublished when Stone bought the rights[9]) into the 1997 Stone-directed film U Turn, which was released slightly earlier than Cold Around the Heart.

[15][17] In April 2015, Ridley was developing an ABC television series involving an existing Marvel Comics character.

[19] Ridley later revealed that his cancelled project would have been a version of Eternals, which was instead developed as an unrelated movie directed by Chloé Zhao.

[20] On April 16, 2018, it was announced that Ridley would direct and write an adaptation of his graphic novel The American Way produced by Blumhouse Productions.

[21] On June 4, 2018, it was announced that Ridley would direct a feature film adaptation of the Robert Silverberg short story, Needle in a Timestack produced by Bron Studios.

[24] In an op-ed published in the Los Angeles Times, Ridley explained: "After 15 years of being told shut up, sit down and be part of the groupthink, I decided I did not belong in the guild.