[3] He attended Louisiana State University on a visual arts scholarship,[4][11] graduating with a BA in English and philosophy.
[12] Pizzolatto wrote two short stories when he was completing his MFA at the University of Arkansas – "Ghost-Birds" and "Between Here and the Yellow Sea" – which were sold to The Atlantic Monthly.
In 2010, Galveston earned him the Prix du Premier Roman Étranger, the French Academy's award for Best First Novel, Foreign.
[7] In 2012, Pizzolatto created an original television series called True Detective, which was sold to HBO and completed shooting in June 2013 with him as executive producer, sole writer, and showrunner.
[24] Pizzolatto listed several influences on the show's first season: philosophy books such as Thomas Ligotti's The Conspiracy Against the Human Race, Eugene Thacker's In The Dust of This Planet, Ray Brassier's Nihil Unbound, Jim Crawford's Confessions of an Antinatalist, and David Benatar's Better Never to Have Been.
[29] In August 2016, HBO announced a potential new series written by Pizzolatto and starring Robert Downey Jr., centering on the character of investigative attorney Perry Mason.
[30] On August 25, 2017, it was announced that Pizzolatto had dropped out of the production in order to focus on the third season of True Detective and that he was being replaced as the project's writer by Rolin Jones and Ron Fitzgerald.
Antoine Fuqua directed, and the film, released on September 23, 2016, starred Denzel Washington, Chris Pratt, Vincent D'Onofrio, Lee Byung-hun, Ethan Hawke, Peter Sarsgaard and others.
Pizzolatto adapted his 2010 novel Galveston for the 2018 film of the same name; however, he requested to be credited under the pseudonym Jim Hammett following director Mélanie Laurent's contributions to the screenplay, despite not being formally engaged as a writer on the project, feeling the final script did not reflect his own.
"[32][33] In December 2018, Pizzolatto revealed that he had assisted Deadwood creator David Milch in writing the screenplay for the film adaptation.
"[38] In March 2022, HBO announced that a fourth season of True Detective entered development, which would carry the subtitle Night Country, a first for the series.
[41] The previous year he had said that "The Grass Rifles is an original western TV series I've written two episodes of, along with a season-long outline.
[43] In April 2023, Pizzolatto was hired to co-write the script for the Marvel Cinematic Universe film Blade,[44] currently set for release on November 7, 2025.
In France, Galveston was awarded the Prix du Premier Roman étranger[52] (Best Foreign First Novel) for 2011, by a jury of literary critics.
[54] For the 66th Primetime Emmy Awards, Pizzolatto was nominated for Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series for "The Secret Fate of All Life".