Morano was the first woman in history to win both the Emmy and Directors Guild Award for directing a drama series in the same year for the pilot episode of The Handmaid's Tale.
Morano is known for her cinematography work on feature films such as Frozen River (2008), Kill Your Darlings (2013) and The Skeleton Twins (2014).
[6] Sometime after she moved her with family to Minnesota at 8 months old, her parents divorced, and she and her brother, Justin (now a professor of climate science at Dartmouth College[7][8]) lived with their mother on Long Island.
[9] Her father, Casey, realizing her interest in theater and drama, "gave me a video camera and said, 'You’re gonna be the family documentarian.'
'"[9] Morano subsequently attended New York University and graduated from the Tisch School of the Arts Film and TV program in 2000.
[20] and theatrically released;[21] In 2014, two feature films shot by Morano premiered there: The Skeleton Twins,[22] a dark comedy starring Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader, directed by Craig Johnson,[23][24] and Mark Jackson’s War Story, a dark drama filmed in Sicily starring Catherine Keener and Sir Ben Kingsley.
[27] Morano also served as her own director of photography on her directorial debut, the critically acclaimed drama Meadowland, starring Olivia Wilde, Luke Wilson, Giovanni Ribisi, Elisabeth Moss, Juno Temple and John Leguizamo.
[30] In 2017, Morano directed the first three episodes of the television adaptation of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, which was released by the streaming service Hulu in April 2017.
[4][5] In 2018, Morano directed and shot I Think We're Alone Now, a post-apocalyptic drama centering on the companionship between Del (Peter Dinklage) and Grace (Elle Fanning).
[33] In 2020, Morano released her third feature film as director The Rhythm Section, starring Blake Lively, Jude Law and Sterling K. Brown.