Chris Paine is an American filmmaker. His most notable works to date as director are the documentaries Who Killed the Electric Car? and Revenge of the Electric Car.
Paine served as Executive Producer on the documentaries Faster, William Gibson: No Maps for these Territories and Charge! directed by Mark Neale and the 2015 Swedish film Bike vs Cars directed by Fredrik Gertten. Other directing and producing projects include MTV/Initial Film's Buzz (1990) and shorts including Mailman (Sundance, 1995) with Matthew Carnahan, Trillion Cubic Feet (1992), Looking Back (1994), and Return to the Philippines (1986). Paine worked as an assistant to writer/director Michael Tolkin on the feature films The Rapture The Player and The New Age. He was a story producer for Zoo Life with Jack Hanna.
In 2010, Paine's team won 3 Webby Awards for Counterspill an online project about fossil fuel energy spills. He serves on the board of directors for Friends of the Earth, the Coalition for Clean Air, and the Black Rock Arts Foundation.
Paine studied acting at the Neighborhood Playhouse, with classmates Allison Janney and Dylan McDermott. He studied film at New York University and Stanford University with documentarian John Else. He graduated from Colgate University in 1983 with a degree in international relations.
In 1984, Paine co-founded Mondo-tronics, which helped designed robotic actuators for the Mars Pathfinder mission. He also took his company Internet Outfitters public as part of AppNet Systems/Commerce One in 2000.