Fogel began his career in Hollywood pursuing stand-up comedy and acting. He had a small part in the 2009 Disney movie
Race to Witch Mountain. Fogel has given keynote speeches to organizations around the world including the
Oslo Freedom Forum in 2019 and 2020 -
Human Rights Foundation and has appeared on ABC Nightline,
Charlie Rose, Seth Meyers,
Joe Rogan, CNN, ESPN,
Meet The Press, The View, NPR, BBC and has been featured in publications around the globe including
The Guardian. Fogel currently resides in Los Angeles.
Jewtopia Fogel developed, co-wrote, and initially starred in the play
Jewtopia, an
off-Broadway comedy about the dating lives of two young men seeking Jewish women, which was made into a feature film. The play opened in Los Angeles in 2003 and ran for 300 performances. It moved on in 2004 to the off-Broadway
Westside Theater in New York, where it ran for more than three years and over a thousand performances before closing in April 2007. It is one of the longest-running and fastest-recouping productions in Off-Broadway history. Fogel co-authored the book
Jewtopia: The Chosen Guide for the Chosen People, with Sam Wolfson. The book was published by
Hachette Book Group and Fogel appeared on ABC's
The View in support of the book. Fogel directed, co-wrote and produced the
feature film adaptation of Jewtopia, which was released in 2012. The film had its U.S. premiere as the opening night gala of the 13th Newport Beach International Film Festival.
Icarus Fogel, as a lifelong cyclist, had followed
Lance Armstrong’s rise and fall, in particular, his ability to evade doping detection. Fogel later connected with Russian scientist
Grigory Rodchenkov, eventually preparing evidence and setting-up an interview for Rodchenkov at
The New York Times.
Icarus, a film documenting these investigations, was described by
The New York Times as "Illuminating" with
Variety magazine calling it "A game changing documentary."
Icarus premiered at the
Sundance Film Festival, where it won U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award "The Orwell Award" and the first ever "Audience Choice" Award of Sundance Film Festival London. The film was acquired in a $5 million sale by Netflix and launched globally on August 4, 2017. The film won Netflix its first Feature Documentary Oscar.
The Dissident After
Icarus, Fogel co-wrote, directed and produced the 2020 American documentary film
The Dissident, which follows the
assassination of Jamal Khashoggi and Saudi Arabia's efforts to control international
dissent. It had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on January 24, 2020, and was released on December 18, 2020, by
Briarcliff Entertainment. Fogel's screenplay for
The Dissident won the
Writers Guild of America Award for Best Documentary Screenplay award at the
73rd Writers Guild of America Awards in 2020 alongside Mark Monroe. It also received a nomination for "
Best Documentary" at the
British Academy Film Awards (BAFTA) in 2020, Fogel's second. Despite generally positive reviews, the film struggled to find a distributor for eight months and was not able to run on a large streaming platform. Fogel believed this was due to those platforms' fear of offending the Saudi Arabian government and possibly losing subscribers.
Icarus: The Aftermath Fogel completed
Icarus: The Aftermath in 2022, a follow-up to the Oscar-winning doc
Icarus.{{cite news|last=Rottenberg|first=Josh|url=https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/movies/story/2022-09-06/telluride-film-festival-winners-losers ==Filmography==