Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1963 to parents who worked in advertising, Buckley would always gravitate toward the arts before eventually following them into the field. However, his commercial storytelling talents were sparked earlier, while working as a cartoonist for the Syracuse University college newspaper- a role where he combined visual storytelling and dialogue for his first time. Once out of college and following a stint at Doyle Dane Bernbach, he co-founded Buckley/DeCerchio with Tom DeCerchio, where he had found success with the Godfather’s Pizza campaign. He finally made his foray into commercial directing with his now iconic “This is SportsCenter” Campaign in 1994 and has Directed ever since.
Buckley’s Commercial Directing portfolio includes collaborations with Budweiser, E*Trade, Monster.com, Microsoft and Capitol One, to name only a few. A three-time DGA Award-nominee in the category, Buckley took home the 1999 DGA Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Commercials for his ads: Broker and Trimount Studios (E*Trade), Friends (Onhealth.Com) and When I Grow Up (Monster.Com).
He is the co-founder of the much-decorated Hungry Man Productions and is often dubbed “The King of the Super Bowl” for having Directed over 65 Super Bowl commercials. Of no small mention is his talent for short film Directing and screenwriting, for which the short features Asad and Saria were nominated for Academy Awards in that category.
Buckley has served as an Alternate on the Eastern Directors Council in 2014 and 2015. He has been a member of the Directors Guild since 1995.