Born in College Station, TX, Coulter studied theater direction at the University of Texas before moving to New York to pursue his love of film. Working odd jobs in New York, he managed to scrap up enough money to make his first short film, "The Hobbs Case." Coulter's received his first professional credit on the horror Sci-Fi series "Tales of the Darkside" (1983-1988). He next found directorial and writing work on another syndicated series, "Monsters" (1988-1991), as well as the ABC After School Special, "It's Only Rock & Roll" (1991). Coulter eased his way onto more prominent TV sets, landing work on a number of series, including "Prince Street" (NBC, 1997), "Michael Hayes" (CBS, 1997-1998) and both popular Chris Carter sci-fi shows, "The X-Files" (Fox, 1993-2002) and "Millennium" (Fox, 1996-1999).

Coulter's first major milestone as a television director came in 1999 with the premiere of the HBO flagship series "The Sopranos" (1999- ), which he also produced. He received four Emmy nominations for Outstanding Directing in a Dramatic Series, as well as two DGA Award nominations for his work on the series. A proven commodity, Coulter also directed the iconic HBO comedy series, "Sex and the City" (1998-2004), receiving two DGA Award nominations for his work in 2001 and 2002. Coulter went on to direct an episode of "Six Feet Under" (HBO, 2001-2005) and the pilot for the gritty drug-trafficking miniseries "Kingpin" (NBC, 2003).

After a two year absence, Coulter returned to HBO in 2005 to direct an episode of the award-winning historical miniseries "Rome" (2005), which graphically chronicled the rise of the Roman Empire. After working on so many HBO programs that most critics liken to mini movies for the small screen, transitioning to the big screen was not that big a leap for the talented director. Coulter made his feature film directorial debut in 2006 with the detective drama, "Hollywoodland," featuring Ben Affleck, Adrien Brody and Diane Lane.