Chandor grew up in the Basking Ridge section of Bernards Township, New Jersey. He is the son of Mary (McDonald) and Jeff Chandor, an investment banker. After graduating in 1992 from Ridge High School in Bernards Township, he received his bachelor's degree in 1996 from The College of Wooster. During the 15 years leading up to Margin Call, Chandor directed commercials.
Margin Call was Chandor's first feature-length film. The film premiered at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah; it also played In Competition at the 61st Berlin International Film Festival and was nominated for the Golden Bear. Margin Call was nominated for four Independent Spirit Awards and won two of them: for Best First Feature and the Robert Altman Award for Best Cast. Chandor was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay.
His second feature film All Is Lost was screened Out of Competition at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival. It received critical acclaim, especially for Robert Redford's solo performance which featured almost no dialogue, for which Redford won the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor, and was nominated for the Golden Globe Award and Critics' Choice Award. The film was also nominated for an Academy Award for Best Sound Design.
In 2014, Chandor directed Oscar Isaac and Jessica Chastain in A Most Violent Year which was nominated for a Golden Globe an Independent Spirit Award and which won three National Board of Review awards: Best Actor, Best Supporting Actress, and Best Picture for Chandor and his producing partners Neal Dodson and Anna Gerb.
On June 29, 2015, it was announced that Chandor was in talks to direct the crime film Triple Frontier for Paramount Pictures.
