Nick Zedd (né James Franklyn Harding III; January 25, 1956 – February 27, 2022) was an American filmmaker, author, and painter based in Mexico City. He coined the term Cinema of Transgression in 1985 to describe a loose-knit group of like-minded filmmakers and artists using shock value and black humor in their work. These filmmakers and artistic collaborators included Richard Kern, Tessa Hughes Freeland, Lung Leg, Kembra Pfahler, Jack Smith and Lydia Lunch. Under numerous pen names, Zedd edited and wrote the Underground Film Bulletin (1984–1990) which publicized the work of these filmmakers. The Cinema of Transgression was explored in Jack Sargeant's book Deathtripping.

Zedd was born in Takoma Park, Maryland, on January 25, 1956. He said the proximity to DC gave him a political awareness. Zedd took LSD at 16, causing an "internal revolution" that changed him. Zedd first moved to Philadelphia for art school, but found the city boring. He then moved to New York in 1976 to study at the School of Visual Arts and Brooklyn's Pratt Institute, where he earned a BFA in Film.

Zedd started to make films in 1979, and his first film was the feature-length "They Eat Scum" about "The rise, fall and rise of a teen death-rock idol." Zedd went on to direct other super-low-budget feature-length movies, including Geek Maggot Bingo and War Is Menstrual Envy, and numerous short films. The 1983 film The Wild World of Lydia Lunch depicts the deterioration of Zedd's relationship with Lydia Lunch in London and Ireland. Zedd struggled to secure funding and distribution for his films: in the spring of 1993, he screened Geek Maggot Bingo to 15 New York-based production companies, all of whom exited before the film's ending. Zedd met Richard Kern in 1984 at a screening for Beth B, who Zedd was dating at the time. The same year, Zedd made Thrust In Me, a short film about a love suicide, with both the leads played by Zedd himself; the film was included in Richard Kern's film series Manhattan Love Suicides. Zedd's 1987 short Police State is considered "one of the best narrative movies to emerge from the Cinema of Transgression" and "the zenith of Zedd's narrative filmmaking." The film depicts the harassment and torture of a young man by sadistic cops, who serve the interests of the ruling class. His feature film War Is Menstrual Envy was produced in three parts between 1990 and 1992 and is reminiscent of the work of Kenneth Anger and Jack Smith with its psychedelic colors and campy images.

In 1985, Zedd founded the Cinema of Transgression, a film movement that grouped together New York filmmakers and actors who often collaborated, including Richard Kern, Lung Leg, Lydia Lunch, Tessa Hughes-Freeland, and Tommy Turner. Typical themes of the movement are the link between sex and death, sadistic violence, perversion and voyeurism, black comedy, rejection of family/state/religion, and madness. When asked to define the movement, Zedd offered, "Fuck you."

Additionally, Zedd acted in such low-budget movies as the Super 8 film Manhattan Love Suicides (1985), What About Me (1993), Bubblegum (1995), Jonas in the Desert (1997), Terror Firmer (1999), and Thus Spake Zarathustra (2001). He also appeared in the documentaries Llik Your Idols (2007) and Blank City (2010).

Zedd is the author of two autobiographical books, Bleed: Part One (1992) and Totem of the Depraved (1997), as well as the self-published novel From Entropy to Ecstasy (1996). He also contributed to the anthologies Up Is Up But So Is Down, Captured and Low Rent. From 1984–1990, Zedd (under the pseudonym "Orion Jeriko") published ten issues of the Underground Film Bulletin, a zine intended to promote the Cinema of Transgression. The zine intended to counter "censorship by omission," and earned the movement recognition by The Village Voice. Issue 4 contained the Cinema of Transgression Manifesto, which was also published in The Theory of Xenomorphosis (1998), and which reads: "We propose that all film schools be blown up and all boring films never be made again. We propose that a sense of humour is an essential element discarded by the doddering academics and further, that any film which doesn’t shock isn’t worth looking at. All values must be challenged. Nothing is sacred. Everything must be questioned and reassessed in order to free our minds from the faith of tradition."

In the early 1990s, Zedd toured with Lisa Crystal Carver's Suckdog Circus, exhibiting his films. Performing with experimental noise music band Zyklon Beatles, Zedd released the "Consume and Die" 7-inch single on Rubric Records in 2000.

With Jen Miller, he was a co-creator of the public access series Electra Elf (2004–08), featuring New York artists and performers including Miller, Faceboy and Andrew J. Lederer. He served as director of photography on another TV series called Chop Chop (2007), produced by Nate Hill.