Director and screenwriter, Jean-François Rivard made his debut in 1997 and got noticed with his first short film Kopps, winning the Prix du Public and the Prix du Jury in the Vidéaste Recherché competition in 1997. Six other short films followed, including Soowitch, Kuproquo and Noël Blank aired on Radio-Canada (CBC), the latter earning him the 2004 Genie Prize for best dramatic short film.

He is co-writer (with François Létourneau) and director of Les Invincibles and Série Noire, two very successful television series broadcasted on Radio-Canada (CBC). The 3 seasons of Les Invincibles earned a total of 24 Gémeaux nominations, and are recipients of 7 Gémeaux prizes, including "Best Dramatic Series", "Best Writing in a Dramatic Series", and "Best Direction in a Dramatic Program". The series also won the Academy's special award for creation and innovation as well as two Olivier awards.

The two seasons of Série Noire received 15 awards out of the 29 nominations for the 2014 and 2016 Gémeaux prizes including "Best Dramatic Text" and "Best Dramatic Direction".

In 2019, he directs the series C’est comme ça que je t'aime, which was selected at the Berlinale Series at the 70th Berlinale and has been available on the ICI TOU.TV EXTRA platform since March 2020. The series garnered 15 nominations for the Gémeaux prize and won the award for Best Direction for a Drama Series.

Since 2016, he has been directing English-language television dramas: The Sisterhood (nominated in the "Best TV Movie" category at the 2019 C21 International Drama Awards), Mad Mom, Queen of Sin, Separated at Birth and Fanatic.

All the while directing several widely distributed advertisements, music videos and captions for video games.