1985–1993: Photography, magazines, and early video work While shooting for various BMX publications in California, Jonze was introduced to a number of professional skateboarders who often shared ramps with BMX pros. Jonze filmed, edited and produced his first
skateboarding video,
Rubbish Heap, for World Industries in 1989. His following video project was
Video Days, a promotional video for Blind Skateboards, which was released in 1991 and is considered to be highly influential in the community. The video's subject, Gonzales, presented a copy of
Video Days to
Kim Gordon during a chance encounter following a
Sonic Youth show in early 1992. Impressed with Jonze's videography skills, Gordon asked him to direct a music video featuring skateboarders. The video, co-directed by Jonze and
Tamra Davis, was for their 1992 single "
100%", which featured skateboarding footage of Blind Skateboards rider Jason Lee, who later became a successful actor. In 1993, Jonze co-directed the "trippy" music video for
The Breeders song "
Cannonball" with Gordon. Along with Rick Howard and
Mike Carroll, Jonze co-founded the skateboard company
Girl Skateboards in 1993. The following year, he directed the video for the
Weezer song "
Buddy Holly", which featured the band performing the song interspersed with clips from the sitcom
Happy Days. The video became immensely popular and was shown frequently on
MTV. A 2013
Rolling Stone readers' poll ranked it as the tenth best music video of the 1990s. Also in 1994, Jonze directed the videos for the
Beastie Boys' songs "
Sure Shot" and, more famously, "
Sabotage". The latter parodies 1970s cop shows and is presented as the
opening credits for a fictional show called
Sabotage, featuring the band members appearing as its
protagonists. In the same year, Jonze also directed videos for the hip hop group
Marxman, The Breeders,
Dinosaur Jr., and another Weezer song, "
Undone – The Sweater Song". Jonze made his film debut as an actor in a
bit part in the drama
Mi Vida Loca (1994). In 1995, he was attached to direct an adaptation of
Harold and the Purple Crayon.
1995–1999: In demand video director and Being John Malkovich Jonze collaborated with
Björk for the video for her 1995 single "
It's Oh So Quiet", a cover of a 1951
Betty Hutton song. The video is set in an
auto shop and sees Björk dancing and singing to the song in the style of a
musical, inspired by
Jacques Demy's
The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. In the same year, he also directed a television commercial titled "Guerrilla Tennis" for
Nike featuring tennis players
Andre Agassi and
Pete Sampras participating in a match in the middle of an intersection in Manhattan, the "rapid-paced"
title sequence for the sitcom
Double Rush and worked on videos for
R.E.M., Sonic Youth and
Ween. Jonze sole video directing credit of 1996 was for
The Pharcyde's "
Drop", which was filmed backwards and then reversed. In 1997, Jonze made a short film called
How They Get There, starring Mark Gonzales as a man who is playfully imitating a woman's actions on the other side of a sidewalk before running into danger. Jonze worked with the electronic music duo
Daft Punk on the music video for the instrumental song "
Da Funk" in 1997. The clip, titled
Big City Nights, follows an
anthropomorphic "man-dog" wandering the streets of
New York City. His video for
the Chemical Brothers's "
Elektrobank" (1997) starred his future wife
Sofia Coppola as a gymnast. Throughout 1997, he also worked on videos for R.E.M.,
Pavement,
Puff Daddy, and
The Notorious B.I.G. He made a
cameo appearance as a paramedic in
David Fincher's film
The Game (1997). Jonze filmed a short documentary in 1997,
Amarillo by Morning, about two Texan boys who aspire to be
bull riders. He was also one of the
cinematographers for the documentary
Free Tibet, which documents the 1996
Tibetan Freedom Concert in
San Francisco. His 1998 commercial for
Sprite is considered an example of
subvertising for its spoof take on the brand's mascot. Jonze developed an
alter ego named Richard Koufey, the leader of the Torrance Community Dance Group, an urban troupe that performs in public spaces. Jonze showed the video to Slim, who liked it but it could not be used as rights for passer-by were not obtained. Slim/Cook subsequently asked him to direct another video. Jonze then assembled a group of dancers to perform to Slim's "
Praise You" outside a
Westwood, California, movie theater and taped the performance; Cook appears briefly in the video. The resulting clip was a huge success, and "Koufey" and his troupe were invited to New York City to perform the song for the 1999
MTV Video Music Awards. The video received awards for Best Direction, Breakthrough, and Best Choreography, which Jonze accepted, still in character. "delighted by its originality and labyrinthine plot".
Being John Malkovich was released in October 1999 to laudatory reviews; the
Chicago Sun-Times critic
Roger Ebert found the film to be "endlessly inventive" and named it the best film of 1999, while
Owen Gleiberman of
Entertainment Weekly called it the "most excitingly original movie of the year". At the
72nd Academy Awards, the film was nominated for
Best Director,
Best Original Screenplay and
Best Supporting Actress for Keener. Jonze co-starred opposite
George Clooney,
Mark Wahlberg and
Ice Cube in
David O. Russell's war comedy
Three Kings (1999), which depicts a gold heist by four U.S. soldiers following the end of the
Gulf War. Jonze's role in the film, the sweet, dimwitted, casually racist
PFC Conrad Vig, was written specifically for him. Jonze also directed a commercial for
Nike called "The Morning After" in 1999, a parody of the hysteria surrounding
Y2K.
2000–2008: Adaptation and Jackass Jonze returned to video directing in 2000, helming the video for the song "
Wonderboy" by the comedy duo
Tenacious D. Along with
Johnny Knoxville and childhood friend
Jeff Tremaine, Jonze co-created, executive produced and occasionally appeared in the television series
Jackass in 2000, which aired on MTV for three seasons until 2002. The show featured a group of people performing dangerous stunts and pranks on each other. At the request of
Al Gore's
presidential campaign in 2000, Jonze directed a short video about Gore at his home. The video was shown at the
Democratic National Convention. He collaborated with Fatboy Slim for a second time in 2001, directing the video for "
Weapon of Choice", starring
Christopher Walken dancing around a deserted hotel lobby. The video won multiple awards at the
2001 MTV Video Music Awards and the 2002
Grammy Award for Best Music Video. Jonze's second film, the comedy-drama
Adaptation, (2002), was partially based on the non-fiction book
The Orchid Thief by
Susan Orlean and was written by Charlie Kaufman. The
metafilm starred
Nicolas Cage in a
dual role as Kaufman and his fictional twin brother, Donald, as he attempts to adapt
The Orchid Thief into a film and features dramatized events from the book. It co-starred
Meryl Streep as Orlean and
Chris Cooper as the subject of
The Orchid Thief,
John Laroche. '' in 2004
Jackass: The Movie, a continuation of the television show, was released in October 2002. Jonze co-produced, contributed to the writing of the segments, and made a cameo appearance in the film. Jonze directed a 60-second commercial called "
Lamp" for the furniture store
IKEA in 2002, which won the Grand Prix at the
Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival, considered a prestigious award in the field of advertising. and the videos for
Beck's "
Guess I'm Doing Fine", Jonze co-directed the Girl Skateboards video
Yeah Right! in 2003, which featured extensive use of special effects and a cameo by
Owen Wilson. That same year, he directed the video for
Turbonegro's single "Sell Your Body (to the Night)" which featured appearances by the members of Jackass. Jonze co-founded
Directors Label – a series of
DVDs devoted to music video directors – in September 2003 with filmmakers
Chris Cunningham and
Michel Gondry. Jonze's volume,
The Work of Director Spike Jonze, was released in October and comprises his videos, as well as photographs, drawings and interviews. Jonze made a faux documentary called
The Mystery of Dalarö in 2004 as part of an advertising campaign for the
Volvo S40. The film was credited to a fictional
Venezuelan director named Carlos Soto, but was later revealed to have been directed by Jonze. He directed a commercial for
Adidas titled "
Hello Tomorrow" in 2005, featuring the music of his brother
Sam "Squeak E. Clean" Spiegel and Jonze's then-girlfriend
Karen O of the band
Yeah Yeah Yeahs. After directing videos for
Ludacris and Yeah Yeah Yeahs' "
Y Control" (which caused some controversy over its graphic images), Jonze collaborated with Björk for a third time on the playful music video for "
Triumph of a Heart" (2005), in which her husband was played by a housecat. Along with
Dave Eggers, he had a speaking part in the
Beck song "The Horrible Fanfare/Landslide/Exoskeleton" from his 2006 album
The Information. In 2007, he became the creative director of
VBS.tv, an online television network supplied by
Vice and funded by MTV. Jonze hosted his own interview show on the service. He directed ads for
GAP and Levi's, and co-directed the skateboarding video
Fully Flared with Ty Evans and Cory Weincheque in the same year. Jonze produced Charlie Kaufman's directorial debut
Synecdoche, New York in 2008, which Jonze originally intended to direct.
2009–2019: Where the Wild Things Are, short films, and Her Where the Wild Things Are (2009), a film adaptation of
Maurice Sendak children's picture book
of the same name, was directed by Jonze and co-written by Jonze and
Dave Eggers, who expanded the original ten-sentence book into a feature film. Sendak gave advice to Jonze while he was adapting the book and the two developed a friendship. The film stars
Max Records as Max, a misunderstood 8-year-old boy who runs away from home after an fight with his mother (played by Catherine Keener) and goes away to an island inhabited by creatures known as the "Wild Things," who declare Max their king.
James Gandolfini,
Lauren Ambrose, Chris Cooper,
Forest Whitaker,
Catherine O'Hara,
Paul Dano, and
Michael Berry Jr. provided the voices for the Wild Things, and Jonze voiced two owls named Bob and Terry. The film's soundtrack was composed by Karen O and composer
Carter Burwell scored his third film for Jonze.
Where the Wild Things Are was released in October 2009 to a generally positive critical reception but did not perform well at the box office. Some reviewers were unsure whether the film was intended for a younger or adult audience due to its dark tone and level of maturity. Jonze himself said that he "didn't set out to make a children's movie; I set out to make a movie about childhood". A television documentary,
Tell Them Anything You Want: A Portrait of Maurice Sendak, co-directed by Jonze and Lance Bangs, aired in 2009 and features a series of interviews with Sendak. Jonze wrote and directed
We Were Once a Fairytale (2009), a short film starring Kanye West as himself acting belligerently while drunk in a nightclub. Jonze wrote and directed the science fiction romance short film ''
I'm Here'' in 2010, based on the children's book
The Giving Tree. The film stars
Andrew Garfield as a robot with a head shaped like an old PC who falls in love with a more sleekly-designed female robot, played by
Sienna Guillory. He co-directed the video for
LCD Soundsystem's "
Drunk Girls" with the band's frontman
James Murphy and directed the video for
Arcade Fire's "
The Suburbs" in 2010, the latter being an edited version of Jonze's short film
Scenes from the Suburbs (2011), a
dystopian vision of suburbia in the near-future and an expansion of the themes of nostalgia, alienation, and childhood found in the song. A third
Jackass film,
Jackass 3D, premiered in 2010. He was part of the main cast for the black comedy series
The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret as the supervisor to
David Cross' character for the first two seasons in 2010 and 2012, before being replaced by
Jack McBrayer in the third season. Jonze resumed his longtime collaboration with the Beastie Boys in July 2011, directing the video for their song featuring
Santigold, "
Don't Play No Game That I Can't Win", in which the band members are portrayed as
action figures. Along with Simon Cahn, Jonze co-directed the
stop-motion animated short film
Mourir Auprès De Toi (2011), which is set in the
Shakespeare and Company bookstore in Paris. Jonze voiced a skeletal
Macbeth in the film. Also in 2011, Jonze played a small supporting role in the sports drama
Moneyball as the husband of
Robin Wright's character, who is the ex-wife of
Billy Beane (played by
Brad Pitt). In 2012, Jonze co-directed the feature-length skateboarding film
Pretty Sweet with his
Fully Flared co-directors Ty Evans and Cory Weincheque. Jonze's fourth feature film, the romantic science fiction drama
Her, was released in December 2013. The film was his first original screenplay and the first he had written alone, inspired by Charlie Kaufman by putting "all the ideas and feelings at that time" into his script for
Synecdoche, New York. It stars
Joaquin Phoenix,
Amy Adams,
Rooney Mara,
Olivia Wilde, and
Scarlett Johansson. The film follows the recently divorced Theodore Twombly (Phoenix), a man who develops a relationship with a seemingly intuitive and humanistic female voice, named "Samantha" (Johansson), produced by an advanced computer operating system. The film's score was composed by Arcade Fire and
Owen Pallett.
Her was met with universal acclaim from critics.
Todd McCarthy of
The Hollywood Reporter praised Jonze for taking an old theme "the search for love and the need to 'only connect'" and embracing it "in a speculative way that feels very pertinent to the moment and captures the emotional malaise of a future just an intriguing step or two ahead of contemporary reality." Scott Foundas of
Variety opined that it was Jonze's "richest and most emotionally mature work to date". At the
86th Academy Awards, Jonze was nominated for three Academy Awards for
Her, winning for
Best Original Screenplay and receiving further nominations for
Best Picture and
Best Original Song for co-writing "
The Moon Song" with Karen O. Jonze won the
Golden Globe Award for Best Screenplay at the
71st Golden Globe Awards. Jonze co-wrote, co-produced, and appeared in
Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa (2013), a hidden camera comedy film starring Johnny Knoxville as the vulgar grandfather Irvin Zisman. Jonze played his wife Gloria, but was cut from a majority of the film. Jonze served as the creative director of the
YouTube Music Awards on November 3, 2013. At the ceremony, he directed the live music video for Arcade Fire's "
Afterlife", documented
Lady Gaga's live performance of "
Dope" with
Chris Milk, and premiered a short film written by
Lena Dunham that Jonze directed called
Choose You. Jonze had a small role in
Martin Scorsese's 2013 film
The Wolf of Wall Street as a stockbroker who teaches
Jordan Belfort (played by
Leonardo DiCaprio) the ins and outs of
penny stocks. Jonze made a guest appearance in the fourth season of Lena Dunham's television series
Girls in March 2015. Jonze directed the short commercial film
Kenzo World to promote a fragrance by
Kenzo in 2016. The film starred
Margaret Qualley as a woman erratically dancing around a large mansion, with choreography by
Ryan Heffington. Jonze is the creative director of multinational television channel brand
Viceland, which launched in February 2016. In 2017, Jonze directed
Frank Ocean's summer festival tour, which included 8 shows which took place in different cities around the US and Europe. Jonze also produced and decorated, alongside Ocean and artist Tom Sachs among others, an elaborate stage with a runway and central platform for the same concert. Jonze wrote and directed the stage show
Changers: A Dance Story, starring
Lakeith Stanfield and
Mia Wasikowska. Featuring dance choreography by Ryan Heffington, the show premiered at an
Opening Ceremony fashion week presentation in September 2017 before opening to the public for a four-night run at the
La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club. Jonze produced the documentary
Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond (2017), which documents the production of the film
Man on the Moon (1999). The following year, he directed the short commercial film
Welcome Home for Apple's
HomePod devices, starring
FKA Twigs dancing inside her apartment as its transforms into a surreal space and engages in a
dance off with her
doppelgänger. In 2019, Jonze directed a commercial and accompanying short film for the website building service
Squarespace starring
Idris Elba, as well a short film titled
The New Normal advocating for
marijuana legalization in partnership with the cannabis company
MedMen. In that year, Jonze also filmed the
Aziz Ansari stand-up special
Right Now, operating close-up shots himself onstage. He won two consecutive
Directors Guild of America Awards for his commercial work in 2018 and 2019.
2020–present: Beastie Boys Story Jonze directed the
Beastie Boys Story: As Told by Michael Diamond & Adam Horovitz stage show, which took place in Philadelphia and Brooklyn for three nights in 2019 and saw the band's two surviving members tell the story of the Beastie Boys and their friendship. A feature-length documentary,
Beastie Boys Story, was also directed by Jonze and features footage from the shows. He returned to acting in
Damien Chazelle's 2022 film
Babylon, appearing as a German film director bearing a resemblance to
Erich von Stroheim. In early 2023, it was reported that Jonze had started working on a television series for
Netflix with
Brad Pitt and
Joaquin Phoenix attached. However, the project was scrapped after he left it in October 2024. ==Personal life==