Jane Schoenbrun
Schoenbrun in 2025
Born	(1987-02-05)February 5, 1987 (age 39) New York City, U.S.
Alma mater	Boston University
Occupation	Filmmaker
Spouse	Melissa Ader ​ (m. 2014)​

Jane Flannery Schoenbrun (/ˈʃoʊnbrən/;^[1] born February 5, 1987^[2]) is an American filmmaker. They^[a] worked as a producer before making their directorial debut in 2018.

Jane Flannery Schoenbrun^[3] was born to Jewish parents inQueens, New York, in 1987.^[4][5] They were raised inArdsley, New York.^[6] They are the eldest of three siblings.^[7]

Schoenbrun was ahorror fan as a child; in 5th grade they spent a month watching the entireNightmare on Elm Street series.^[7] Growing up, they worked at a local movie theater.^[8] Schoenbrun has mentioned being a fan ofThe Critic at age 8 and looking forward to Saturday nightNickelodeon every week, which they described as an escape from everyday life.^[9] They have said that they were invested emotionally in fictional relationships more than in real relationships.^[10]

At the age of 13, Schoenbrun frequentedonline message boards, including forums dedicated toBuffy the Vampire Slayer,The X-Files, and various bands. Fakespoilers they wrote forBuffy were spread around the Internet as if they were authentic.^[10] They wrotefan fiction and spent a lot of time participating in online fan communities. Schoenbrun attributes this experience as informing the themes and content of their filmmaking.^[11]

Schoenbrun has described themselves as atrans and queer child who did not yet have the language to understand their identity while growing up.^[12] Growing up in a largelymonoculturalsuburb in the 1990s, they found emotional safety mainly through television, movies,punk music, and online communities.^[12] During high school, they attendedDIY andbasement punk shows and made amateur horror films with friends.^[13]

They graduated fromBoston University in 2009, receiving abachelor's degree in film.^[14][15]

While in college, Schoenbrun worked as aproduction assistant on short films by theSafdie brothers.^[14] After graduating, they moved back to New York and began working for theIndependent Filmmaker Project.^[14] From 2011 to 2019, they wrote articles forFilmmaker magazine.^[16] In 2014, they served as the lead of film partnerships atKickstarter.^[17]

Schoenbrun was a founding programmer of the Eyeworks Festival of Experimental Animation. They also contributed to the programming atSpectacle Theater inBrooklyn, as well as curating special screenings for other independent film organizations.^[18]

Schoenbrun made their directorial debut in 2018 with the documentaryA Self-Induced Hallucination. The original upload of the documentary was onVimeo on June 18, 2018.^[19] The documentary remained uploaded on the platform for several months before being taken down for unknown reasons. The film centers the fictionalcreepypastaSlender Man, being composed entirely of a compilation offound footage-style community-made videos that existed onYouTube prior to the documentary's creation. The documentary was inspired by other Slender Man videos, demonstrating how user-generated videos can create online communities and shared lore.^[20] Schoenbrun has compared the film to a "work of theological inquiry."^[21] Schoenbrun has stated that they do not wish to profit fromA Self-Induced Hallucination.^[11]

Their filmWe're All Going to the World's Fair premiered during the 2021Sundance Film Festival. The film follows the story of a teenage girl named Casey, portrayed by Anna Cobb, who joins an "occult online game"^[22] and comes under the eye of a middle-aged man named JLB who expresses the desire to protect Casey from the ill effects of the game. Critical reception of the film included speculation on the nature of the relationship as predatory, though some critics note that nothing in the film explicitly supports this idea.^[20][23] The film was inspired by creepypasta aesthetics,^[23] similar to those found inA Self-Induced Hallucination. It is possible thatWe're All Going to the World's Fair was partially inspired by Schoenbrun's experience makingA Self-Induced Hallucination, with Schoenbrun stating that they "fell down the rabbit hole", and were "fascinated by the agreed-upon premise [...] that contributors would never break character,"^[21] an idea that is directly reflected inWe're All Going to the World's Fair. In an interview, Schoenbrun shared personal stories of their own life that are similar to plot points withinWe're All Going to the World's Fair.^[14] Schoenbrun has stated thatWe're All Going to the World's Fair attempts to "use the language of cinema to articulate the hard-to-describe feeling ofdysphoria,"^[23] through its in-universe videos of participants of the World's Fair challenge experiencing unusual bodily symptoms.^[23] The film shares themes withA Self-Induced Hallucination andI Saw The TV Glow, such as trans community formation through shared interests in media,^[20][24] "self-annihilation" through media,^[24] and the blurring of reality and media.^[23][24][25] Critics noted that it paid homage tolow-budget horror films such asParanormal Activity.^[26]

On October 7, 2021,Deadline reported that Schoenbrun's next feature,I Saw the TV Glow, was in development. The film was co-produced byFruit Tree andA24, the latter of which would also distribute the film.^[27] StarringJustice Smith andJack Haven,^[b]I Saw the TV Glow follows two teenage outcasts who bond over their shared love for a paranormal television series, only for them to lose touch with reality upon the show's cancellation.^[28] Schoenbrun has described a recurring childhood dream involving "the field behind the field" near their high school that served as a visual and thematic influence on the film's atmosphere and tone.^[29] Schoenbrun began writing the script for this film while they were about two months intohormone replacement therapy. They have stated that they view Justice Smith and Jack Haven's characters as being different sides of themself during the transition process.^[30] The film premiered at the2024 Sundance Film Festival before screening at theBerlin International Film Festival and theSouth by Southwest Film Festival.^[31][32][33]I Saw the TV Glow was released in select theaters on May 3, 2024, before a wide release on May 17.^[34] The film was "hailed as an acutely intense psychodrama of self discovery."^[8]

In January 2023,The Film Stage announced that Schoenbrun was set to direct an adaptation ofImogen Binnie's 2013 novelNevada, which is widely considered aclassic oftransgender literature.^[35] However, Schoenbrun confirmed in a May 2024 interview withThe Cut that they had exited the project due to "creative differences withcis people."^[6]

In a June 2024 inThe New Yorker, Schoenbrun revealed that their next film would be aslasher calledTeenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma.^[4][36] According to Schoenbrun, the film will follow aqueer director who, while shooting a new installment of a popularhorrorfranchise, becomes obsessed with casting the actress who played the "final girl" character in the original movie.^[4] The film was produced byMubi andPlan B Entertainment.Hannah Einbinder andGillian Anderson are starring in the film.^[36] On June 17, 2025, Schoenbrun announced on Twitter that the filming forTeenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma has finished.^[37]

Schoenbrun is also working on a trilogy of novels calledPublic Access Afterworld, which will be published byPenguin Random House's imprint Hogarth Books.^[38] The novels are a combination offantasy,science fiction,horror, andcoming-of-age literature. According to Schoenbrun,Public Access Afterworld will serve as the conclusion to athematically-linkedtrilogy of works that includesWe're All Going to the World's Fair andI Saw the TV Glow. Schoenbrun described the books as having a "huge mythology about a giant cast of characters with a story that spans centuries and sprawls across alternate universes. It's got a scope that a 90-minute film couldn't hold, and it's about transition, becoming, and truly closing that gap between self and screen until you feel like you're approximating some form of real life."^[39] The project was initially pitched as a television show.^[40]

On October 23, 2025,Deadline reported thatNetflix ordered a straight-to-series adaptation ofCharles Burns' graphic novelBlack Hole, with Schoenbrun writing and directing.New Regency will serve as the co-studio alongsideNetflix. Executive producers on the series includePlan B,Erin Levy,Charles Burns, Yariv Milchan,Arnon Milchan, Natalie Lehmann, and Laura Delahaye. Set in the 1970s, the novel follows teenagers inSeattle who contract a mysterioussexually transmitted infection known as "the Bug" which causes them to develop bizarre physical mutations.^[41]

Schoenbrun's work frequently explores themes ofdysphoria, mediated identity, and blurring the line between reality and fantasy. They have described these frequent themes as central to their art, often drawing from experience they encountered in online spaces and from unarticulated feelings regarding their queer identity that they did not have the words for at the time.^[42][10]

Schoenbrun has discussed how these internet communities helped inform their thematic approach toA Self Induced Hallucination and later projects, specifically their interest in participatory digital storytelling and boundaries between online identity and fantasy.^[43][7]

Gender identity anddysphoria are prominent themes in Schoenbrun's work.^[44] They have frequently describedI Saw the TV Glow as a film about the "egg crack", a term for the moment in a trans person's life when they realize their identity does not correspond to theirassigned gender.^[45][46][47] Schoenbrun and critics alike have written of how the representations of trans characters and trans-adjacent characters within their filmography are for trans people, and are coded in ways that do not make it explicit for audiences who are unfamiliar with transness or are not trans themselves.^[23][25] Schoenbrun has described the presence ofscreens, which are frequently featured in their work, as "ametaphor for the ways in which we don't experience ourselves when we're going through dysphoria and coming to terms with transness."^[48] Critics have compared Schoenbrun's work to that ofDavid Cronenberg andKiyoshi Kurosawa in dealing with interactions between the human body and technology.^[23]

Schoenbrun istransfeminine andnon-binary.^[49][44] They realized they weretrans while onmushrooms in April 2019, during the process of writingWe're All Going to the World's Fair.^[14][49] They subsequentlycame out after the projectwrapped in 2020; one of Schoenbrun's long-term partners, who was the first person to suggest they were trans, is thanked in the credits of the film.^[49] Schoenbrun has described their gender and queer identity as something they were unable to fully understand or articulate while growing up. They have talked about how media such asBuffy the Vampire Slayer and other television programs served as an emotional outlet where they found their identity.^[42][10]

Schoenbrun married Melissa Ader in 2014.^[4] The two met in high school.^[14]

With the exception of their mother, they areestranged from their immediate family.^[47] They arepolyamorous^[49] and have three partners.^[50] They also identify as ananti-capitalist^[4] and have spoken out againstZionism and theIsraeli genocide of Palestinians,^[51] including pledging toFilm Workers for Palestine.^[52] As of 2024^[update], they maintain residences inBrooklyn andChatham, New York.^[4]

Miscellaneous

Producer and/or writer only

• Jane Schoenbrun atIMDb 
• Jane Schoenbrun atRotten Tomatoes

• 1987 births
• Living people
• 21st-century American Jews
• 21st-century American LGBTQ people
• 21st-century American novelists
• 21st-century American screenwriters
• American LGBTQ film directors
• Film producers from New York (state)
• American horror film directors
• American non-binary writers
• Boston University alumni
• Film directors from New York (state)
• Jewish American film people
• Jews from New York (state)
• LGBTQ film producers
• LGBTQ film directors
• LGBTQ novelists
• LGBTQ people from New York (state)
• Non-binary Jews
• Non-binary artists
• Non-binary directors
• Polyamorous people

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