Jeff Baena

Jeffrey Lance Baena ( BAY-nə; June 29, 1977 – January 3, 2025) was an American screenwriter and film director. His most successful films were 2004's I Heart Huckabees and 2020's Horse Girl, though his projects to receive the most contemporaneous critical acclaim were the 2016 and 2017 films Joshy and The Little Hours. Baena frequently worked with his wife, Aubrey Plaza, and writing partner Alison Brie.

He began his career as a screenwriter, co-writing the 2004 comedy film I Heart Huckabees and, around the same time, seeing his script for Life After Beth enter production before being shelved. Baena, as an independent filmmaker, expanded to directing a decade later and filmed Life After Beth as his directorial debut, starring Aubrey Plaza and released in 2014. Working with producer Liz Destro, Plaza, and an expanding group of frequent collaborators, Baena was then writer-director for Joshy (2016) and The Little Hours (2017), which both became critically acclaimed and found a cult audience.

Among the performers in these films was Alison Brie, with whom Baena struck up a writing partnership and created works produced by Duplass Brothers Productions. They made the 2020 psychological drama film Horse Girl together, Baena's most commercial film, followed by the television anthology series Cinema Toast (2021) and Baena's final film, 2022's Spin Me Round. His first films implement his post-mumblecore style as an improvisation-heavy filmmaker, and his films co-written with Brie are marked by exploration of expectations in film form.