Spike Jonze was born on October 22, 1969, in Rockville, Maryland. His breakthrough video for the Beastie Boys song "Sabotage" won four MTV Video Music Awards, and he went on to direct several music videos and commercials throughout the 1990s. Jonze's first full-length directorial effort, Being John Malkovich (1999) earned him an Academy Award nomination. He went on to produce Human Nature in 2000 and Her in 2013, with the latter film earning him the 2014 Oscar for best original screenplay.
In the summer of 1999, Jonze married fellow actor and director Sofia Coppola at the Napa Valley vineyard owned by her father, the famed director Francis Ford Coppola. The couple filed for divorce in 2003. Jonze has since been linked to actress Michelle Williams, among other women in the film industry.