---
name: "Gene Stupnitsky"
canonical: "https://film.one/person/gene-stupnitsky"
fi1m_id: "gene-stupnitsky"
imdb_id: "nm1969144"
tmdb_id: 84416
wikidata_id: "Q5531483"
roles: ["Writer","Director"]
born: "26 August 1977"
reviewed_on_fi1m: 3
average_as: "writer"
average_over: 1
updated: "2026-10-15T04:03:20.330145+00:00"
licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL."
---

# Gene Stupnitsky

## Identity

Gene Stupnitsky

- **Canonical:** https://film.one/person/gene-stupnitsky
- **Type:** Person
- **Fi1m ID:** gene-stupnitsky
- **IMDb ID:** nm1969144
- **TMDB ID:** 84416
- **Wikidata ID:** Q5531483
- **Same entity:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_Stupnitsky, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5531483, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1969144/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/84416

Writer and director. Born 26 August 1977 in Kiev, Ukrainian SSR, USSR, [now Kyiv, Ukraine].

## Details

- **Work:** Writer, Director
- **Born:** 26 August 1977, Kiev, Ukrainian SSR, USSR, [now Kyiv, Ukraine]
- **Active:** 2005–present
- **Titles on Fi1m:** 3: 2 directing, 1 writing
- **Fi1m score by decade:** 2000s 77 (1), 2010s 80 (1), 2020s 61 (1)
- **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_Stupnitsky, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5531483, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1969144/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/84416

## Streaming the US now

- **Peacock:** [*The Office*](https://film.one/tv/the-office-2005.md) (77)
- **Disney+:** [*No Hard Feelings*](https://film.one/film/no-hard-feelings.md) (61)

For United States; add `?region=XX` for another country.

## Fi1m on Gene Stupnitsky

> Gene Stupnitsky makes crude comedies about people who cannot quite manage adulthood. We like his sympathy for their confusion, but his films become less funny when he starts reassuring us that everyone means well.

Jennifer Lawrence throws herself into the physical comedy of *No Hard Feelings* (2023), while the script keeps finding reasons to go gently. That mismatch tells us a fair amount about Gene Stupnitsky as a director. He likes crude jokes and the people caught up in them, but he can be too protective of the latter. We laughed at Lawrence falling off things; her commitment to looking ridiculous gives those jokes the nerve the writing too often lacks.

Stupnitsky worked as a writer and episode director on *The Office* (2005), alongside Lee Eisenberg. Our enthusiasm for that series rests on Steve Carell's needy boss and a cast worth spending time with; it cannot all be credited to one writer. Feature screenplays for *Year One* (2009) and *Bad Teacher* (2011) came before his feature directing debut, *Good Boys* (2019). There, the gap between innocent faces and filthy dialogue supplies the joke, without the apologetic fuss of his next film.

In *No Hard Feelings*, Stupnitsky and co-writer John Phillips set up a grown woman being paid to seduce a teenager, then keep reassuring us that the arrangement is less troubling than it sounds. Maddie's tax bills and the summer people buying up her town get little attention. Natalie Morales and Scott MacArthur, playing her friends, are largely there to tell her what she is doing wrong. Ebon Moss-Bachrach's Gary is the funniest supporting character, yet gets only a few minutes. These are writing decisions that leave good comic actors with too little to do and the central situation softened before it can become properly uncomfortable.

Lawrence and Andrew Barth Feldman make a likeable pair, and Stupnitsky deserves credit for keeping their performances grounded within an ungainly setup. Their company makes the sweetness welcome, even when the script's efforts to excuse the characters become tiresome. That distinction matters for a director whose interest in people's confusion is often more promising than the familiar situations he puts them in. For *No Hard Feelings*, bring an appetite for physical comedy and modest expectations of the script.

## Biography

Gene Stupnitsky is a Ukrainian-born American writer, producer and director. Born on 26 August 1977 in Kyiv, he moved to the United States as an infant and grew up in the Chicago suburbs. He graduated from the University of Iowa in 2000.

He frequently collaborates with Lee Eisenberg, with whom he co-founded Quantity Entertainment. From 2005 to 2010 Stupnitsky worked as a writer, producer and director on the NBC sitcom *The Office*, earning three Primetime Emmy Award nominations. He co-created the HBO series *Hello Ladies* (2013–2014) and the Amazon Freevee series *Jury Duty* (2023), the latter of which won a Peabody Award.

Stupnitsky wrote the screenplays for *Year One* (2009) and *Bad Teacher* (2011). He made his feature directorial debut with *Good Boys* (2019) and co-wrote and directed *No Hard Feelings* (2023).

*Sources: en.wikipedia.org, imdb.com.*

## On Fi1m (3)

### Directed (2)

- *No Hard Feelings* (2023), Fi1m 61, Writer, Director — [page](https://film.one/film/no-hard-feelings.md)
- *The Office* (2005), Fi1m 77, Writer, Director — [page](https://film.one/tv/the-office-2005.md)

### Wrote (1) — the average rests on these

- *Master of None* (2015), Fi1m 80, Other — [page](https://film.one/tv/master-of-none.md)

## Complete filmography (16)

Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page.

- *Jury Duty Presents: Company Retreat* (2026), series, Executive Producer, Creator
- *The Garfield Movie* (2024), as Additional Writing — Fi1m 47, [page](https://film.one/film/the-garfield-movie.md)
- *No Hard Feelings* (2023), Director, Writer — Fi1m 61, [page](https://film.one/film/no-hard-feelings.md)
- *Jury Duty* (2023), series, Executive Producer, Writer, Creator
- *Good Boys* (2019), Director, Writer
- *SMILF* (2017), series, Executive Producer
- *The Angry Birds Movie* (2016), Creative Consultant
- *Master of None* (2015), series, as Other — Fi1m 80, [page](https://film.one/tv/master-of-none.md)
- *Hello Ladies: The Movie* (2014), Writer, Executive Producer
- *Bad Teacher* (2014), series, Characters, Executive Producer
- *Hello Ladies* (2013), series, Writer, Executive Producer, Creator
- *Trophy Wife* (2013), series, Executive Producer
- *Stephen Merchant: Hello Ladies... Live!* (2011), Writer, Executive Producer
- *Bad Teacher* (2011), Screenplay, Executive Producer
- *Year One* (2009), as First Guard · Screenplay
- *The Office* (2005), series, as Leo · Writer, Director, Producer, Co-Executive Producer — Fi1m 77, [page](https://film.one/tv/the-office-2005.md)

## Awards

### Other awards — 1 won

- Writers Guild of America Award for Television: Comedy Series 2007: Writers Guild of America Award for Television: Comedy Series (won)

*From Wikidata, which records wins more completely than nominations.*

---
© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/person/gene-stupnitsky