--- name: "Jon Hurwitz" canonical: "https://film.one/person/jon-hurwitz" fi1m_id: "jon-hurwitz" imdb_id: "nm1375358" tmdb_id: 68843 wikidata_id: "Q950283" roles: ["Producer","Director"] born: "15 November 1977" reviewed_on_fi1m: 1 average_as: "producer" average_over: 0 updated: "2026-09-24T22:54:26.867428+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." --- # Jon Hurwitz ## Identity Jon Hurwitz - **Canonical:** https://film.one/person/jon-hurwitz - **Type:** Person - **Fi1m ID:** jon-hurwitz - **IMDb ID:** nm1375358 - **TMDB ID:** 68843 - **Wikidata ID:** Q950283 - **Same entity:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Hurwitz, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q950283, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1375358/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/68843 Producer and director. Born 15 November 1977 in Byram, New Jersey, USA. ## Details - **Work:** Producer, Director - **Born:** 15 November 1977, Byram, New Jersey, USA - **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Hurwitz, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q950283, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1375358/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/68843 ## Streaming the US now - **Netflix:** [*Cobra Kai*](https://film.one/tv/cobra-kai.md) (70) For United States; add `?region=XX` for another country. ## Fi1m on Jon Hurwitz > A comedy writer who cannot leave a character alone once the credits have rolled. His partnership with Hayden Schlossberg made two *Harold & Kumar* films and an *American Pie* reunion; *Cobra Kai* is where the habit paid off, for two seasons at least. Johnny Lawrence has been in the San Fernando Valley since 1984, drinking, getting fired and not getting over it. That is the opening premise of *Cobra Kai* (2018), and it is Jon Hurwitz's whole method in one man: take somebody a film finished with years ago and ask what he has been doing since. Hurwitz has spent his career doing this in company, first with Hayden Schlossberg and then with Josh Heald as well, and the answer is usually a comedy with a soft centre. When it works, as it does for the first two seasons of *Cobra Kai*, it works better than it has any right to. When it does not, it repeats itself. He and Schlossberg wrote *Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle* (2004) while they were still students, and Hurwitz made his directing debut on the sequel, *Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay* (2008). Those films run as a string of set pieces hung on two characters rather than a queue of punchlines, and they are ruder than they are cruel. *American Reunion* (2012), which he also wrote and directed with Schlossberg, brought the *American Pie* crowd back to their home town to see what time had done to them. By then the pattern was clear: reunions, the passage of years, familiar faces looked at again. *Cobra Kai*, made with Schlossberg and Heald through their company Counterbalance Entertainment, is that pattern given six seasons and 65 episodes to breathe. The bully from *The Karate Kid* becomes the lead, and everyone from the old film is treated as someone with a present, not just a past. Hurwitz has put it plainly himself: "The joke for us is that we're taking Johnny Lawrence, who was just like this asshole from the '80s, and we're gonna make you really invested in his story." We were. We went in expecting a running gag about a man stuck in 1984 and found, somewhere in that first run, that we minded what happened to him; that is William Zabka's doing, but it is the writing that gives Zabka a sad scene the moment after a funny one, with no warning, and trusts him to play both. The series keeps fights, family rows and jokes in the air at once without any of the three swamping the others, which is harder than it looks. What does not work is knowing when to stop. Our review recommends two seasons of *Cobra Kai* and says the rest goes over old ground, and that is the weakness of a writer whose instinct is always to go back. A reunion, by definition, happens once; a fourth reunion is a rota. The feature comedies were sequels and revivals too, and the charge of the same thing reheated followed them around as well. *Obliterated* (2023) took him back to the R-rated action comedy he started in, and brought the fight scenes with him. Start with the first two seasons of *Cobra Kai*, which are the best case for him. Then stop while you still like Johnny Lawrence, which is more than the series manages. ## Biography Jon Hurwitz is an American screenwriter, director and producer. He was born on 15 November 1977 in Byram, New Jersey, and graduated from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. With frequent collaborator Hayden Schlossberg, he wrote the screenplay for *Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle* (2004). The pair wrote and directed *Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay* (2008) and *American Reunion* (2012). Hurwitz created the series *Cobra Kai* (2018–2025) with Schlossberg and Josh Heald; the trio serve as writers, directors and executive producers. He also created, wrote and directed the series *Obliterated* (2023). *Sources: imdb.com, en.wikipedia.org.* ## On Fi1m (1) - *Cobra Kai* (2018), Fi1m 70, Story, Writer, Director, Creator, Executive Producer — [page](https://film.one/tv/cobra-kai.md) ## Complete filmography (14) Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page. - *72 HOURS* (2026), Producer, Writer - *Obliterated* (2023), series, Executive Producer, Director, Writer, Teleplay, Story, Creator - *Plan B* (2021), Producer - *Cobra Kai* (2018), series, as Jake · Director, Writer, Executive Producer, Story, Creator — Fi1m 70, [page](https://film.one/tv/cobra-kai.md) - *Blockers* (2018), Producer - *American Reunion* (2012), as Dad at Party (uncredited) · Director, Screenplay - *A Very Harold & Kumar Christmas* (2011), Writer, Co-Producer - *Harold & Kumar Go to Amsterdam* (2008), Director, Writer - *Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay* (2008), as Dancing Devil in Costume Shop (uncredited) · Director, Screenplay, Producer - *Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle* (2004), as Tony (uncredited) · Screenplay - *Untitled Harold & Kumar Sequel*, Director, Producer - *Knight Rider*, Producer, Writer - *In Real Life*, Producer - *Funny Business*, Producer ## Gallery - ![Jon Hurwitz](https://film.one/media/person/3846449/gallery-96cfa8f4be81.jpg) Jon Hurwitz — Eva Rinaldi, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/15/Jon_Hurwitz_%282%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled) - ![Cast and writers of American Reunion at a media event at Harry's Cafe de Wheels in Woollomooloo. (2012)](https://film.one/media/person/3846449/gallery-721935d10542.jpg) Cast and writers of American Reunion at a media event at Harry's Cafe de Wheels in Woollomooloo. (2012) — Eva Rinaldi, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fb/American_Pie_Reunion_%286811665354%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled) - ![Cast and writers of American Reunion at a media event at Harry's Cafe de Wheels in Woollomooloo. (2012)](https://film.one/media/person/3846449/gallery-3e0c6680427e.jpg) Cast and writers of American Reunion at a media event at Harry's Cafe de Wheels in Woollomooloo. (2012) — Eva Rinaldi, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/62/American_Pie_Reunion_%286957774369%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled) - ![Cast and writers of American Reunion at a media event at Harry's Cafe de Wheels in Woollomooloo. (2012)](https://film.one/media/person/3846449/gallery-9a7f9ae42ee2.jpg) Cast and writers of American Reunion at a media event at Harry's Cafe de Wheels in Woollomooloo. (2012) — Eva Rinaldi, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f8/American_Pie_Reunion_%286957774263%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled) --- © 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/jon-hurwitz