---
name: "Lorene Scafaria"
canonical: "https://film.one/person/lorene-scafaria"
fi1m_id: "lorene-scafaria"
imdb_id: "nm1032521"
tmdb_id: 71551
wikidata_id: "Q3259437"
roles: ["Director"]
born: "1 May 1978"
reviewed_on_fi1m: 3
average_fi1m_score: 79
average_as: "director"
average_over: 3
updated: "2026-09-23T11:23:00.125065+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."
---

# Lorene Scafaria

## Identity

Lorene Scafaria

- **Canonical:** https://film.one/person/lorene-scafaria
- **Type:** Person
- **Fi1m ID:** lorene-scafaria
- **IMDb ID:** nm1032521
- **TMDB ID:** 71551
- **Wikidata ID:** Q3259437
- **Same entity:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorene_Scafaria, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q3259437, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1032521/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/71551

Director. Born 1 May 1978 in Holmdel, New Jersey, USA.

## Details

- **Work:** Director
- **Born:** 1 May 1978, Holmdel, New Jersey, USA
- **Active:** 2011–present
- **Frequently works with:** [Kevin Bray](https://film.one/person/kevin-bray.md), [Matt Shakman](https://film.one/person/matt-shakman.md), [Miguel Arteta](https://film.one/person/miguel-arteta.md)
- **Average Fi1m score:** 79, as director, over 3 titles
- **Fi1m score by decade:** 2010s 84 (2), 2020s 68 (1)
- **Fi1m against the critics:** 79 to 75 across 3 titles
- **Score spread:** 2 at 80+, 1 at 60–79, 0 under 60
- **Genres:** Comedy 3, Drama 1
- **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorene_Scafaria, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q3259437, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1032521/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/71551

## Streaming the US now

- **HBO Max:** [*Succession*](https://film.one/tv/succession.md) (88), [*I Love LA*](https://film.one/tv/i-love-la.md) (68)
- **Disney+:** [*New Girl*](https://film.one/tv/new-girl.md) (80)

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

## Fi1m on Lorene Scafaria

> Lorene Scafaria's comedies keep watching after the laugh. She is drawn to women who need each other and cannot quite afford to, and she declines to tell you who is right. *Hustlers* made her name; since then she has mostly worked in television.

In *I Love LA* (2025), a woman says something supportive to a friend and, halfway through the sentence, decides it is also an opportunity. Most directors would cut on the laugh. Scafaria stays on Maia's face, and it is in that extra second that the joke turns into something else. We laughed, and then we felt a little ashamed, because we had been doing the same arithmetic she had. That is her habit: hold the shot a beat past comfort, and let the audience catch themselves. Of the four directors on that series she is the one whose episodes we remember.

She began as a writer, and it shows. Her first major credit was the screenplay for *Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist* (2008), and her first two features as writer-director, *Seeking a Friend for the End of the World* (2012) and *The Meddler* (2015), are small films about relationships under pressure, an apocalyptic romance and a mother-daughter story drawn from her own loss, and neither is much to look at. *Hustlers* (2019) changed the scale. A crime drama taken from real events, about strippers working the men of Wall Street through the 2008 crash, it is the film that made her name, and what people noticed was the staging: dance and performance sequences shot with a control the earlier films had not attempted, and a story that stayed clear while the camera moved. She has said she was interested in the impact the recession had on these women who worked in Wall Street's backyard, and that is the film's angle. The money is the subject; the friendship is the story.

Since then it has mostly been television, which for a director who likes faces is not a demotion. She directed episodes of *New Girl*, three of *Succession* between 2021 and 2023, including 'Too Much Birthday', and *I Love LA*, where she is also an executive producer. We rate *Succession* as highly as anything we have reviewed, and we cannot tell you which of its virtues are hers, because a series like that is built to make its directors invisible and she obliged. *I Love LA* shows her more plainly. Our reservations about it, the noise and the thin satire, are not hers to answer for; the moments we liked mostly are.

Her strength is sympathy without a lecture. She puts women inside systems that are rigged against them, lets them behave badly, and does not send anyone on afterwards to explain who was wronged. The risk of that method is obvious. A director who refuses to say who is right can look, on a slow day, like one who has not decided, and the early features suggest that without a strong visual idea her material can sit there being pleasant. *Hustlers* proved she has the idea when the film demands one.

Start with *Hustlers*, then watch her *I Love LA* episodes and count how often she stays on a face after everyone else would have cut. She should be making features again. We would like to see what she does with a room full of women and nobody in it to like.

## Biography

Lorene Scafaria is an American filmmaker, writer and director. She was born on 1 May 1978 in Holmdel, New Jersey.

Scafaria wrote the screenplay for *Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist* (2008) and wrote and directed *Seeking a Friend for the End of the World* (2012), *The Meddler* (2015) and *Hustlers* (2019). Her television directing credits include episodes of *New Girl* (2013–2014) and three episodes of *Succession* (2021–2023): "Too Much Birthday", "Honeymoon States" and "Living+". She directed and served as executive producer on the series *I Love LA* (2025).

Scafaria received Primetime Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series for the *Succession* episodes "Too Much Birthday" and "Living+", and a Directors Guild of America Award nomination for the former.

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

## On Fi1m (3)

- *I Love LA* (2025), Fi1m 68, Executive Producer, Director — [page](https://film.one/tv/i-love-la.md)
- *Succession* (2018), Fi1m 88, Director — [page](https://film.one/tv/succession.md)
- *New Girl* (2011), Fi1m 80, Director — [page](https://film.one/tv/new-girl.md)

## Complete filmography (20)

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

- *I Love LA* (2025), series, Executive Producer, Director — Fi1m 68, [page](https://film.one/tv/i-love-la.md)
- *Under the Boardwalk* (2023), Producer, Story, Screenplay
- *Beau Is Afraid* (2023), Thanks — Fi1m 60, [page](https://film.one/film/beau-is-afraid.md)
- *Bo Burnham: Inside* (2021), Thanks
- *Hustlers* (2019), Director, Co-Producer, Writer
- *Succession* (2018), series, Director — Fi1m 88, [page](https://film.one/tv/succession.md)
- *The Meddler* (2016), Writer, Director
- *Ricki and the Flash* (2015), Executive Producer
- *Coherence* (2014), as Lee
- *Seeking a Friend for the End of the World* (2012), Screenplay, Director
- *New Girl* (2011), series, Director — Fi1m 80, [page](https://film.one/tv/new-girl.md)
- *Childrens Hospital* (2008), series, Writer
- *Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist* (2008), as Drunk Girl in Yugo · Screenplay
- *The Nines* (2007), as Game Night Guest
- *Bullet in the Brain* (2001), as Student
- *Mayhem Motel* (2001), as Abby
- *Big Helium Dog* (1999), as Chastity
- *Untitled Alice in Wonderland Musical*, Director, Writer
- *Sweet Relief*, Writer
- *Jonty*, Director

## Gallery

- ![Lorene Scafaria](https://film.one/media/person/727/gallery-7d6098af09b0.jpg) Lorene Scafaria — Peter Kudlacz, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ce/Lorene_Scafaria_Close-up_%2848749032293%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled)
- ![from <a href="https://www.popularfitness.com" rel="noreferrer nofollow">www.popularfitness.com</a> Director of Hustlers movie Lorene Scafaria wearin (2019)](https://film.one/media/person/727/gallery-1a687bda9989.jpg) from <a href="https://www.popularfitness.com" rel="noreferrer nofollow">www.popularfitness.com</a> Director of Hustlers movie Lorene Scafaria wearin (2019) — Peter Kudlacz, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7f/Lorene_Scafaria_Black_Sequined_Dress_%2848749365106%29.jpg/1280px-Lorene_Scafaria_Black_Sequined_Dress_%2848749365106%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)
- ![from <a href="https://www.popularfitness.com" rel="noreferrer nofollow">www.popularfitness.com</a> Director of Hustlers movie Lorene Scafaria wearin (2019)](https://film.one/media/person/727/gallery-f2f2063e5d32.jpg) from <a href="https://www.popularfitness.com" rel="noreferrer nofollow">www.popularfitness.com</a> Director of Hustlers movie Lorene Scafaria wearin (2019) — Peter Kudlacz, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0f/Lorene_Scafaria_Director_Hustlers_%2848749032428%29.jpg/1280px-Lorene_Scafaria_Director_Hustlers_%2848749032428%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)
- ![from " www.popularfitness.com Director of Hustlers movie Lorene Scafaria wearing a short cut black dress at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival.](https://film.one/media/person/727/gallery-19f265e03991.jpg) from " www.popularfitness.com Director of Hustlers movie Lorene Scafaria wearing a short cut black dress at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival. — Peter Kudlacz, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9e/Lorene_Scafaria_Short_Black_Dress_%2848749032523%29.jpg/1280px-Lorene_Scafaria_Short_Black_Dress_%2848749032523%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)
- ![Lorene Scafaria](https://film.one/media/person/727/gallery-43084d4c5947.jpg) Lorene Scafaria — Image via TMDB

---
© 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/lorene-scafaria