---
name: "Nicholas Stoller"
canonical: "https://film.one/person/nicholas-stoller"
fi1m_id: "nicholas-stoller"
imdb_id: "nm0831557"
tmdb_id: 52934
wikidata_id: "Q2624066"
roles: ["Writer","Director","Producer"]
born: "19 March 1976"
reviewed_on_fi1m: 8
average_fi1m_score: 63
average_as: "writer"
average_over: 4
updated: "2026-10-13T21:56:22.970288+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."
---

# Nicholas Stoller

## Identity

Nicholas Stoller

- **Canonical:** https://film.one/person/nicholas-stoller
- **Type:** Person
- **Fi1m ID:** nicholas-stoller
- **IMDb ID:** nm0831557
- **TMDB ID:** 52934
- **Wikidata ID:** Q2624066
- **Same entity:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Stoller, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2624066, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0831557/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/52934

Writer and director. Born 19 March 1976 in London, England, UK.

## Details

- **Work:** Writer, Director, Producer
- **Born:** 19 March 1976, London, England, UK
- **Active:** 2005–present
- **Also known as:** Nick Stoller, نیکلاس استلر
- **Titles on Fi1m:** 8: 1 acting, 3 directing, 4 writing
- **Frequently works with:** [Rose Byrne](https://film.one/person/rose-byrne.md), [Seth Rogen](https://film.one/person/seth-rogen.md), [Andrew J. Cohen](https://film.one/person/andrew-j-cohen.md), [Brendan O'Brien](https://film.one/person/brendan-obrien.md), [Dave Franco](https://film.one/person/dave-franco.md), [David Hoberman](https://film.one/person/david-hoberman.md), [Evan Goldberg](https://film.one/person/evan-goldberg.md), [James Bobin](https://film.one/person/james-bobin.md)
- **Average Fi1m score:** 63, as writer, over 4 titles
- **Fi1m score by decade:** 2000s 53 (2), 2010s 68 (4), 2020s 80 (2)
- **Fi1m against the critics:** 63 to 62 across 4 titles
- **Score spread:** 1 at 80+, 1 at 60–79, 2 under 60
- **Genres:** Comedy 4, Adventure 2, Crime 2, Family 2, Romance 1
- **Screen time:** 7 hours of reviewed films
- **Box office:** $671m across 4 films with figures
- **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Stoller, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2624066, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0831557/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/52934

## Streaming the US now

- **Disney+:** [*The Muppets*](https://film.one/film/the-muppets.md) (80), [*Muppets Most Wanted*](https://film.one/film/muppets-most-wanted.md) (66)
- **Netflix:** [*Neighbors*](https://film.one/film/neighbors.md) (70), [*Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising*](https://film.one/film/neighbors-2-sorority-rising.md) (58)
- **Apple TV:** [*Platonic*](https://film.one/tv/platonic.md) (76)
- **Amazon Prime Video:** [*Fun with Dick and Jane*](https://film.one/film/fun-with-dick-and-jane.md) (50)

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

## Fi1m on Nicholas Stoller

> Nicholas Stoller makes comedies about grown-ups who have not quite agreed to be grown-ups, and he is at his best when two of them egg each other on. The jokes are reliable; the stories underneath them tend to run out before the film does.

The scene Nicholas Stoller keeps coming back to is two adults talking themselves into something a child would know better than to do. Mac and Kelly in *Neighbors* (2014) decide the fraternity next door can be beaten at its own game. Sylvia and Will in *Platonic* (2023) pick up in their forties exactly where they left off, while the people who love them watch it happen. He is good at this: the affectionate conversation that goes somewhere it should not, the old friend who encourages the habit everyone else has reasonably asked you to drop.

He began as a writer, on Judd Apatow's *Undeclared* and then on screenplays for other directors. *Fun with Dick and Jane* (2005) is too fond of the comforts it means to mock; *Yes Man* (2008) builds its middle as a list of pastimes and montages and heads for a lesson about moderation we had guessed in the first reel. Neither does him much credit. The turn came when he started directing. *Forgetting Sarah Marshall* (2008), made with Jason Segel, understood that the funniest thing in a comedy is a person in pain who will not admit it, and everything he has done since is measured against it. *Get Him to the Greek* (2010) and *The Five-Year Engagement* (2012) followed with Segel, then *Neighbors*, an animated film about parenthood, *Storks* (2016), and television. The two Muppet scripts with Segel show what he can do when the sentiment has somewhere to go: *The Muppets* (2011) is warm and properly silly, and *Muppets Most Wanted* (2014) is faster, busier and emptier.

Stoller directs for the performers. He lets them riff, and he gives his women the jokes a lesser director would have kept for the men; Rose Byrne refusing to play the disapproving wife is the reason *Neighbors* is funnier than it has any right to be. We laughed a great deal more at it than we expected to, at a film whose premise fits on a beer mat, because the Radners are plainly the same people as the boys next door, only with worse hangovers and a baby monitor. The cost is structure. Zene Baker cuts *Neighbors* so that scenes end where the laughs run out rather than where the scene does. *Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising* (2016) has three ideas and gets about halfway through each, and its case for sisterhood is stated clearly and then forgotten. Television suits the looseness better. *Platonic*, written with Francesca Delbanco, is the strongest thing he has directed since *Neighbors*, sharp whenever Byrne and Seth Rogen are getting on each other's nerves, though the supporting characters cannot compete and the broader antics repeat.

He has said that the films he has directed all came from a deep emotional place, and the record bears him out: the ones he only wrote for other people are the ones that feel assembled. Give him two actors who like each other and a subject he has lived, parenthood or a friendship that has outlasted its usefulness, and he will get an evening out of it. Ask him for a third act and he will give you another party.

## Biography

Nicholas Stoller is a British-born American writer, director and producer. Born in London on 19 March 1976, he was raised in Miami, Florida, and graduated from Harvard College, where he wrote for the Harvard Lampoon.

He is known for directing the comedy films *Forgetting Sarah Marshall* (2008), *Get Him to the Greek* (2010), *The Five-Year Engagement* (2012), *Neighbors* (2014) and its sequel (2016), and *Bros* (2022). He co-wrote screenplays including *Fun with Dick and Jane* (2005), *Yes Man* (2008), *The Muppets* (2011) and *Sex Tape* (2014). With his wife Francesca Delbanco, he co-created the television series *Friends from College* (2017–2019) and *Platonic* (2023–present), on which he also directs and writes.

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

## On Fi1m (8)

### Performed in (1)

- *The Studio* (2025), Fi1m 84, as Nicholas Stoller — [page](https://film.one/tv/the-studio.md)

### Directed (3)

- *Platonic* (2023), Fi1m 76, Writer, Director, Executive Producer, Creator — [page](https://film.one/tv/platonic.md)
- *Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising* (2016), Fi1m 58, Director, Writer — [page](https://film.one/film/neighbors-2-sorority-rising.md)
- *Neighbors* (2014), Fi1m 70, Director — [page](https://film.one/film/neighbors.md)

### Wrote (4) — the average rests on these

- *Muppets Most Wanted* (2014), Fi1m 66, Writer, Executive Producer — [page](https://film.one/film/muppets-most-wanted.md)
- *The Muppets* (2011), Fi1m 80, Writer, Executive Producer — [page](https://film.one/film/the-muppets.md)
- *Yes Man* (2008), Fi1m 56, Screenplay — [page](https://film.one/film/yes-man.md)
- *Fun with Dick and Jane* (2005), Fi1m 50, Story, Screenplay — [page](https://film.one/film/fun-with-dick-and-jane.md)

## Complete filmography (37)

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

- *Animal Farm* (2026), Producer, Writer
- *The Studio* (2025), series, as Nicholas Stoller — Fi1m 84, [page](https://film.one/tv/the-studio.md)
- *You're Cordially Invited* (2025), Producer, Director, Writer
- *Goosebumps: The Vanishing* (2025), series, Executive Producer, Creator
- *Incoming* (2024), Producer
- *Goosebumps* (2023), series, Writer, Executive Producer, Creator
- *Platonic* (2023), series, Writer, Director, Executive Producer, Creator — Fi1m 76, [page](https://film.one/tv/platonic.md)
- *Bros* (2022), Director, Writer, Producer
- *Panhandle* (2022), series, Creator
- *DC League of Super-Pets* (2022), Executive Producer
- *Dora and the Lost City of Gold* (2019), Screenplay, Story
- *The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part* (2019), Creative Consultant — Fi1m 63, [page](https://film.one/film/the-lego-movie-2-the-second-part.md)
- *Night School* (2018), Writer
- *Smallfoot* (2018), Executive Producer
- *Friends from College* (2017), series, Writer, Director, Executive Producer, Creator
- *Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie* (2017), Screenplay
- *The Lego Batman Movie* (2017), Creative Consultant — Fi1m 74, [page](https://film.one/film/the-lego-batman-movie.md)
- *Storks* (2016), Writer, Director, Producer
- *Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising* (2016), Director, Writer — Fi1m 58, [page](https://film.one/film/neighbors-2-sorority-rising.md)
- *Zoolander 2* (2016), Writer
- *The Grinder* (2015), series, Executive Producer
- *The Carmichael Show* (2015), series, Writer, Executive Producer, Creator
- *Sex Tape* (2014), Screenplay
- *Neighbors* (2014), Director — Fi1m 70, [page](https://film.one/film/neighbors.md)
- *Muppets Most Wanted* (2014), Executive Producer, Writer — Fi1m 66, [page](https://film.one/film/muppets-most-wanted.md)
- *The Five-Year Engagement* (2012), Director, Screenplay, Producer
- *Entry Level* (2012), Writer, Director
- *The Muppets* (2011), Writer, Executive Producer — Fi1m 80, [page](https://film.one/film/the-muppets.md)
- *Gulliver's Travels* (2010), Screenplay
- *Get Him to the Greek* (2010), Writer, Director, Producer
- *Yes Man* (2008), Screenplay — Fi1m 56, [page](https://film.one/film/yes-man.md)
- *Forgetting Sarah Marshall* (2008), Director
- *Fun with Dick and Jane* (2005), Screenplay, Story — Fi1m 50, [page](https://film.one/film/fun-with-dick-and-jane.md)
- *Charlie Lawrence* (2003), series, Writer
- *Undeclared* (2001), series, Writer, Story Editor
- *Strangers with Candy* (1999), series, Writer
- *Judgment Day*, Screenplay, Director, Producer

---
© 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/nicholas-stoller