Jared Hess
Birthdate: Jul 18, 1979
Birthplace: Glendale, Arizona, USA
Jared Hess (birthname: Jared Lawrence Hess) made one of the most successful indie writing-directing debuts of recent decades with Napoleon Dynamite (2004), based on his student short film, Peluca (2003) with a script co-written by Hess and his wife Jerusha and starring Jon Heder, and grossing $46 million for Fox Searchlight Pictures on a budget of $400,000. Hess was director/co-writer (with Jerusha and producer Mike White) of the Jack Black-starring comedy, Nacho Libre (2006), co-starring Peter Stormare, and grossing a robust $99 million for Paramount Pictures on a $35 million budget.
Hess returned to the big screen three years later as director/co-writer/executive producer of his first commercial failure, the comedy Gentlemen Broncos (2009), starring Michael Angarano, Jemaine Clement, Jennifer Coolidge and Sam Rockwell, premiering at the Fantastic Fest and made for $10 million but grossing barely over $100,000. Hess didn’t make his next feature until six years later, as director/co-writer/co-producer of the comedy Don Verdean (2015), co-starring Sam Rockwell, Amy Ryan, Jemaine Clement, Danny McBride and Will Forte, and after premiering at the Sundance Film Festival, received poor reviews (29% on Rotten Tomaties) and theatrical box office ($31,309) for Fox Searchlight.
Hess directed the heist comedy, Masterminds (2016), starring Zach Galifianakis, Owen Wilson, Kristen Wiig, Jason Sudeikis, and Kate McKinnon, co-produced by Lorne Michaels, but failing to return a profit for Relativity Studios, which delayed its release for a year. Hess then took a break from feature filmmaking by joining his wife, Jerusha, as co-directors of Ninety-Five Senses (2022), starring Tim Blake Nelson, and which was nominated for a Best Animated Short Film Oscar.
Jared Hess reunited with his regular co-writer Chris Bowman and co-star Jack Black for the long-anticipated, long-in-development $150 million fantasy adventure, A Minecraft Movie (2025), based on the wildly popular game Minecraft, with Jason Momoa, Danielle Brooks, and Emma Myers, produced via lead companies Warner Bros., Legendary Pictures and Mojang Studios and released by Warner Bros.
Personal life
Jared Hess was born in Glendale, Arizona, and raised in Glendale, Manhattan, Kansas, and Preston, Idaho, by his parents. Hess attended Manhattan (KS) High School and graduated from Preston (ID) High School. Hess is married to filmmaking partner Jerusha Hess; the couple has four children. Hess’s height is 6’5”.
Jared Hess Movies
director
Previous (3)
- 2025 |
A Minecraft Movie
Four misfits are suddenly pulled through a mysterious portal into a bizarre, cubic wonderland that thrives on imagination. To get back home, they'll have to master this world while embarking on a quest with an unexpected, expert crafter.
- 2024 |
Thelma the Unicorn
When a rare pink and glitter-filled moment of fate makes Thelma the Pony's wish of being a unicorn come true, she rises to instant international pop-superstar stardom, but at an unexpected cost.
- 2016 |
Masterminds
A guard at an armored car company in the Southern U.S. organizes one of the biggest bank heists in American history. Based on the October 1997 Loomis Fargo robbery.
Facts About Jared Hess
High Praise: Jared Hess has been compared to great film masters Robert Bresson and Carl Theodor Dreyer by New Yorker critic Richard Brody, who has observed the “religious intensity and spiritual resonance that marks all of Hess’s…films” and a “kinship with the transcendental cinema” of Bresson and Dreyer, as “his images belong to a similar realm of astonishment, even if his are frankly comedic where theirs are irreconcilably tragic.”
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