Jeffrey Jacob Abrams was born in New York City and raised in Los Angeles, the son of TV producer parents. At 15, he wrote the music for Don Dohler's Nightbeast - Terror aus dem Weltall (1982). In his senior year of college, he and Jill Mazursky teamed up to write a feature film, which became Filofax - Ich bin Du und Du bist nichts (1990). He went on to write and produce In Sachen Henry (1991) and Forever Young (1992). He also co-wrote Der $100.000 Fisch (1997) with Mazursky. Along with other Sarah Lawrence alumni, he experimented with computer animation and was contracted to develop pre-production animation for Shrek - Der tollkühne Held (2001).
Abrams worked on the screenplay for Armageddon - Das jüngste Gericht (1998) and co-created (as well as composing the opening theme of) Felicity (1998), which ran for four seasons. He founded the production company Bad Robot in 2001 with Bryan Burk. He created and executive-produced Alias: Die Agentin (2001) and Lost (2004), composing the theme music for both, and co-writing episodes of "Lost". He also co-wrote and produced thriller Joyride - Spritztour (2001). He made his feature directing debut with Mission: Impossible III (2006), reinvigorating the series. He produced the hit mystery film Cloverfield (2008) and co-created Fringe: Grenzfälle des FBI (2008).
He directed the Star Trek (2009) reboot, proving successful with fans and newcomers to the franchise. He next directed Super 8 (2011), co-produced by Steven Spielberg and produced Mission: Impossible - Phantom Protokoll (2011). He returned to direct the follow-up to his reboot, Star Trek Into Darkness (2013). Disney and Lucasfilm announced J.J. as their choice for director of the first episode in the new 'Star Wars' trilogy, Star Wars: Episode VII - Das Erwachen der Macht (2015). He initially resisted, as he didn't want to travel away from his family to London, but Kathleen Kennedy convinced him that his voice would be the best to reinvigorate this franchise, as he had done with two others before. He also produced Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation (2015) and Star Trek Beyond (2016), and executive-produced Star Wars - Episode VIII: Die letzten Jedi (2017). When it was announced that Colin Trevorrow would no longer direct Star Wars - Episode IX: Der Aufstieg Skywalkers (2019), it was announced that J.J. would return to complete the trilogy he started.
