Lorene Scafaria

 ( American Women Film Directors ) 

Seeking a new writing agent, Scafaria sent out queries to 20 different agencies, one of whom replied that they would represent her if she moved to Los Angeles. Although she did not anticipate real success, she moved there and became roommates with fellow screenwriter Bryan Sipe, whom she had previously met while making a film in New Jersey. Neither of their work was considered "commercial" enough by studios, so they paired up to write a children's adventure film called Legend Has It, which was purchased by Revolution Studios; however, the project was shelved after the studio asked them to make changes to the script which Scafaria described as "far less interesting".

In 2005, Scafaria was hired by Focus Features to adapt the book Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist into a film of the same name. It was her ninth screenplay and her first adaptation. She told MovieMaker, "I grew up in suburban New Jersey, so I immediately identified with the characters, especially Norah. Everything from feeling uncomfortable in my own skin to having a father who's larger than life (even if only in your mind), her plight really spoke to me and seemed like it would speak to a lot of young girls. It wasn't hard to get inside the characters' heads—the authors' voices are so strong." She said the film Before Sunrise was a big inspiration for the structure of her adaptation and that she wanted to bring a nostalgic take on the teen comedy: "It was just a real challenge to kind of bring it back to those movies that I grew up on in the '80s, John Hughes movies and Cameron Crowe."

In 2012, the Fempire (a trio of writers consisting of Scafaria and her close friends Diablo Cody and Liz Meriwether) received the Athena Film Festival Award for Creativity and Sisterhood. Scafaria wrote the Iraq War docudrama Sweet Relief for Paramount Pictures and The Mighty Flynn, a spec script for Warner Brothers. She also wrote the film Man and Wife, which had Gabriele Muccino attached to direct.

During the 2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike, Scafaria recorded an album called Garden Party, featuring original songs she sang and played on the piano; it was not officially released until 2010. The 2009 film Whip It! features her song "28" in the closing credits. She released her second album Laughter and Forgetting in April 2010.

Scafaria wrote and directed the post-apocalyptic romantic comedy film Seeking a Friend for the End of the World (2012), making her directorial debut. She said of the film, "Two people at the end of the world—all the chaos that's around them that they're sort of wheeling through—and obviously some people are just mowing their lawn and other people are doing heroin... but there's something to me that becomes even more romantic, and that's what I was excited to explore and see. I love relationships. I love intimate stories about people; whether it's a guy and a girl or whatever it is, I like intimate stories of people and how they relate to each other."

Scafaria next wrote and directed the comedy-drama film The Meddler (2015). It follows a mother and daughter trying to move on with life after the loss of their husband and father. Scafaria told The New York Times, "There's a reason that it's all from the's perspective because I never wanted to get a break from her. More than anything I wanted it to inspire empathy from people who might find themselves in this situation, whether it's through loss or some other circumstance that creates strife. Once I started showing people the script there something so relatable about being the adult child of someone and trying to stay best friends."

Scafaria next wrote and directed the crime drama film Hustlers (2019), which was based on a 2015 New York article by Jessica Pressler. The film was a critical and commercial success. Scafaria said of the real story, "There are a lot of movies that I think have touched upon these themes— The Wolf of Wall Street or movies like The Big Short—which explain financial from the bullpen. But I'm really interested in seeing the impact that the 2008 recession had on these women who worked in Wall Street's backyard." When mentioning the relationship between the characters of Destiny and Ramona, she said, "It felt like there was something more in between the lines—the story of these two women who became friends and formed this business together, and then here they are being interviewed separately years later." Rosie Keo, the stripper on whom one of the characters was based, praised Scafaria and said that the film portrayed events accurately.

In 2021, Scafaria directed the Succession episode "Too Much Birthday", which earned her nominations for the Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directing – Drama Series and the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series. In 2023, she directed the episodes "Honeymoon States" and "Living+", with the latter earning her another nomination for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series.