Liza Johnson

Johnson was born in Portsmouth, Ohio, in 1970. She attended Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts, graduating with a B.A. in Visual Arts in 1992.^{[citation needed]} She then went to the University of California, San Diego, where she received her MFA in 1995.^{[citation needed]}

Her narrative shorts and experimental videos have screened in Berlin, Rotterdam, and many other international festivals and fine arts venues.^{[citation needed]} Her video installations have been shown in Artists Space in New York, the ICA in Philadelphia, Cineboords in Rotterdam, and Mass MoCA and WCMA in Massachusetts.^{[citation needed]} She has also published critical writing on art and film, and has curated a number of museum exhibitions and festival programs. Along with her collection of short films, Johnson has directed five feature films, including Return (2011), Hateship, Loveship (2013), Elvis & Nixon (2016), and the critically divisive Saving Bikini Bottom: The Sandy Cheeks Movie (2024).^[2]

In 2025, Netflix released Shondaland's The Residence of which Johnson served as director for the first four episodes.^[3]

Short film

• Giftwrap (1998)
• Falling (2004)
• Desert Motel (2005)
• South of Ten (2006) (Documentary short)
• In the Air (2009)
• Karrabing! Low Tide Turning (2012)

Feature film

• Fernweh – The Opposite of Homesick (2000)
• Return (2011)
• Hateship, Loveship (2013)
• Elvis & Nixon (2016)
• Saving Bikini Bottom: The Sandy Cheeks Movie (2024)

Television