Alexander Payne grew up in Omaha, Nebraska. He studied History and Spanish Literature at Stanford before earning an MFA in Film at UCLA.

Payne has made eight feature films, including Election, Sideways, The Descendants, About Schmidt and Nebraska. His movies have been nominated for a total of nineteen Oscars, including three times each for Best Picture and Best Director. He has won two Oscars for Best Adapted Screenplay, and two of his films have won the Golden Globe for Best Picture. Five of his feature films were filmed at least partially in Nebraska, where he continues to live, dividing his time between there and Los Angeles. 

His new movie, The Holdovers, will be released in theaters in October of this year.