Moved to New York City at the age of seventeen from Akron, Ohio. Graduated from Columbia University with a B.A. in English, class of '75. Without any prior film experience, he was accepted into the Tisch School of the Arts, New York.


On Feb. 2, 1994, Jarmusch appeared for an interview before an audience on the first night of a retrospective of his films held by the Walker Art Museum in Minneapolis, MN. Is the older brother of Ann and Tom Jarmusch. Up until 2005, has never made a film under a studio's watch. Once almost died from eating wild mushrooms, which resulted in an interest in the study of mushroom. He owns the negatives to all his own films, except one, Year of the Horse (1997), which he made for Neil Young Although Broken Flowers (2005) came out after Lost in Translation (2003), Jarmusch wrote the script exclusively for Bill Murray before Sofia Coppola. At college one of his professors was cult director Nicholas Ray. They formed a friendship and Jarmusch became his assistant for the making of a film. Guest with Johnny Depp of Belgrade Film Festival FEST in 1992.