A noted filmmaker and scholar, J. J. Murphy is the author of four major books about independent cinema: Me and You and Memento and Fargo: How Independent Screenplays Work (Bloomsbury, 2007), The Black Hole of the Camera: The Films of Andy Warhol (University of California Press, 2012), Rewriting Indie Cinema: Improvisation, Psychodrama, and the Screenplay (Columbia University Press, 2019), and The Florida Project (University of Texas Press, 2021). 

For nearly four decades, J. J. Murphy taught film production and film studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. For the past several years, he has written about art on Instagram @dagcentral.