He has received various accolades, including nominations for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for his leading performances in 500 Days of Summer (2009) and 50/50 (2011).

In 2013, he wrote and directed Don Jon, a comedy-drama film that was released to positive reviews[2] and earned him an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best First Screenplay.

Joseph Leonard Gordon-Levitt was born on February 17, 1981, in Los Angeles, California,[3] and was raised in the Sherman Oaks neighborhood.

[8][9] His mother, Jane Gordon, ran for the United States Congress in California during the 1970s for the Peace and Freedom Party; she met Dennis Levitt while she was working as the program guide editor for KPFK-FM.

Subsequently, he was approached by an agent and began appearing on television and in commercials for Sunny Jim peanut butter, Cocoa Puffs, Pop-Tarts, and Kinney Shoes.

During 1992–93, he played in The Powers That Be, a sitcom starring John Forsythe, as a clever young boy named Pierce Van Horne.

In Brick he had the lead role of Brendan Frye, a teen who becomes involved in an underground drug ring while investigating a murder.

Brick received positive reviews, with The Minnesota Daily's critic commenting that Gordon-Levitt played the character "beautifully", saying the performance was "true to (the) film's style", "unfeeling but not disenchanted", and "sexy in the most ambiguous way".

[21] In 2001 Gordon-Levitt made his debut on the New York stage to excellent reviews in the Off-Broadway premiere of Austin Pendleton's "Uncle Bob" at The SoHo Playhouse.

[19] Gordon-Levitt played a lead role opposite to friend Zooey Deschanel in 500 Days of Summer, a well-received 2009 release about the deconstruction of a relationship.

[23] His performance, described as "the real key" to what makes the film work, credits him with using "his usual spell in subtle gradations".

[26] Variety's Todd McCarthy praised his performance, saying he "expressively alternates between enthusiasm and forlorn disappointment in the manner Jack Lemmon could".

[27] Peter Travers of Rolling Stone said the film "hits you like a blast of pure romantic oxygen" and credited both lead actors for playing "it for real, with a grasp of subtlety and feeling that goes beyond the call of breezy duty".

[31] In 2010, he replaced James Franco[32] and starred alongside Leonardo DiCaprio in Christopher Nolan's science fiction thriller Inception, which received favorable reviews.

[23] In 2011, Gordon-Levitt began filming Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight Rises in which he played John Blake, a police officer who emerges as a key ally of Batman.

[35] Gordon-Levitt played a new character, Johnny, in the sequel Sin City: A Dame to Kill For (2014), described by the filmmakers as "a cocky gambler who disguises a darker mission to destroy his most foul enemy at his best game".

[37] In 2015, Gordon-Levitt starred as Philippe Petit in the biographical drama The Walk, directed by Academy Award-winning director Robert Zemeckis.

[38] The film was released in North America on September 16, 2016, and also starred Shailene Woodley, Melissa Leo, Zachary Quinto, Tom Wilkinson, and Nicolas Cage.

[42] Gordon-Levitt starred in Project Power, directed by Ariel Schulman and Henry Joost, opposite Jamie Foxx and Dominique Fishback; it was released on August 14, 2020, by Netflix.

[45][46] In March 2021, it was announced that Gordon-Levitt would voice Jiminy Cricket in Robert Zemeckis' live-action film adaptation of Pinocchio.

[49] Gordon-Levitt's first film as director, the 24-minute-long Sparks was an adaptation of a short story by Elmore Leonard starring Carla Gugino and Eric Stoltz.

Following the premiere, the film was acquired by Relativity Media and Gordon-Levitt stated: "I always intended this to be a movie for a mass popular audience.

[60] According to the Los Angeles County Coroner's Office, Daniel's cause of death was "ketamine intoxication, with the injury occurring by intake of overdose".