Her best-known works include the trilogy titled The Decline of Western Civilization, each covering an aspect of Los Angeles underground culture,[2] and Wayne's World, her highest-grossing film.

She states that her father's killer served no jail time, the man's legal defense apparently resting entirely on the claim that he was justified in murdering Spheeris senior as "he was defending a black.

"[5] After her father's death, Spheeris and her three siblings moved with their mother to California, generally living in trailer parks with a succession of stepfathers.

[citation needed] After high school, Spheeris attended California State University Long Beach, where she majored in art.

She later returned to the streets of Los Angeles and the punk rock scene in 1998 for the documentary The Decline of Western Civilization Part III.

She directed the Wayne's World music video work for Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody", which earned a Grammy Award nomination.

[14] In 1996, she directed We Sold Our Souls for Rock 'n Roll, a documentary about the Ozzfest, produced by Sharon Osbourne, which explored life on the road.

[18] Since September 9, 1998,[19] Spheeris has been in a relationship with a man known as Sin,[20] whom she met while filming the documentary The Decline of Western Civilization Part III.

[21] In a 2015 interview, she revealed that he was in an institution in Florida after he stopped taking his medication (he has schizophrenia and bipolar disorder) and ended up in jail.

In December 2021, she appeared on the fourteenth episode of The Ghost of Hollywood, where she discussed her work career in filmmaking, with a focus on Suburbia in particular.