Matthew Shear was a break-out star of the 2015 Sundance Film Festival in Noah Baumbach's Mistress America opposite Lola Kirke and Greta Gerwig. He first teamed up with Baumbach in the 2014 feature While We're Young and continued his collaboration with the director in 2017’s The Meyerowitz Stories and 2019’s Marriage Story.

Shear starred alongside Zosia Mamet in the romantic comedy The Boy Downstairs, which premiered at the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival. 

He made his feature debut in Ang Lee’s Taking Woodstock and then went on to film Beware the Gonzo opposite Ezra Miller and Zoë Kravitz. He has been seen in guest star roles on CBS’s NYC 22, Hulu’s Deadbeat and the mini-series Horace and Pete, opposite Louis C.K. and Alan Alda.