Stillman wrote and directed three comedies of manners released in the 1990s: "Metropolitan" (1990), "Barcelona" (1994), and "The Last Days of Disco" (1998); he published a novel based on the last of these films. After completing his film trilogy, Stillman left independent comedy and started researching and writing a series of scripts set abroad. In August 1998 (shortly after "The Last Days of Disco" was released) he left his loft conversion in Manhattan's SoHo and moved to Paris. He returned to New York in 2010.