Gyllenhaal was born in New York City, the daughter of doctors Ruth (born Silbowitz) (1920-1968) and Samuel Achs (1919-2014), and is Jewish. Her aunt was Freda (Silbowitz) Hertz (1915–2013), a Lawyer. She was raised in a family of "high-achieving New York Jews." Her Jewish grandparents immigrated from Eastern Europe (Russia and Poland).
Naomi Gyllenhaal's first husband was Eric Foner, a Historian and Columbia University professor, whom she married in 1965 and divorced in 1977. Her second husband was film Director Stephen Gyllenhaal, whom she married in 1977 and from whom she was divorced in 2009. They have collaborated professionally and have two children together, actors Maggie and Jake Gyllenhaal.
In 2013, she made her directorial debut with Very Good Girls, starring Dakota Fanning and Elizabeth Olsen, which premiered at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival before attaining online and theatrical distribution in the U.S. with Tribeca Film. She is currently collaborating on a script for an American-Chinese co-production titled Moon Flower and the Flying Tigers.
