# What happened to Rob Reiner as a director?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-rob-reiner-as-a-director/1006209>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Tags:** movies\
**Created:** [August 25, 2024, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-rob-reiner-as-a-director/1006209 "2024-08-25T19:23:31Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\
**Post date:** [August 25, 2024, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-rob-reiner-as-a-director/1006209/1 "2024-08-25T19:23:31Z")

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I heard quite a bit about how M. Night Shyamalan experienced a dramatic decline in his movie-making skills and it actually is quite true. However, he has managed to occasionally direct and write some better movies, including Split and Trap(I though Trap was fun).

I don’t hear as much about Rob Reiner, though. Here are some of the earliest movies he directed:

Stand by Me  
Princess Bride  
Spinal Tap  
When Harry Met Sally  
Misery  
A Few Good Men

Now, following those, he made North. North was very widely panned and is probably famous for Roger Ebert’s “hate hate hated” movie review. I’ve never seen it, but it must be at least somewhat bad to receive the hate it got.

Not being defeated, he made American President and Ghosts of the Mississippi, both that did fairly well, if not up to his earlier movies standard.

Then? Oh my. He declined so much. Here are his last movies.

Alex and Emma  
Rumor Has it…  
Bucket List \<–this did, at least, coin this term  
Flipped  
Magic of Belle Isle  
And So It Goes  
Being Charlie  
LBJ  
Shock and Awe  
God & Country

I’m going to put this out there. I’ve barely heard of some of those, let alone seen them.

He still gets work. I heard he has filmed Spinal Tap 2, which is certainly an interesting idea that will get a lot of people watching.

Did he just decline? Get lazy? Has anyone seen some of these later movies and thought they were good?

I mean, from Spinal Tap - A Few Good Men, he really had as good a start as Spielberg, if not more consistent early on.

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**Author:** ![Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/prof.pepperwinkle/32/13627_2.png) [@Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Prof.Pepperwinkle)\
**Post date:** [August 25, 2024, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-rob-reiner-as-a-director/1006209/2 "2024-08-25T19:34:11Z")

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Here’s an article about this:

> **[What Happened to Rob Reiner?](https://www.joblo.com/what-happened-to-rob-reiner/)**
>
> Rob Reiner had one of the hottest movie streaks of all time, but recently, his movies have whiffed with audiences. What happened?

His take is that Rob became more involved in political activism and non-film projects, and family, and just kept the directing as a way to pay the bills.

Another articles indicates he’s had a lifelong struggle with depression, and that (plus medicines) might be a factor.

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**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\
**Post date:** [August 25, 2024, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-rob-reiner-as-a-director/1006209/3 "2024-08-25T19:51:45Z")

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> [@Mahaloth](#):
>
> Here are some of the earliest movies he directed:
> 
> Stand by Me  
> Princess Bride  
> Spinal Tap  
> When Harry Met Sally  
> Misery  
> A Few Good Men

But he didn’t have any writing credits on those, did he? Oscar-caliber talent did, right? You’re saying that, when he was directing stuff written by someone else — William frickin’ _Goldman_ adapting a work by Stephen frickin’ _King,_ say — his directing didn’t slip up; and, when he was directing stuff written by, say, Jeremy Leven or Joey Hartstone, his directing didn’t elevate it.

You could pretty easily argue that Aaron Sorkin’s writing was the key to A Few Good Men and The American President, and that Rob Reiner didn’t hurt either project; and you could argue that Lewis Colick’s writing has prompted people to say _“who the heck is Lewis Colick?”_

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**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\
**Post date:** [August 25, 2024, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-rob-reiner-as-a-director/1006209/4 "2024-08-25T20:33:07Z")

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Is it really direction that makes the top of that list better than the bottom? I might be wrong, but I suspect there are two kinds of directors: Holistic directors who seek out or initiate their own projects, and directors-for-hire who just pick from those scripts submitted to them. I think Rob Reiner is likely the latter. When he was on a streak everybody wanted him to direct their films. After a few flops those really good scripts got sent to the newest up-and-comer.

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**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\
**Post date:** [August 25, 2024, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-rob-reiner-as-a-director/1006209/5 "2024-08-25T21:10:56Z")

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> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#):
>
> But he didn’t have any writing credits on those, did he?

He did share writing credits on _This Is Spinal Tap_, but that wasn’t a conventionally-scripted film.