Joey Magidson
There are few more interesting directorial careers in my eyes than Rob Reiner‘s. For years, he was one of the best mainstream directors in Hollywood, churning out hit after hit. Then, his work really fell off a cliff. Some have mocked that he forgot how to direct, but that’s obviously not the case. Times change, the types of movies we watch change, and all of that factored against him, but his talent couldn’t have vanished. When you look at the upper echelon of his films, it can stand with anyone, so it’s utterly fascinating to me. With his latest flick now in theaters, I wanted to rank his filmography and show you just what I mean.
This weekend, Reiner has a long brewing sequel out in Spinal Tap II: The End Continues. I was knee deep in the Toronto International Film Festival, so while at TIFF I wasn’t able to see it, though I should be able to correct that soon. The long awaited follow up to This Is Spinal Tap hopefully is a return to form for the filmmaker. Considering how highly regarded the original is, that won’t be easily achieved, or small potatoes if he does pull it off.
Below, you can see how Reiner stacks up for me. While he’s made a couple of undeniable stinkers, he’s more than twenty movies deep now, with the top ten pretty much banger after banger. Reiner’s collaborations with Aaron Sorkin are tops for me, with The American President and A Few Good Men flipping positions often. Something like The Sure Thing is also his most underrated film, by far. Where does This Is Spinal Tap fall for you? How about Misery, The Princess Bride, or When Harry Met Sally? You’re about to see my picks, so don’t be shy about making yours as well…
Here now is my ranking of the films of Rob Reiner. Behold:
21. North
20. The Magic of Belle Isle
19. And So It Goes
18. The Story of Us
17. Alex and Emma
16. Being Charlie
15. Shock and Awe
14. LBJ
13. Rumor Has It…
12. The Bucket List
11. Flipped
10. Albert Brooks: Defending My Life
9. Stand By Me
8. Ghosts of Mississippi
7. Misery
6. The Princess Bride
5. This Is Spinal Tap
4. The Sure Thing
3. When Harry Met Sally
2. A Few Good Men
1. The American President
What are your favorite Rob Reiner films? Let us know!
I don’t know exactly how I would rank most of Rob Reiner‘s feature films, but I know with 100% certainty that I would rank When Harry Met Sally… at the top and This Is Spın̈al Tap at a close second. The former movie is more or less the apex of the romantic comedy, so much so that the genre never really recovered from it, and the latter is one of the exceedingly rare cases of a movie that invented and perfected its own genre at once.
I do appreciate A Few Good Men, though. Unlike some other military courtroom dramas I could name *cough*RulesofEngagement*cough*, that one had the integrity to end without leaning on childish jingoism or simplistic happy ending pandering (“It’s not that simple,” says LCDR Galloway, and… yeah, she’s right, because it never is).
Well, the bottom two or three are pretty easy, but I’d argue the top five is actually pretty fluid and full of stone cold classics!