Brett Ratner Bio
Brett Ratner (born March 28, 1969) is an American film director and producer. He is best known for directing the Rush Hour film series, The Family Man, Red Dragon, X-Men: The Last Stand, Tower Heist, and Hercules. Beyond directing, Ratner has built a producing career that includes the Horrible Bosses series, The Revenant, and War Dogs, along with the television series Prison Break.
Ratner directed his first feature film, Money Talks, in 1997, and went on to become one of Hollywood’s most commercially successful directors of the late 1990s and 2000s. He is also the co-founder of RatPac Entertainment, a film production company that has helped finance dozens of major releases. After years away from Hollywood, Ratner returned to directing in 2026 with Melania.
Early Life and Background
Brett Ratner was born in 1969 in Miami Beach, Florida, to Marsha Presman and Ronald Ratner. He grew up in an upper-middle-class Jewish family. His mother was born in Cuba and moved to the United States in the 1960s with her parents, Fanita and Mario Presman, whose families had originally come to Cuba from Eastern Europe. Ratner has said that he did not really know his biological father, and that he considers Miami Beach lawyer and businessman Alvin Malnik to be the father figure who raised him.
Ratner attended Rabbi Alexander S. Gross Hebrew Academy for elementary school and went on to attend Alexander Muss High School in Israel. He graduated in 1986 from Miami Beach Senior High School. While growing up in Miami Beach, he worked as an extra on the set of Scarface and watched Miami Vice film around town. Shortly before his high school graduation, his mother and biological father married in order to legitimize his status.
Ratner later studied at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, graduating in 1990. He has often cited Martin Scorsese’s 1980 film Raging Bull as the inspiration that pushed him toward a career in film.
Path to Directing
Ratner began directing music videos in the 1990s, even before he completed his degree. While still a sophomore at NYU Tisch, he served as manager and executive producer for B.M.O.C. (Big Man On Campus), one of the first white rap groups. As a student, he also released his first short film, Whatever Happened to Mason Reese?. The rap group Public Enemy attended the film’s premiere and asked Ratner to direct the group’s music videos.
From there, Ratner went on to direct the debut videos for Prime Minister Pete Nice before working with artists including Redman, LL Cool J, Heavy D, and Wu-Tang Clan. Over the years, he directed music videos for Mariah Carey, Madonna, Miley Cyrus, and Jay-Z, and was once scheduled to direct a video for Michael Jackson before that project was cancelled. These early music video assignments gave him the experience and visibility that led directly to his first feature film.
Brett Ratner Career
Early Career (1997–1999)
Ratner made his motion picture debut with the 1997 action-comedy Money Talks, an action-comedy about a con-man accused of organizing a prison break. The film was his first collaboration with comedian Chris Tucker and was made on a budget of $25 million. The success of this debut opened the door to a much larger studio project.
In 1998, Ratner directed Rush Hour, an action-comedy pairing Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker. The film was released in September 1998 and went on to become the studio’s highest-grossing film at the time, as well as the highest-grossing comedy of its era. Rush Hour cemented Ratner’s reputation as a reliable hitmaker in the action-comedy space.
Breakthrough (2000–2007)
Following the success of Rush Hour, Ratner directed The Family Man in 2000, a drama starring Nicolas Cage that showed his range beyond action-comedy. In 2001, he returned to his most successful franchise with Rush Hour 2, and in 2002 he directed Red Dragon, the prequel to The Silence of the Lambs that revisited the character of Hannibal Lecter.
In 2004, Ratner directed After the Sunset, an action comedy starring Pierce Brosnan and Salma Hayek about a master thief pulling off one last big score. In 2006, he took the helm of the major superhero film X-Men: The Last Stand, and in 2007 he closed out the original trilogy with Rush Hour 3. These projects turned him into one of the busiest directors in Hollywood.
In 2010, Ratner directed the ensemble comedy caper Tower Heist, starring Ben Stiller and Eddie Murphy. The film was originally based on an idea from Murphy titled ‘Trump Heist’ about disgrutled employees of Donald Trump planning to rob Trump Tower, though references to Trump were later removed. In 2014, Ratner directed Hercules for Paramount and Millennium Media, a sword-and-sandal action film that became his last major directing project before a long hiatus from feature work.
Notable Works and Milestones
Ratner’s signature work remains the Rush Hour trilogy, which collectively ranks among the highest-grossing action-comedy series in Hollywood history. He has also produced or executive produced major films including Horrible Bosses and Horrible Bosses 2, Mirror Mirror (2012), Black Mass (2015), The Revenant (2015), and War Dogs (2016). He was executive producer of the television series Prison Break from 2005 to 2009 and also directed its pilot episode.
In December 2012, Ratner and Australian media mogul James Packer formed the joint venture RatPac Entertainment. By 2017, the company had co-financed more than 50 films that earned over 51 Oscar nominations and grossed more than $10 billion at the box office. In 2011, Ratner was originally chosen to produce the 84th Academy Awards, but he resigned from that role in November 2011 after making a controversial public remark.
Brett Ratner Family
Brett Ratner is the son of Ronald Ratner and Marsha Presman. He has described a close relationship with Miami Beach lawyer and businessman Alvin Malnik, whom he considers the father figure who raised him. Ratner grew up in a Jewish family in Miami Beach with strong ties to the local business community, including his grandfather Lee Ratner, the founder of the d-CON mail order rat poison company and a real estate developer.
Personal Life
Ratner had a 13-year relationship with actress Rebecca Gayheart that began when he was 17 and she was 15. From 2004 to 2006, he dated tennis champion Serena Williams and appeared on an episode of the Williams sisters’ reality show, Venus and Serena: For Real. In September 2023, Ratner immigrated to Israel, where he is friends with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and was invited to attend Netanyahu’s speech at the United Nations General Assembly.