Brett Ratner

Brett Ratner (born March 28, 1969) is an American film director and producer. He directed the Rush Hour film series, The Family Man, Red Dragon, X-Men: The Last Stand, and Tower Heist. He is also a producer of several films, including the Horrible Bosses series, The Revenant and War Dogs.Ratner got his start directing with music videos in the 1990s, and directed his first motion picture, Money Talks, in 1997. Overall, the films Ratner has directed have earned over $2 billion at the global box office. Ratner is the co-founder of RatPac Entertainment, a film production company. Ratner led RatPac's partnership with Dune Entertainment in September 2013 for a co-producing deal with Warner Bros. that included 75 films. In January 2017, Ratner received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his contributions to the motion picture industry, located at 6801 Hollywood Boulevard.Ratner has not made a film since 2017, when allegations of sexual harassment and assault against him emerged in the wake of the MeToo movement.

Ratner was born and raised in Miami Beach, Florida, the son of Marsha Presman and Ronald Ratner. He grew up in a "middle-class Jewish family".His grandfather was d-CON mail order rat poison company founder and real estate developer Lee Ratner. His mother was born in Cuba, and immigrated to the U.S. in the 1960s with her parents, Fanita and Mario Presman (their families had originally moved to Cuba from Eastern Europe).Ratner's mother was sixteen when he was born. Ratner has said that he "really didn't know" his biological father, and that he considers Alvin Malnik, a lawyer and businessman with alleged organized crime ties who opened the famous Forge restaurant in Miami Beach, to be his father, "the one who raised" him. Malnik was a friend of Lee Ratner and not romantically involved with Marsha Presman.Ratner's biological father became homeless in Miami Beach, a situation which inspired the younger Ratner to become a board member of the nationwide nonprofit organization Chrysalis, which helps the homeless find work.Ratner attended Rabbi Alexander S. Gross Hebrew Academy elementary school and attended Alexander Muss High School in Israel and graduated in 1986 from Miami Beach Senior High School. While growing up in Miami Beach, Ratner was an extra on the set of Scarface and was able to watch Miami Vice film around town. Shortly before Ratner's high school graduation, his mother and biological father married with the intention of legitimating his status.He is a 1990 graduate of New York University. In 2010, he cited Martin Scorsese's 1980 film Raging Bull as his inspiration to enter the world of film.