Martin Brest

Brest was born to Eastern European Jewish immigrant parents in a working-class neighborhood in the Bronx in 1951.^[4][5][6] He was influenced by watching The Honeymooners as a child, saying in a 2023 interview, "I was a kid watching it in a household that was economically not that different than the one in the show. I felt like it was a show made for my neighborhood. And that character of Ralph Kramden really touched me, that angry soul whose spirit blossoms".^[1]

Brest graduated from Stuyvesant High School in 1969 and from New York University's School of the Arts in 1973.^[5] His NYU student film, Hot Dogs for Gauguin (1972), starring a then unknown Danny DeVito and with a small part by then unknown Rhea Perlman, was one of 25 films chosen in 2009 by the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress to "be preserved as cultural, artistic and/or historical treasures"^[7] and is in the Museum of Modern Art's permanent collection. Brest graduated from the AFI Conservatory with a Master of Fine Arts in 1977.^[5]

Brest's major studio debut was Going in Style (1979), starring George Burns, Art Carney, and Lee Strasberg.^[8] Brest was then hired to direct WarGames (1983), starring Matthew Broderick, but he was fired three weeks into production amid conflicts with the film's executive producer and replaced by John Badham.^[1][9]

The dismissal from WarGames left Brest pessimistic about his career until Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer recruited him to direct Beverly Hills Cop (1984), starring Eddie Murphy.^[1][10] The film grossed over $300 million worldwide^[11] and received Golden Globe nominations for Best Motion Picture (Musical or Comedy) and Best Actor (Motion Picture Musical or Comedy, Eddie Murphy) as well as an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay. In 2024 it became the second of Brest's films to be chosen by the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress to "be preserved as cultural, artistic and/or historical treasures."^[12][13]

Brest was in pre-production for Rain Man (1988) when he cast Tom Cruise for the role opposite Dustin Hoffman before Barry Levinson directed the film.^[14]

Brest's next film was the action-comedy Midnight Run (1988), starring Robert De Niro and Charles Grodin.^[15] The film was another critical and commercial success, earning Brest another Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy and De Niro a Best Actor Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy nomination.

Brest's work on Scent of a Woman (1992) earned him a Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Drama. The film also won Golden Globes for Al Pacino and screenwriter Bo Goldman and a Best Supporting Actor nomination for Chris O'Donnell. It received four Academy Award nominations: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay (Adapted), with Pacino winning Best Actor.^[16]

Brest's next film, Meet Joe Black (1998), starring Brad Pitt and Anthony Hopkins, was a loose remake of 1934's Death Takes a Holiday.^[17] The film had an American box-office return of $44.6 million, taking in an additional $98.3 million overseas for a worldwide total of $142.9 million.^[18]

Brest wrote and directed Gigli (2003), starring Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez.^[2] During filming, production company Revolution Studios took creative control from him, resulting in a radically rewritten and reshot version.^[2] It became one of the more notorious films of its time, widely panned by critics. A 2014 article in Playboy observed that in the then-eleven years since Gigli's release, Brest "went Full Salinger", appearing to have left the entertainment industry completely, without any further credits or major public appearances.^[2] In 2021, he appeared as a featured guest at a screening of Beverly Hills Cop and Midnight Run in Los Angeles, where he was interviewed by fellow filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson.^[19] In 2023, he gave an interview to Variety in which he reflected:

Once [Gigli] happened, I thought I'll never be invited back [to make more films]. Second, I would never be able to operate with the kind of control that a director, I feel, needs and deserves. So that felt like a clear signal it was time for me to back away. I had a good run, and I enjoyed success and freedom, and that was fantastic. I would've liked it to go on longer, but everybody likes everything to go on longer.^[1]

Brest has received the American Film Institute's Franklin J. Schaffner Achievement Award, which "celebrates the recipient's extraordinary creative talents and artistic achievements."^[20]

His essays about art and artists have appeared in various books.^[21][22][23]

Two of Brest's films, Hot Dogs for Gauguin and Beverly Hills Cop, have been entered into the National Film Registry of the U.S. Library of Congress.^[7][12]

Acting roles