Meet the Parents (2000)

Male nurse Greg Focker meets his girlfriend's parents before proposing, but her suspicious father is every date's worst nightmare.

Director:

Jay Roach

Writers:

Greg Glienna, Mary Ruth Clarke

Stars:

Ben Stiller, Robert De Niro, Teri Polo

Nominated for 1 Oscar. Another 7 wins & 14 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Robert De Niro	...	Jack Byrnes
Ben Stiller	...	Greg Focker
Teri Polo	...	Pam Byrnes
Blythe Danner	...	Dina Byrnes
Nicole DeHuff	...	Deborah Byrnes
Jon Abrahams	...	Denny Byrnes
Owen Wilson	...	Kevin Rawley
James Rebhorn	...	Dr. Larry Banks
Tom McCarthy	...	Dr. Bob Banks (as Thomas McCarthy)
Phyllis George	...	Linda Banks
Kali Rocha	...	Atlantic American Flight Attendant
Bernie Sheredy	...	Norm the Interrogator
Judah Friedlander	...	Pharmacy Clerk
Peter Bartlett	...	Animal Shelter Worker
John Elsen	...	Chicago Airport Security

Storyline

A Jewish male nurse plans to ask his live-in girl friend to marry him. However, he learns that her strict father expects to be asked for his daughter's hand before she can accept. Thus begins the visit from Hell as the two travel to meet Mom and Dad, who turns out to be former CIA with a lie detector in the basement. Coincidentally, a sister also has announced her wedding to a young doctor. Of course everything that can go wrong, does, including the disappearance of Dad's beloved Himalayan cat, Jinxie.

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Plot Keywords:

misunderstanding | father in law | male nurse | nurse | cat | 

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Taglines:

No pressure.

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Genres:

Comedy | Romance

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated PG-13 for sexual content, drug references and language

Details

Official Sites:

Official Facebook

Country:

USA

Language:

English Thai Spanish Hebrew French

Release Date:

6 October 2000 (USA)

Also Known As:

Meet the Parents

Filming Locations:

Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$55,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend USA:

$28,623,300, 8 October 2000

Gross USA:

$166,244,045

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$330,444,045

Company Credits

Production Co:

Universal Pictures, DreamWorks, Nancy Tenenbaum Films

Technical Specs

Runtime:

108 min

Sound Mix:

DTS Dolby Digital SDDS

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Voted 52nd funniest movie of all time on Bravo's 100 Funniest Movies list. The sequel Meet the Fockers (2004) was ranked higher at 25th place.

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Goofs

When Greg goes onto the roof after Jinx, he spots his cigarettes thrown up there earlier by Pam. Viceroys. When Jinx eludes him, he sits down and smokes a cigarette, but the one he smokes and later flicks into the gutter is all white, Viceroys have a brown filter.

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Quotes

Dina Byrnes: I had no idea you could milk a cat!
Greg Focker: Oh, you can milk just about anything with nipples.
Jack Byrnes: [He reacts] I have nipples, Greg, could you milk me?

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Crazy Credits

During the opening logos, the singers in the theme music are lyrically commenting "Look at the light coming out of the earth" during the Universal logo, and "Look at the boy sitting on the moon" during the Dreamworks logo.

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Alternate Versions

Universal Studios released a Family Friendly version on DVD that re-dubs some of the profanity (the word 'shit' is re-dubbed to 'shoot' and cuts out some content.

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Connections

Featured in WatchMojo: Top 10 Most Awkward Dinner Scenes in Movies (2016)

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Soundtracks

Wipe Out
Written by Patrick Connolly, Robert Berryhill, Jim Fuller (as James Fuller),
and Ronald Wilson (as Ron Wilson)
Performed by The Surfaris
Courtesy of MCA Records under license from Universal Music Enterprises

User Reviews

De Niro The Comedian

Odd to state that "Robert De Niro is the star of this comedy," but that's the case here. One doesn't normally associate him with comedy, but he's a pretty versatile actor, and can play a lot more characters than Mafia-type thugs. He's also a pretty darned good comedian, as he first proved way back in the early '80s with Rupert Pupkin in "The King of Comedy."

Anyway, De Niro and Ben Stiller provide a lot of laughs in this modern-day comedy. No sense going into detail as there are plenty of other reviews here. I hate to see the "hero" of a movie being a character who is chronic liar (Stiller's "Greg Focker") but that's not unusual in the world of films. That, and Blythe Danner's excessive use of God's name as exclamations gets annoying.

Other than that, it's a fun movie that turned out to be a hit and justifiably so. I imagine you could get a lot of laughs from watching this over and over. That would be better than watching the sequel.