De Niro's Favorite Movie Bombed — And He Blames the Studio
Robert De Niro has made a lot of iconic movies.
Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, The Godfather Part II — not exactly hidden gems. But when it comes to the one film he says "meant a lot" to him? It's a quiet family drama you've probably never seen — and he's still annoyed about how it was handled.
In a 2015 interview with Cigar Aficionado, De Niro pointed to Everybody's Fine (2009), a remake of an Italian film about an aging father who goes on a road trip to reconnect with his adult kids. "It's about a father who is estranged from his children who takes a road trip to try to reconnect with them," he said. The movie was directed by Kirk Jones and clearly struck a personal chord for De Niro — who, at the time, had seven kids of his own.
But according to him, the movie never stood a chance.
"They did a lousy job promoting and distributing it," De Niro said. "Miramax was being sold by Disney around this time. I only wish it was Harvey Weinstein who represented it. It died in America."
It's worth noting this quote came before Weinstein's downfall, when he was still known as a ruthless marketing machine. And to De Niro's point — the marketing was way off. The studio tried to sell Everybody's Fine as a sweet holiday film, when in reality it's a slow, emotional gut-punch about family estrangement and lifelong regrets. Basically, The Descendants without the Hawaii vibes.
Critics didn't love it either, though most singled out De Niro's performance as the best thing about the film. And to his credit, he wasn't phoning it in. This wasn't one of those Meet the Parents 7 paychecks — this one clearly meant something.
Despite that, the movie came and went with barely a blip at the box office. No awards traction, no cultural footprint, and certainly no redemption arc. And De Niro hasn't exactly gone back to championing it since.
Still, if you want to see a quieter, sadder side of De Niro — one that isn't holding a gun or yelling in a courtroom — Everybody's Fine might be worth a watch. Just don't expect a feel-good ending or a miraculous second act. That ship, like Miramax's marketing budget in 2009, has long since sailed.