Stiller & Meara: Nothing Is Lost

Ben Stiller tells the story of his parents, Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara, as both a comedy partnership and a marriage. In the sixties they were a well-known double act on stage and television, and the film looks for the gap between how they worked together in public and how they were at home. It is not interested in being a portrait of famous parents. It is interested in the son's own share: the director eventually turns the camera on himself and his family, which makes this as much a reckoning as a tribute. The form rests entirely on the archive. Stiller opened the enormous pile his parents left behind, recordings, footage, letters and notebooks, and weaves it together with present-day interviews. The title comes from that pile: nothing is lost, because the family recorded everything. It premiered at the New York Film Festival on 5 October 2025, opened in selected cinemas on 17 October and went out on Apple TV+ on 24 October. On Rotten Tomatoes 93 percent of 44 reviews are positive. Who it is for: viewers interested in the history of American comedy and in family documentaries. Who it is not for: anyone wanting a biography at arm's length. The narrator is the son, so the film is never neutral, and it does not pretend otherwise.