Rob Reiner will receive the 41st Charlie Chaplin Award in April at Film Society of Lincoln Center.

Rob Reiner will be this year's recipient of the Film Society of Lincoln Center's annual Charlie Chaplin Award. The Bronx-born actor, director, producer and activist will be honored at the 41st annual Chaplin Award Gala at Lincoln Center on Monday, April 28.

Reiner has directed classic work spanning comedy and drama including This Is Spinal Tap, The Princess Bride, Stand By Me and When Harry Met Sally. He became known nationwide as the pain in Archie Bunker's side in the role of Michael “Meathead” Stivic in the landmark television series All In the Family. Notable guests will join in celebrating Reiner, who became known for his successful Hollywood films beginning in the 1980s. The event will include movie and interview clips, culminating in the presentation of The Charlie Chaplin Award.

[Related: Film Comment magazine's interview with Rob Reiner from 1987, the year The Princess Bride was released.]

“The Board is very excited to have Rob Reiner as the next recipient of The Chaplin Award,” said Ann Tenenbaum, The Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Board Chairman. “He has brought some of the most enduring and entertaining films of recent history to the screen, from iconic cult-classic comedies to powerful dramas that together illustrate an amazing range and body of work. As a director, writer, actor, and producer, we welcome him to the list of other master multi-hyphenates who have been prior recipients of the Chaplin Award Tribute.”

Born in the Bronx in 1947, Reiner is the son of television comedy legend Carl Reiner (Your Show of Shows, The Dick Van Dyke Show) and actress Estelle Reiner. After spending time on the sets of his father’s shows and with their writers, he went on to become a writer, himself, for shows like The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour before achieving fame as an actor, winning two Emmys for All in the Family.


Rob Reiner on the set of The Princess Bride.

In 1984, Reiner made his feature film directorial debut with This Is Spinal Tap, a mock rockumentary that quickly achieved cult status. The next year, he followed with The Sure Thing (1985), starring John Cusack and Daphne Zuniga. In 1986 and 1987, Reiner earned further acclaim with Stand By Me and The Princess Bride. Stand By Me, an adaptation of a Stephen King story, earned Reiner his first Golden Globe and Directors Guild of America nominations for Best Director. The Princess Bride, meanwhile, became “an instant classic” and was feted two years ago with a 25th anniversary reunion screening at the 50th New York Film Festival.

In 1989, Reiner made the hit romantic comedy When Harry Met Sally, starring Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan, for which he earned his second Golden Globe and DGA nominations for Best Director. His second Stephen King adaptation was Misery (1990), starring Kathy Bates and James Caan, for which Bates won an Academy Award for Best Actress. In 1992 he helmed the courtroom drama A Few Good Men (1992), starring Tom Cruise, Jack Nicholson and Demi Moore. The film earned Reiner his third Golden Globe and DGA nominations, as well as his first Academy Award-nomination for Best Picture.


Additional directorial highlights include The American President (1995), starring Michael Douglas; Ghosts Of the Mississippi (1996), starring Alec Baldwin and Whoopi Goldberg; Rumor Has It… (2005), starring Jennifer Aniston and Kevin Costner; and The Bucket List (2007), starring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman.

More recently, Reiner directed Flipped (2010), based on Wendelin Van Draanen’s celebrated novel; The Magic of Belle Isle (2012), which re-teamed Reiner with Morgan Freeman as well as the upcoming And So It Goes, his second outing with Michael Douglas. Reiner made a return to the big screen in front of the camera last year with his performance as Max Belfort in Martin Scorsese’s Academy Award-nominated The Wolf Of Wall Street, playing opposite Leonardo DiCaprio as his hot-headed father.


Rob Reiner on the set of When Harry Met Sally…

Beyond his work in film, Reiner has also made a significant contribution to the public discourse, supporting political causes and candidates, and was instrumental in establishing the California Children & Families Commission, which he chaired for seven years. Recently, he and his wife Michele joined with the American Foundation for Equal Rights to bring the landmark federal court challenge to California’s Proposition 8, the ban on marriage for gay and lesbian couples.  

The Film Society’s annual Gala began in 1972, honoring Charlie Chaplin who returned to the U.S. from exile to accept the commendation. Since then, the award has been re-named for Chaplin, and has honored many of the film industry’s most notable talents, including Alfred Hitchcock, Billy Wilder, Laurence Olivier, Federico Fellini, Elizabeth Taylor, Bette Davis, James Stewart, Robert Altman, Martin Scorsese, Diane Keaton, Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks, Michael Douglas, Sidney Poitier, Catherine Deneuve, and, last year, Barbra Streisand.

For more information about the event, including ticketing, click here.