Meet the Parents (2000)
First comes love. Then comes the interrogation.
Greg Focker is ready to marry his girlfriend, Pam, but before he pops the question, he must win over her formidable father, humorless former CIA agent Jack Byrnes, at the wedding of Pam's sister. As Greg bends over backward to make a good impression, his visit to the Byrnes home turns into a hilarious series of disasters, and everything that can go wrong does, all under Jack's critical, hawklike gaze.
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| Type | Movie |
|---|---|
| Released | 6 October 2000 |
| Genre | Comedy, Romance |
| Director | Jay Roach |
| Starring | Ben Stiller, Robert De Niro and Teri Polo |
| Runtime | 108 min |
| Rated | PG-13 |
| Scores | Rotten Tomatoes (average) 6.9/10 · Rotten Tomatoes 85% · Metacritic 73/100 · TMDB users 6.7/10 |
| Budget | $55 million |
| Box office | $330 million worldwide |
Where to watch Meet the Parents
Meet the Parents is streaming on Peacock ($16.99 a month) in the US. If that is the only reason to subscribe, one month of Peacock is $16.99 at list price.
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Rent or buy
You can rent or buy Meet the Parents on Apple TV, Prime Video, Google Play, YouTube and Fandango at Home.
Where to watch Meet the Parents in 15 other countries
| Country | Streaming on (price a month) |
|---|---|
| Australia | Paramount+, Foxtel, ARD/ZDF |
| Austria | Skygo, Paramount+ |
| Canada | Paramount+ |
| Finland | Ruutu |
| France | Paramount+ |
| Germany | Paramount+, Skygo |
| India | Jiohotstar |
| Ireland | Paramount+ |
| Italy | Paramount+ |
| Japan | U-NEXT ¥2189 JPY |
| Portugal | Max €9.99 |
| Serbia | SkyShowtime about 1058 din |
| Slovenia | SkyShowtime €8.99 |
| Switzerland | Paramount+ |
| United Kingdom | Paramount+ |
Subscription, free and ad-supported services we track; prices where Binge Boss has a price list for the country. "About" marks a price the service bills in another currency, converted at the day's rate. All countries as data.
What kind of watch this is
Jay Roach directs this 2000 comedy with a tight 108-minute runtime. The hook is simple: Ben Stiller plays a man who is about to propose, but first he must survive the wedding of his girlfriend’s sister. The catch is the father, played by Robert De Niro, a former CIA agent who treats the visit like a hostile interrogation. Every small slip becomes a major incident under his hawklike gaze. The humor relies on Stiller’s panic and De Niro’s stone-cold scrutiny. It is a film about the specific terror of being judged by someone who has seen things most people would prefer to forget.
What the critics said
Critics mostly agreed it worked. Rotten Tomatoes rates it 85% positive, with an average of 7.0 out of 10. Metacritic scores it 73 out of 100, a generally favorable mark. The praise centers on chemistry that carries the script. Kenneth Turan called it the funniest film of the year. Joe Morgenstern noted it does almost everything right with a story about everything going wrong. Roger Ebert gave it three stars, finding it funnier because it never tries too hard.
How it did with audiences
The production cost $55 million and returned $330 million worldwide. That spread suggests the studio got its money back, then some, without needing a sequel to cover the gap. TMDB users assign it a 6.7 out of 10. Audiences likely appreciated the dryness, or at least the sheer volume of awkward silences.
What came next for the cast
Ben Stiller stepped out of There's Something About Mary and into Night at the Museum. Robert De Niro had already conquered GoodFellas and The Godfather Part II. He returned for Silver Linings Playbook and Joker. Teri Polo moved from The House of the Spirits to Meet the Fockers. Blythe Danner swapped The X-Files for Paul. The credits list the projects, not the cause. The timeline does the talking.
Where it left its mark
The film’s success triggered a wave of imitators, including a 2002 NBC reality show that used a lie detector to interrogate in-laws. NBC later developed a sitcom they internally called a "Meet the Parents project," prompting a copyright investigation by Universal. Neither rival show survived a single season, and the two studios merged in 2004.
The real legacy is the sequel. Meet the Fockers (2004) cast Dustin Hoffman and Barbra Streisand as Greg’s parents, deliberately contrasting the Byrnes family’s WASP conservatism. It grossed $280 million domestically, outperforming the original. The franchise continued with Little Fockers (2010), which brought back the core cast under director Paul Weitz after Jay Roach was replaced.
If you liked this
TMDB's recommendations for people who watched Meet the Parents.
Sources
- Meet the Parents on TMDB — synopsis, cast, ratings and recommendations
- Wikidata Q623724 — review scores, box office and awards (CC0)
- “Meet the Parents” on Wikipedia, by its contributors (history) — reception, audience figures and legacy, summarised and adapted here under CC BY-SA 4.0
- Where to watch and prices: Binge Boss, from TMDB watch-provider data (powered by JustWatch) and our own provider list
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