Ben Stiller’s new feature documentary “Stiller & Meara: Nothing Is Lost” premiered this week in the Spotlight section at the New York Film Festival, offering an intimate portrait of his parents, Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara, through home movies, television appearances, and newly recorded family testimony. The film traces the couple’s 1950s beginnings as a stage act, their frequent turns on network variety shows, and the later solo careers that made Jerry a sitcom fixture and Anne a steady presence in film and television.
Built around material Stiller curated from personal archives, the 98-minute documentary examines how the pair’s partnership functioned at home and at work, and how their approach to craft shaped the next generation. Stiller appears on camera alongside his sister, Amy Stiller, and other friends and colleagues, connecting family history to a public legacy that spans sketch comedy, Broadway, and prime-time TV.
Early festival coverage has highlighted a candid thread in which Stiller discusses the years surrounding his father’s death in 2020 and his temporary separation from actor Christine Taylor, contextualizing the project as both a tribute and a reckoning with the demands of show business on family life. The film’s festival bow arrives amid a renewed public interest in archival stories about American comedy, positioning the title to reach audiences that know the couple from “The Ed Sullivan Show,” “Seinfeld,” or “The King of Queens.”
“Stiller & Meara: Nothing Is Lost” continues the director’s collaboration with Apple, where he has worked as a producer and filmmaker in recent years. The documentary opens in select theaters on October 17 before making its streaming debut on Apple TV+ on October 24, with Apple describing the film as an exploration of how creativity, family, life, and art intersect. The Apple listing notes a 1 hour 38 minute running time and a TV-MA rating.
