''If You're Not in the Obit, Eat Breakfast'' is a 2017 American documentary film directed by Danny Gold that premiered on May 19, 2017 on

HBO Home Box Office (HBO) is an American premium television network, which is the flagship property of namesake parent subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is ba ...

Premise

''If You're Not in the Obit, Eat Breakfast'' follows Carl Reiner as he poses the question, "'What's the secret to living into your 90s – and loving every minute of it?' Reiner tracks down several celebrated nonagenarians, and a few others over 100, to show how the twilight years can truly be the happiest and most rewarding.

Jerry Seinfeld Jerome Allen Seinfeld ( ; born April 29, 1954) is an American stand-up comedian, actor, writer, and producer. He is best known for playing a Jerry Seinfeld (character), semi-fictionalized version of himself in the sitcom ''Seinfeld'', which he ...

— who’s already reserved the stage at Caesar’s Palace for his 100th birthday show — is also in the film, as is longevity expert

Dan Buettner Dan Buettner (born June 18, 1960) is an American National Geographic Fellow and ''New York Times''-bestselling author. He is an explorer, educator, author, producer, storyteller and public speaker. He co-produced an Emmy Award-winning document ...

Persons featured

Carl Reiner Carl Reiner (March 20, 1922 – June 29, 2020) was an American actor, stand-up comedian, director, screenwriter, and author whose career spanned seven decades. He was the recipient of many awards and honors, including 11 Primetime Emmy Awards, ...

Iris Apfel Iris Apfel ( Barrel; born August 29, 1921) is an American businesswoman, interior designer, and fashion icon. In business with her husband, Carl, from 1950 to 1992, Apfel led a career in textiles, including a contract with the White House that sp ...

Tony Bennett Anthony Dominick Benedetto (born August 3, 1926), known professionally as Tony Bennett, is an American retired singer of traditional pop standards, big band, show tunes, and jazz. Bennett is also a painter, having created works under his birth ...

Alan Bergman Alan Bergman (born September 11, 1925) and Marilyn Keith Bergman (November 10, 1928 – January 8, 2022) were an American songwriting duo. Married from 1958 until Marilyn's death, together they wrote music and lyrics for numerous celebrated telev ...

Mel Brooks Mel Brooks (born Melvin James Kaminsky; June 28, 1926) is an American actor, comedian and filmmaker. With a career spanning over seven decades, he is known as a writer and director of a variety of successful broad farces and parodies. He began h ...

Kirk Douglas Kirk Douglas (born Issur Danielovitch; December 9, 1916 – February 5, 2020) was an American actor and filmmaker. After an impoverished childhood, he made his film debut in ''The Strange Love of Martha Ivers'' (1946) with Barbara Stanwyck. Do ...

Irving Fields Irving Fields (born Yitzhak Schwartz; August 4, 1915 – August 20, 2016) was an American pianist and lounge music artist who was born in New York City. Some of his most noteworthy compositions include "Miami Beach Rhumba"; "Managua, Nicaragua"; ...

Fyvush Finkel Philip "Fyvush" Finkel ( yi, פֿײַוויש פֿינקעל; October 9, 1922 – August 14, 2016) was an American actor known as a star of Yiddish theater and for his role as lawyer Douglas Wambaugh on the television series ''Picket Fences'', ...

* Stan Harper *

Ida Keeling Ida Olivia Keeling ( Potter, May 15, 1915 – August 25, 2021) was an American centenarian track and field athlete. Trained by her daughter Cheryl (Shelley) Keeling, herself a world record holder, Ida set Masters records in 60 meter and 100 mete ...

Norman Lear Norman Milton Lear (born July 27, 1922) is an American producer and screenwriter, who has produced, written, created, or developed over 100 shows. Lear is known for many popular 1970s sitcoms, including the multi-award winning ''All in the Famil ...

Stan Lee Stan Lee (born Stanley Martin Lieber ; December 28, 1922 – November 12, 2018) was an American comic book writer, editor, publisher, and producer. He rose through the ranks of a family-run business called Timely Publications which ...

Jim "Pee Wee" Martin Jim or JIM may refer to: * Jim (given name), a given name * Jim, a diminutive form of the given name James * Jim, a short form of the given name Jimmy * OPCW-UN Joint Investigative Mechanism * ''Jim'' (comics), a series by Jim Woodring * ''Jim ...

Patricia Morison Eileen Patricia Augusta Fraser Morison (March 19, 1915 – May 20, 2018) was an American stage, television and film actress of the Golden Age of Hollywood and mezzo-soprano singer. She made her feature film debut in 1939 after several years on ...

* Raymond Olivere * Tao Porchon-Lynch *

Estelle Reiner Estelle Reiner (née Lebost; June 5, 1914 – October 25, 2008) was an American actress and singer, described by ''The New York Times'' as "matriarch of one of the leading families in American comedy". She was the wife of Carl Reiner and the ...

George Shapiro George Shapiro (May 18, 1931 – May 26, 2022) was an American talent manager and television producer. He was among the most successful managers in show business in the United States, best known for representing Jerry Seinfeld, Carl Reiner and A ...

Harriette Thompson Harriette Thompson (27 March 1923 – 16 October 2017) was an American classical pianist A pianist ( , ) is an individual musician who plays the piano. Since most forms of Western music can make use of the piano, pianists have a wide repertoi ...

Dick Van Dyke Richard Wayne Van Dyke (born December 13, 1925) is an American actor, entertainer and comedian. His award-winning career has spanned seven decades in film, television, and stage. Van Dyke began his career as an entertainer on radio and telev ...

Betty White Betty Marion White (January 17, 1922December 31, 2021) was an American actress and comedian. A pioneer of early television, with a television career spanning almost seven decades, White was noted for her vast work in the entertainment indust ...

Production

On April 5, 2017, it was announced that

would premiere the documentary on June 5, 2017.

Release

Marketing

On May 12, 2017, the official trailer for the documentary was released.

Premiere

On May 17, 2017, the film held its official premiere at the

Samuel Goldwyn Theater The Samuel Goldwyn Theatre is a screening-only movie theater named after filmmaker Samuel Goldwyn. It is located at 8949 Wilshire Boulevard, Beverly Hills, California, at headquarters of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). Th ...

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

. A question-and-answer session moderated by

Tom Bergeron Thomas Raymond Bergeron (born May 6, 1955) is an American television personality, game show host, comedian and actor, best known for hosting ''Hollywood Squares'' from 1998 to 2004, ''America's Funniest Home Videos'' from 2001 to 2015, and ''Danci ...

was held after the screening that included

, and

Reception

Critical response

The film has been met with a positive response from critics since its premiere. On the review aggregation website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, the series holds a 100% approval rating based on 6 reviews.

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, which uses a weighted average, assigned the series a score of 81 out of 100 based on 4 critics, indicating "universal acclaim."

Awards and nominations

References

External links

* 2017 films Documentary films about old age HBO documentary films American documentary films 2010s English-language films 2010s American films {{documentary-tv-film-stub