Ron Howard began acting at 18 months, became a TV regular by age five, and achieved household-name status on The Andy Griffith Show before puberty. Early success fostered respect for Hollywood business and a desire to direct. Howard leveraged his acting career into directorial opportunities, working with Roger Corman, starting in rough-hewn comedies and moving fluidly across genres. A through line of his films is good-heartedness: even darker movies project a fundamental optimism. His filmography comprises 28 narrative features, excluding documentaries. Recent additions include Eden and Thirteen Lives. Some adaptations, including a Tom Hanks collaboration, have been criticized as listless after production disruptions.
Ron Howard started acting at 18 months old, was a TV regular by the age of 5, and a household name on The Andy Griffith Show before he hit puberty. This sort of career path has led many a child star into ruin, but for Howard, all it did was give him a healthy respect for the business of Hollywood - and a desire to make a career behind the scenes.
It can be difficult to nail down what distinguishes a Ron Howard movie, other than his notorious competence and professionalism, but we might argue that the through line is good-heartedness: Even when his movies are dark, they express the fundamental view that the world is going to turn out okay. That works particularly well in an industry that always loves a happy ending, realistic or not. Howard and Hollywood have always been a perfect match ... for better and for worse.
With the release of his latest film, , we're looking at Howard's 28 narrative features as a director. (In other words, we're skipping over his documentaries, which have rarely risen about the merely serviceable.) Are his best years behind him? Perhaps, but his journeyman years have been fascinating in their own way, demonstrating his desire to challenge himself and not make the same movie twice.
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