He directed the Rush Hour film series, The Family Man, Red Dragon, X-Men: The Last Stand, Tower Heist, and Hercules.

Ratner led RatPac's partnership with Dune Entertainment in September 2013 for a co-producing deal with Warner Bros. that included 75 films.

[7] RatPac Entertainment has co-financed 81 theatrically released motion pictures exceeding $17 billion in worldwide box office receipts.

[10] This resulted in his business deals and prospective film projects getting canceled or scrapped, and he hasn't actively worked in Hollywood since 2018.

[13] His grandfather was d-CON mail order rat poison company founder and real estate developer Lee Ratner.

[26] Shortly before Ratner's high school graduation, his mother and biological father married with the intention of legitimizing his status.

[5] Ratner did the debut videos for Prime Minister Pete Nice before working with Redman, LL Cool J, Heavy D and Wu-Tang Clan.

The film, an action-comedy about a con-man accused of organizing a prison break, was Ratner's first collaboration with comedian Chris Tucker.

[37] In 1998, he directed Rush Hour, an action-comedy starring Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker, which was released in September 1998 and went on to become the studio's highest-grossing film and the highest grossing comedy at the time.

The action comedy film revolves around a master thief pulling off one last big score, with an FBI agent in hot pursuit.

[50] In the same year, Ratner directed the ensemble comedy caper Tower Heist, starring Ben Stiller and Eddie Murphy.

[51][52] In early 2021, Ratner announced that he will direct a long-gestated Milli Vanilli biopic, which would be his first project since Paramount's 2014 film Hercules for Millennium Media.

[53] In January 2025, Amazon confirmed that its Prime Video has exclusively licensed an upcoming documentary film on incoming First Lady Melania Trump that will be directed by Ratner.

[63][64][65] In 2015, Ratner produced Black Mass, a biopic about gangster James "Whitey" Bulger, played by Johnny Depp.

[67] He was an executive producer on the 2016 film War Dogs, directed by Todd Phillips and starring Jonah Hill and Miles Teller.

[68] In December 2012, Ratner and Australian media mogul James Packer formed a joint venture, RatPac Entertainment.

[83] In April 2007, Fox announced that he, Carrie Fisher, Garry Marshall and Jon Avnet would be the judges for the network's filmmaking-competition/reality TV series, On the Lot.

The company reissued a Playboy interview with Marlon Brando and Robert Evans as well as an account of NFL player Jim Brown,[87] and released a book of Scott Caan's photographs.

[99] Ratner worked with international beverage brand Diageo to produce The Hilhaven Lodge, a blended whiskey named for his Beverly Hills estate.

[102] Ratner delivered a keynote address as part of the Cannes Film Festival in May 2017 where he referred to television as the future of production.

[105] Ratner has served on the boards of the Simon Wiesenthal Center and Museum of Tolerance,[106] Chrysalis, Ghetto Film School,[107] Best Buddies[108] and the Los Angeles Police Foundation.

[112] On November 1, 2017, six women, including Olivia Munn and Natasha Henstridge, accused Ratner of sexual assault and harassment, as well as following an actress into a bathroom without invitation and masturbating as another entered his trailer to deliver food.