W. C. Fields: Straight Up (1986) Weide co-wrote
W. C. Fields: Straight Up (1986) with Joseph Adamson and Ronald J. Fields. Adamson directed it, and
Dudley Moore narrated. In an interview with
The Los Angeles Times, Weide said: "The film was 94 minutes long. We had access to all of his feature films, and clips from 1915 on. We have newsreel footage, outtakes, and material never seen before. We also have interviews with people who knew and/or worked with Fields, or have special knowledge of him, including
Joseph L. Mankiewicz, Will Fowler, Madge Kennedy, who played in the 1923 stage production of ‘Poppy’ and co-starred in the movie,
Leonard Maltin, Ronald J. Fields, propman Harry Caplan and an audio interview with the grown-up Baby Leroy."
Mort Sahl: The Loyal Opposition (1989) Weide's next project concerned the career of
Mort Sahl. The project was part of the
American Masters documentary series, which originally ran on
PBS in 1989.
Lenny Bruce: Swear to Tell the Truth (1998) In 1998, Weide directed the documentary
Swear to Tell the Truth, which received a nomination for the
Academy Award for Best Documentary.
Robert De Niro narrated it, and it featured interviews with Bruce's ex-wife Honey, mother Sally Marr and former TV host
Steve Allen, who had Bruce on his show a few times. The film debuted on
HBO.
Curb Your Enthusiasm From 2000 to 2005, Weide served as principal director and an executive producer of
Larry David's
HBO comedy series
Curb Your Enthusiasm. The special turned out to be the beginning of the series. Since then David and Weide have often collaborated, with Weide serving as a director and executive producer. Weide returned with the show in 2007, directing "The Anonymous Donor", and has continued to guest direct since. Weide received several
Primetime Emmy Award nominations for his work on the show, eventually winning for
Outstanding Directing for a Comedy Series in
2003 during its
third season. His ending credit on the show has become part of an
internet meme.
How to Lose Friends & Alienate People Weide's first feature film as director,
How to Lose Friends & Alienate People, was released in October 2008, to generally unfavorable reviews, though it topped the United Kingdom's box office
during its opening weekend.
Woody Allen: A Documentary (2011) Weide's next documentary,
Woody Allen: A Documentary, explored the career of filmmaker and comedian
Woody Allen as part of PBS's
American Masters series. The film takes a look at Allen's nearly seven-decade career as a director and comedian. It features interviews with Allen,
Diane Keaton,
Scarlett Johansson,
Martin Scorsese,
Chris Rock,
Owen Wilson,
Larry David,
Penelope Cruz, and
Leonard Maltin. It received favorable reviews, earning a 90% on
Rotten Tomatoes based on 21 reviews. The website's critical consensus states: "Driving aside the most polemical aspects of the director's biography,
Woody Allen: A Documentary draws an interesting picture of the filmmaker's opus while allowing some glimpses of his intense personal life."
The New Yorker critic
Richard Brody wrote: "It's a close look at how Allen's career was shaped, from his Brooklyn youth to his precocious launch as a comedy writer, his rise to local fame as a standup comedian and to national celebrity on television, his move from screenwriter to director of the 'early, funny' films to internationally lionized auteur to pariah and, gradually, back again." Weide was the director and main writer for
Mr. Sloane, a 2014 British comedy series. ==Work with Kurt Vonnegut==