Although White and Penn's writing partnership ended a few years later due to their different sensibilities, they remained on good terms, and White credits Penn with getting him into Hollywood's social circles. He also had a role in the
2004 remake of
The Stepford Wives, and the 2008 film
Smother.
Chuck & Buck, in which White portrayed a manchild who
stalks his childhood friend, was named the best film of 2000 by
Entertainment Weekly. In an interview with
The New York Times,
Jeff Bridges called White's turn in
Chuck & Buck "the performance of the decade". He frequently collaborates with actor–writer
Jack Black on films. Together they formed the production company Black and White, which closed in 2006. White is not a fan of
classic rock, but he wrote
School of Rock specifically so Black could perform his own favorite rock music. White made his
directorial debut with the self-penned
Year of the Dog at the
2007 Sundance Film Festival. He was a member of the US Dramatic Jury at the
2009 Sundance Film Festival.
Laura Dern brought White into a project with HBO which became the series
Enlightened that premiered on October 10, 2011. Dern's character, Amy Jellicoe, goes to a Hawaiian retreat after her professional life publicly implodes, and is introduced to
meditation. White himself had suffered an on-the-job meltdown while running an earlier television series, and incorporated elements of that experience, as well as his own exploration of
Buddhist meditation, into the new series' plot. White is a credited writer on
The Emoji Movie; he spent three weeks with the film's screenwriters and helped with the structure of the script. For this project he received a
Golden Raspberry Award. He wrote and directed the 2017 film ''
Brad's Status.'' In 2021, White created, wrote, and directed
The White Lotus, a satirical limited series for
HBO, after being approached by HBO during the
COVID-19 pandemic for ideas. HBO went on to
greenlight two more seasons, which have different locations and casts and very little
continuity between them. White has brought back three actors over the course of the series:
Jennifer Coolidge,
Natasha Rothwell, and
Jon Gries. The concept for the series was "partly inspired" by White's work on an earlier proposed series which was never
picked up by any network:
The Tears of St. Patsy, which would have featured "Coolidge as a frustrated actor navigating a dangerous world". Meanwhile, White continued to work on the third season of
The White Lotus, whose release was delayed to 2025 by the
2023 SAG-AFTRA strike. As of March 2025,
The White Lotus was averaging millions of viewers per episode. It became "the biggest hit" of White's career, drawing comparisons to the best shows of the
prestige television era of the 2010s. They lasted for seven legs before being eliminated in sixth place in
Phuket, Thailand. Mel and Mike returned to compete in
The Amazing Race: Unfinished Business, where they were the second team eliminated in Japan after they both developed hypothermia. Both times, he ended up stuck on the island of
Ko Samui, which was used by the show as its elimination station, and because of those unhappy memories, he was reluctant at first to return there to film the third season of
The White Lotus.
Survivor White was a contestant on
Survivor: David vs. Goliath, as a member of the Goliath tribe, then to reshuffled Jabeni tribe and the merged Kalokalo tribe. He made it to Day 39 and received three jury votes, finishing in second place behind the winner,
Nick Wilson. White said he had been a big fan of the show, and because of his connections had developed a friendship with the show's host
Jeff Probst, providing the host suggestions towards improving the show. For instance, Probst stated that it was White who discouraged him from bringing back Redemption Island for
Survivor: San Juan del Sur. At some point White decided to start trying out to be a participant of the show, but he failed to be picked over what he believed was a concern of having "sloppy seconds" from other reality television programs. White noted that once he was selected, he had had no other conversations with Probst until the game was concluded. Several of White's fellow
Survivor players have appeared in cameos on
The White Lotus, including Alec Merlino (season 1), Angelina Keeley and Kara Kay (season 2), and Natalie Cole, Carl Boudreaux and Christian Hubicki (season 3). On May 28, 2025, White was announced as a contestant on
Survivor 50: In the Hands of the Fans, the fiftieth season of the show. He placed 20th out of 24. He was on Kalo to begin with, but then went to Vatu, who continued to lose challenges, then got voted out in a 3-2-1 vote with Angelina Keeley voting with him. ==Personal life==