Director of Melania Trump movie named and pictured in Epstein files

The director of Melania Trump's new documentary movie, Brett Ratner, has been pictured in the Epstein files.

For those who missed it, on Friday (30 January), the Department of Justice (DOJ) released more than three million documents related to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein and his crimes.

The trove of information included a whopping three million pages, 180,000 images and 2,000 videos, as reported by the BBC.

Several members of the British Royal Family were named or pictured in the documents, some of which were from decades ago.

While being named in the documents doesn't indicate any wrongdoing on its own, a number of famous faces were also mentioned, pictured with, or corresponded with Epstein, who died by suicide in 2019 while awaiting his sex-trafficking trial.

Among them is Ratner, who just directed First Lady Melania Trump's new documentary, Melania, which hit cinemas around the world on the same day as the files were released.

American movie director Brett Ratner has been pictured in the Epstein files (Taylor Hill/Getty Images)

Ratner, who also directed other movies such as the Rush Hour films and X-Men: The Last Stand, was pictured on a sofa with Epstein and two women, whose identities have been redacted.

In the snap, Ratner appears to be cuddled up to a woman with his arms around her waist, while a second woman can be seen leaning on Epstein's shoulder.

According to the BBC, the location of the images remains unclear, however, they seem to have been taken in the same place as previous photos of Ratner and Epstein with the late French modelling agent Jean-Luc Brunel that were released to the public in a different batch of files in December.

A series of thumbnails of the picture collection appear to show Ratner, Epstein and Brunel smiling with different women, all of whose identities have been concealed.

The women's identities have been redacted (US Department of Justice)

As we say, Ratner has directed a number of big films, including The Family Man, Red Dragon, and Tower Heist.

However, Melania is his first project since he was accused of sexual misconduct during the #MeToo movement in 2017, which he has 'categorically' denied.

As reported by The Telegraph, Ratner has a long connection with US President Donald Trump after he filmed scenes for a movie at Trump Tower in 2011.

According to the publication, the director has been residing in an eight-bedroom house in Trump's Mar-a-Lago while growing close to the political couple and is getting ready to take part in more Trump-focused projects.

Ratner directed Melania Trump's new documentary movie (Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images)

The first lady's movie reportedly became the most expensive documentary of all time when Amazon spent a whopping $40m (£29m) on the rights and an additional $35m (£25.5m) on marketing.

As per The Guardian, the film has done better than expected at the USA box office, raking in $7m (£5.1m), which is the strongest start of any documentary in over a decade.

However, because of the high cost that was put into making it, it's estimated to need to rake in around $100m (£73.2m) globally to break even.

Tyla has contacted Ratner's production company for comment.