Movie · 2022 · Drama, Comedy · 3h 9m · R · English
Curator score: 6.5/10 (1.3M ratings)
Always make a scene.
Overview
A tale of outsized ambition and outrageous excess, tracing the rise and fall of multiple characters in an era of unbridled decadence and depravity during Hollywood's transition from silent films to sound films in the late 1920s.
Diego Calva, Margot Robbie, Brad Pitt, Jovan Adepo, Jean Smart, J.C. Currais, Jimmy Ortega, Marcos A. Ferraez, Shane Powers, Phoebe Tonkin, Troy Metcalf, Hansford Prince, Telvin Griffin, Cutty Cuthbert, Albert Hammond Jr., Flea, Olivia Wilde, Bregje Heinen, Tal Seder, Dana Marcolina
Where to watch
Paramount Plus Premium, Paramount Plus Essential
Curator Review
Verdict
A maximalist, divisive, and very cinematic Hollywood epic that goes hard on excess, chaos, and the brutal cost of ambition. If you like big swings, dark comedy, and movies about movies, it’s an easy yes.
Best for
viewers who enjoy sprawling, operatic Hollywood satires
fans of excess, decadence, and black-comic energy
people interested in the silent-to-sound transition era
audiences who like ambitious, polarizing auteur films
Skip if
you want a tight, restrained, or emotionally modest drama
you dislike graphic bodily humor and extreme tonal whiplash
you prefer historically sober or realistic showbiz stories
you’re not in the mood for a long, messy, self-aware epic
Overview
Babylon is Damien Chazelle at his most unhinged and most alive: a feverish celebration of cinema that also treats Hollywood like a sewer drain full of glitter. It’s loud, filthy, funny, mournful, and often intentionally too much, which is exactly the point. The film’s scale and confidence make even its misfires feel like part of the design.
Worth noting
What lingers is the sense that every character is chasing immortality in an industry that devours people and then turns them into myth. The silent-to-sound transition gives the story a built-in historical upheaval, but the movie is really about appetite, reinvention, and the violence hidden inside spectacle. It’s a love letter and a warning label at the same time.
Bottom line
Not everyone will want to ride this particular three-hour roller coaster, but for viewers who respond to audacity, it’s a blast. The performances are big, the set pieces are outrageous, and the ending lands with more emotional force than its chaos suggests. It’s messy in a way that feels deliberate, and that makes it memorable.
Top Letterboxd reviews
Katie Walsh · 27701 likes
Is this a love letter to cinema or a suicide note?
(My review)
George Carmi (4.5★) · 17422 likes
Tobey Maguire will haunt me in my dreams for the foreseeable future.
Karsten (4.5★) · 12285 likes
had such a great time. felt like i got cornered at a party by the lamest film major but was just drunk enough after the first 20 minutes to hear him out. tom cruise and brad pitt made two VERY different movies this year where they acknowledge their own legacy in the industry…and i don’t know how to expand on that but one being a record-breaking box office smash and the other being one of the biggest flops of the… more had such a great time. felt like i got cornered at a party by the lamest film major but was just drunk enough after the first 20 minutes to hear him out. tom cruise and brad pitt made two VERY different movies this year where they acknowledge their own legacy in the industry…and i don’t know how to expand on that but one being a record-breaking box office smash and the other being one of the biggest flops of the… more
Framesofnick (4★) · 11563 likes
Yeah it’s insane. All of it works or some of it works or none of it works, I don’t really know. But I had fun
#1 gizmo fan (5★) · 10927 likes
shortest three hours of my entire life. sobbing uncontrollably knowing movies don’t get better than this. hold the ones you love and watch movies always and forever
2013 · Crime, Drama, Comedy · 3h · R · Curator 7.9/10 (5.7M ratings) · Where to watch: Amazon Prime Video, Paramount Plus Premium, Paramount Plus Essential, AMC+, Philo, Amazon Prime Video with Ads
A similarly manic portrait of greed, performance, and self-mythologizing excess.