Movie · 2018 · Thriller, Mystery, Crime · 2h 21m · R · English
Curator score: 3.8/10 (181.2K ratings)
Seven strangers. Seven secrets. All roads lead here.
Overview
Lake Tahoe, 1969. Seven strangers, each one with a secret to bury, meet at El Royale, a decadent motel with a dark past. In the course of a fateful night, everyone will have one last shot at redemption.
Ratings
Curator score: 3.8/10
IMDb: 7.1/10
Rotten Tomatoes: 75%
Metacritic: 60
TMDB: 6.8/10
Director
Drew Goddard
Production
20th Century Fox, Goddard Textiles, TSG Entertainment
Cast
Jeff Bridges, Cynthia Erivo, Lewis Pullman, Dakota Johnson, Cailee Spaeny, Jon Hamm, Chris Hemsworth, Nick Offerman, Xavier Dolan, Shea Whigham, Mark O'Brien, Charles Halford, Jim O'Heir, Gerry Nairn, Alvina August, London Morrison, Bethany Brown, Rebecca Toolan, Hannah Zirke, Billy Wickman
Curator Review
Verdict
A stylish, ambitious neo-noir with a strong ensemble, sharp visual design, and a fun mystery-box structure, but it’s also overlong and occasionally overcomplicated. If you like pulpy crime stories with chaptered reveals, retro atmosphere, and a little genre-bending, it’s worth a look; if you need tight pacing or deeply drawn characters, it may frustrate you.
Best for
fans of twisty ensemble thrillers
viewers who enjoy 1960s retro atmosphere and period detail
people who like genre mashups with noir, crime, and cult elements
audiences who don’t mind a slow-burn structure with multiple POVs
Skip if
you want a lean, tightly paced thriller
you prefer realistic crime stories over heightened pulp
you get impatient with nonlinear storytelling
you need every character to feel fully developed
Overview
Bad Times at the El Royale is the kind of movie that arrives with a swagger: neon corridors, split identities, hidden rooms, and a motel that feels like a trap built by a filmmaker who loves traps. Drew Goddard stages it as a pulpy chamber piece, letting the setting do a lot of the storytelling while the cast cycles through secrets, lies, and sudden bursts of violence.
Worth noting
The movie’s biggest strength is its mood. It has a glossy, old-school Hollywood sheen, and the shifting perspectives keep the mystery alive even when the plotting gets busy. The performances help a lot too, especially when the film leans into character reveals and uneasy power dynamics. It’s entertaining, and often very entertaining, but it can feel like it’s reaching for a grand design that the script doesn’t always fully support.
Bottom line
If you’re in the right mood, the flaws are part of the appeal: a little too long, a little too self-conscious, but undeniably confident. It plays like a filmmaker having a blast with genre toys, and that energy carries it farther than the structure sometimes deserves.
Top Letterboxd reviews
issy 🥝 (2.5★) · 4257 likes
so you’re telling me that wasn’t tom holland
demi adejuyigbe (4★) · 3987 likes
[drew goddard watching The Hateful Eight] hahahaha what? no. noooo. no no no no, this is all wrong. it’s fine, i’ll do it myself
Patrick Willems (3★) · 2353 likes
Alternate title: "Pretty Okay Times at the El Royale That Could Be Great With Some Tighter Pacing and One More Draft of the Script to Flesh Out the Characters A Bit More"
cinéfila... 🕯️ (3.5★) · 1703 likes
STORYTIME: i got stuck at a shitty motel with an fbi agent, a fake priest, a military trained killing machine, a murderess with a heart of gold and a whole cult?!? ***NOT CLICKBAIT***
Karsten (4★) · 1409 likes
Omg what a load of fun this was. It’s a miracle this wasn’t a mess.
I think what I loved and appreciated more than anything was how Hollywood this felt. Everything from the cinematography to the writing felt so classic, if that makes sense. This thing is also long and that scared me at first but I didn’t feel the runtime at all. Before I knew it the credits started rolling.
A few points dragged pretty hard and it… more
2000 · Mystery, Thriller · 1h 53m · R · Curator 9.1/10 (3.2M ratings) · Where to watch: Amazon Prime Video, Hulu, Peacock, Amazon Prime Video with Ads, Peacock Premium Plus
For audiences who like fractured storytelling and a mystery that unfolds through structure as much as plot.