Movie · 2019 · Drama, History, Music · 1h 58m · PG-13 · English
Curator score: 3.6/10 (134.5K ratings)
The legend behind the rainbow.
Overview
Thirty years after starring in 'The Wizard of Oz', beloved actress and singer Judy Garland arrives in London to perform sold-out shows at the Talk of the Town nightclub. While there, she reminisces with friends and fans and begins a whirlwind romance with musician Mickey Deans, her soon-to-be fifth husband.
Ratings
Curator score: 3.6/10
IMDb: 6.8/10
Letterboxd: 3.22/5
Rotten Tomatoes: 82%
Metacritic: 66
TMDB: 6.7/10
Director
Rupert Goold
Production
Pathe, BBC Film, Ingenious Media, Calamity Films
Cast
Renée Zellweger, Jessie Buckley, Finn Wittrock, Rufus Sewell, Michael Gambon, Richard Cordery, Royce Pierreson, Darci Shaw, Andy Nyman, Daniel Cerqueira, Bella Ramsey, Lewin Lloyd, Tom Durant-Pritchard, John Dagleish, Adrian Lukis, Gemma-Leah Devereux, Gus Barry, Jodie McNee, Gus Brown, Matt Nalton
Where to watch
Max
Curator Review
Verdict
A prestige biopic held together by Renée Zellweger’s committed, emotionally precise performance. It’s strongest as a portrait of a battered star trying to keep working, but the film itself can feel conventional and emotionally schematic around her.
Best for
fans of transformation-heavy lead performances
viewers interested in late-career showbiz tragedy
audiences drawn to classic Hollywood melancholy
people who like intimate, performance-driven biopics
Skip if
you want a fresh or formally daring biopic
you’re tired of misery-centered artist portraits
you need a fuller, more nuanced life story rather than a final-chapter snapshot
you dislike films that rely on one standout performance to carry the whole experience
Overview
Judy is the kind of biopic that lives or dies on its central performance, and Renée Zellweger absolutely understands the assignment. She captures Garland’s fragility, wit, vanity, exhaustion, and stubborn showmanship in a way that makes even the film’s most familiar beats land with force. The movie is at its best when it lets her command a room or collapse in private, turning performance into survival.
Worth noting
What keeps it from being more than a showcase is the familiar shape of the storytelling. The film leans hard into the tragic final-act template: abuse, addiction, loneliness, and the cruel machinery of fame. That material is potent, but the script often feels more dutiful than revelatory, moving through Garland’s pain in a way that can seem calculated rather than deeply observed.
Bottom line
Still, if you respond to actor-led dramas and the ache of watching a legend try to keep going, Judy has real power. It’s a polished, mournful star vehicle with enough emotional charge to justify itself, even if it never fully transcends the biopic formula.
Top Letterboxd reviews
maria (3★) · 2360 likes
BREAKING NEWS:
according to tmz, renée zellweger was recently hospitalized for urgent treatment due to severe back pain caused by the burden of carrying the entire judy (2019) movie on her back
we all wish her a speedy recovery...
Emma 🔆 (3★) · 1400 likes
“You were the only person in that theater not on life support” - My 81 year old grandmother
Matt Singer (2★) · 1009 likes
Zellweger does her best. Still, I became convinced that I need a break from biopics that focus exclusively on the miserable final months of great artists, with occasional flashbacks to the “glory days” that reveal how they never were all that glorious. Also: I declare a moratorium on biographical films that end with the great hero getting a standing ovation from an adoring public that did not appreciate them in their lifetime. Please, I beg of you, no more. I cannot take it.
nick (2.5★) · 512 likes
The G in lgbt stands for judy
siobhan (3★) · 453 likes
imagine judy garland comes over to your house for dinner and then u remember u can’t cook and she has to start cooking for YOU?? ........ 10/10 would happen to me