Movie · 2009 · Romance, Drama · 2h 3m · PG-13 · English
Curator score: 4.9/10 (321.6K ratings)
Based on two true stories.
Overview
Julia Child and Julie Powell – both of whom wrote memoirs – find their lives intertwined. Though separated by time and space, both women are at loose ends... until they discover that with the right combination of passion, fearlessness and butter, anything is possible.
Ratings
Curator score: 4.9/10
IMDb: 7.0/10
Letterboxd: 3.47/5
Rotten Tomatoes: 76%
Metacritic: 66
TMDB: 6.7/10
Director
Nora Ephron
Production
Columbia Pictures, Easy There Tiger Productions, Scott Rudin Productions
Cast
Meryl Streep, Amy Adams, Stanley Tucci, Chris Messina, Linda Emond, Helen Carey, Mary Lynn Rajskub, Jane Lynch, Joan Juliet Buck, Crystal McCreary, George Bartenieff, Vanessa Ferlito, Casey Wilson, Jillian Bach, Andrew Garman, Brooks Ashmanskas, Michael Brian Dunn, Remak Ramsay, Diane Kagan, Pamela Stewart
Curator Review
Verdict
A warm, food-soaked crowd-pleaser about reinvention, ambition, and the pleasures of competent, affectionate partnership. It’s uneven in structure, but the performances and Nora Ephron’s breezy, humane touch make it easy to enjoy.
Best for
fans of feel-good adult dramedies
viewers who like cooking and food culture on screen
people drawn to performance-driven biographical stories
audiences who enjoy romantic relationships built on mutual support
fans of witty, midlife reinvention stories
Skip if
you want a tightly focused single-protagonist story
you dislike broad tonal shifts between two timelines
you’re not interested in culinary or memoir-adaptation narratives
you prefer understated realism over polished crowd-pleasers
Overview
Julie & Julia is at its best when it treats cooking as a form of self-making. The Julia Child material is exuberant, funny, and buoyed by Meryl Streep’s fearless performance, while the Julie Powell storyline gives the film its more relatable note of frustration, aspiration, and domestic pressure. Together they make a pleasant argument for persistence, appetite, and the value of finding a craft that gives your life shape.
Worth noting
The movie is also very much a Nora Ephron film: romantic, lightly comic, and interested in the emotional labor of everyday life. It can feel a little overextended, and the two-story structure doesn’t always balance cleanly, but the charm is substantial. Stanley Tucci and Meryl Streep bring an unusually appealing chemistry to the Child marriage, and the film’s affection for food, work, and partnership is genuinely infectious.
Bottom line
If you like movies that are more nourishing than challenging, this is an easy recommendation. It’s not subtle, but it is generous, polished, and often delightful, with enough wit and warmth to make the kitchen feel like a place where a life can be remade.
Top Letterboxd reviews
kirsty🌙✨ (3★) · 4949 likes
this movie was too unrealistic. in what universe are men ever this supportive and caring in romantic relationships
sree (3.5★) · 2852 likes
i know this wasn't the point but stanley tucci can like... get it
Stephanie (3.5★) · 2500 likes
Amy Adams looked gay in this
claire (3★) · 2407 likes
my favourite typecast is stanley tucci as sexy & supportive dandy husband
bethany (3.5★) · 2125 likes
do you think julia child met remy while she was in paris?