The story of Elton John's life, from his years as a prodigy at the Royal Academy of Music through his influential and enduring musical partnership with Bernie Taupin.
Ratings
Curator score: 6.2/10
IMDb: 7.3/10
Letterboxd: 3.70/5
Rotten Tomatoes: 89%
Metacritic: 69
TMDB: 7.3/10
Director
Dexter Fletcher
Production
Paramount Pictures, New Republic Pictures, Marv, Rocket Pictures, Lawrence Bender Productions
Cast
Taron Egerton, Jamie Bell, Richard Madden, Bryce Dallas Howard, Gemma Jones, Steven Mackintosh, Tom Bennett, Matthew Illesley, Kit Connor, Charlie Rowe, Peter O'Hanlon, Ross Farrelly, Evan Walsh, Tate Donovan, Sharmina Harrower, Ophelia Lovibond, Celinde Schoenmaker, Harriet Walter, Stephen Graham, Sharon D. Clarke
Where to watch
Paramount Plus Premium, Paramount Plus Essential, TNT, TBS, tru TV
Curator Review
Verdict
A flamboyant, emotionally candid jukebox biopic that turns Elton John’s rise, self-destruction, and recovery into a full-throttle pop spectacle. It’s more stylized and self-aware than the average music biopic, with strong performances and a willingness to use fantasy to express pain, desire, and reinvention.
Best for
fans of music biopics that feel more like pop musicals than prestige dramas
viewers who want a glossy but emotionally bruised celebrity rise-and-fall story
audiences interested in queer-coded or openly queer pop icon narratives
people who liked energetic, performance-driven biographical films
Skip if
you want a strictly factual, sober biography
you dislike jukebox musicals or heightened fantasy sequences
you prefer understated acting and naturalistic storytelling
you are tired of the familiar rise-fall-recovery structure
Overview
Rocketman takes a familiar celebrity biography and gives it a theatrical pulse. Instead of pretending to be objective, it leans into performance, memory, and emotional exaggeration, which makes Elton John’s story feel vivid rather than dutiful. The result is a film that is often more alive than most music biopics, even when it follows a recognizable arc.
Worth noting
Taron Egerton is the engine here, delivering a committed, physical, and surprisingly vulnerable performance that sells both the swagger and the self-destruction. The film is strongest when it lets the songs function as emotional shorthand, turning concerts, fantasies, and breakdowns into expressive set pieces. It’s glossy, but not empty; the sadness underneath the sequins is the point.
Bottom line
It does soften some edges and occasionally feels like it’s moving through the life story at a crowd-pleasing pace, but the style is the selling point. If you want a biopic that behaves like a musical and understands the loneliness inside the spectacle, this lands well.
Top Letterboxd reviews
Vivian (4★) · 9549 likes
imagine you’re gay and you’re kinda into this guy and you go to kiss him and he’s like stop m8 I luv ya but not like that and then he goes on to write THE MOST ROMANTIC SONG OF ALL TIME just for you...I’d kill meself
Charlie (3.5★) · 6470 likes
What's your name?
Elton
Elton what?
*looks at picture of the Beatles*
Elton Ringo sir
davidehrlich (3.5★) · 4947 likes
ROCKETMAN is so much better than BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY that it’s wild they’re *both* technically considered movies.
Patrick Willems (3★) · 4049 likes
The pitch: what if Bohemian Rhapsody was not bad?
•lily• (4.5★) · 3147 likes
He was a poem (Taron Egerton)
But they couldn’t read (The Oscars)