Movie · 2017 · Comedy, Drama · 1h 44m · R · English
Curator score: 5.9/10 (588.2K ratings)
Based on the true story of one movie so bad it became infamous.
Overview
An aspiring actor in Hollywood meets an enigmatic stranger by the name of Tommy Wiseau, the meeting leads the actor down a path nobody could have predicted; creating the worst movie ever made.
Ratings
Curator score: 5.9/10
IMDb: 7.3/10
Letterboxd: 3.57/5
Rotten Tomatoes: 90%
Metacritic: 76
TMDB: 7.1/10
Director
James Franco
Production
New Line Cinema, Rabbit Bandini Productions, Point Grey Pictures, Good Universe, RatPac Entertainment, Ramona Films
Cast
Dave Franco, James Franco, Seth Rogen, Ari Graynor, Alison Brie, Jacki Weaver, Paul Scheer, Zac Efron, Josh Hutcherson, June Diane Raphael, Megan Mullally, Jason Mantzoukas, Andrew Santino, Nathan Fielder, Joe Mande, Sharon Stone, John Early, Melanie Griffith, Hannibal Buress, Lo Mutuc
Where to watch
Amazon Prime Video, Amazon Prime Video with Ads
Curator Review
Verdict
A sharp, funny backstage comedy-drama about ambition, friendship, and the strange magnetism of bad art. It works best as a companion piece to The Room: part affectionate parody, part sincere showbiz story, with a standout central performance that captures the absurdity without losing the human core.
Best for
Viewers who enjoy cult-movie lore and Hollywood oddities
Fans of awkward-comedy with a sincere emotional streak
People interested in stories about creative obsession and outsider artists
Audiences who like performance-driven biographical comedies
Skip if
You haven't seen or don't care about The Room and want the full joke
You prefer biopics that stay psychologically rigorous and emotionally subtle
You dislike broad, self-conscious comedy
You want a film that fully demystifies its subject
Overview
The Disaster Artist is at its strongest when it treats Tommy Wiseau less like a puzzle to solve and more like a force of nature. The movie understands the comic power of watching a dream collapse in real time, but it also finds something unexpectedly moving in the loyalty between two people chasing Hollywood success from wildly different starting points.
Worth noting
James Franco leans into the absurdity with a performance that is both mimicry and character study, and the film benefits from that commitment. The recreation of The Room’s infamous scenes is the obvious hook, but the real pleasure is in the slow build of delusion, envy, and creative desperation that leads there.
Bottom line
It is not a perfect film, and some viewers will want a stranger, harsher, or more psychologically probing version of the story. Still, as a crowd-pleasing cult-object comedy with genuine affection for outsider ambition, it lands well above novelty status.
Top Letterboxd reviews
meera (4★) · 5266 likes
Here's to the ones who dream
Foolish as they may seem
Lucy (3★) · 3379 likes
i think the biggest reason this concept doesn’t work for me at all is because this movie tries to show us the “real tommy” behind the scenes and what he was thinking and feeling, when in reality he is a complete enigma and to assume anyone knows the first thing about him is foolish
davidehrlich (4★) · 2028 likes
this movie is a gift to the world. a true mitzvah. "a pure good," to quote Ben Kingsley in Schindler's List (as I do on the regular).
James Franco's performance as Tommy Wiseau is so good that Daniel Day-Lewis had to retire out of shame. i look forwards to pushing him for major acting awards all season long.
i have *no* idea how this will play for those who are unfamiliar with THE ROOM, but for me… this was heaven.
ciara (4★) · 1812 likes
WHEN THEY DID THE SIDE BY SIDE COMPARISON OF THE ORIGINAL THE ROOM AND JAMES FRANCO’S VERSION AT THE END I FELT LIKE I WAS HAVING A FEVER DREAM. U’VE NEVER EXPERIENCED SURREALISM UNTIL U’VE SEEN TOMMY WISEAU AND JAMES FRANCO BOTH SIMULTANEOUSLY YELL “YOU’RE TEARING ME APART LISA!!” IN THE EXACT SAME VOICE AT THE EXACT SAME MOMENT ON THE BIG SCREEN I WAS FUCKFNF SCREMAING DNSJDHDKS. anyway i’m having a breakdown thank u james franco
Darren (4★) · 1513 likes
1994: Johnny Depp as Ed Wood
2017: James Franco as Tommy Wiseau
2040: Adam Driver as Neil Breen
2008 · Action, Comedy, Adventure · 1h 47m · R · Curator 5.8/10 (1.2M ratings) · Where to watch: Paramount Plus Premium, Paramount Plus Essential, MGM Plus
Broad but smart Hollywood satire with escalating chaos and a strong sense of performance as absurd theater.