Movie · 2025 · Fantasy, Drama · 1h 51m · R · English
Curator score: 5.8/10 (381.3K ratings)
Every life is a universe all its own.
Overview
In this extraordinary story of an ordinary man, Charles 'Chuck' Krantz experiences the wonder of love, the heartbreak of loss, and the multitudes contained in all of us.
Ratings
Curator score: 5.8/10
IMDb: 7.3/10
Letterboxd: 3.67/5
Rotten Tomatoes: 80%
Metacritic: 67
TMDB: 7.3/10
Director
Mike Flanagan
Production
Intrepid Pictures, Red Room Pictures, QWGmire, FilmNation Entertainment
Cast
Tom Hiddleston, Benjamin Pajak, Nick Offerman, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Karen Gillan, Mia Sara, Mark Hamill, Annalise Basso, Jacob Tremblay, Cody Flanagan, Samantha Sloyan, Trinity Jo-Li Bliss, David Dastmalchian, Matthew Lillard, Kate Siegel, Rahul Kohli, Harvey Guillén, Saidah Arrika Ekulona, Carl Lumbly, Taylor Gordon
Where to watch
Hulu
Curator Review
Verdict
A heartfelt, structurally playful fantasy-drama that blends existential reflection, grief, and a surprisingly buoyant love of life. It seems to work best when it leans into its emotional sincerity and offbeat theatricality, even if the reverse-chronology structure may not land equally for everyone.
Best for
Viewers who like emotional, idea-driven dramas with a fantasy edge
Fans of Mike Flanagan's more tender, reflective work
People open to unconventional structure and a big sentimental payoff
Audiences who enjoy stories about ordinary lives feeling cosmic
Skip if
You want a straightforward plot with a conventional timeline
You dislike earnest, sentimental filmmaking
You prefer grounded realism over metaphysical or symbolic storytelling
You are impatient with films that prioritize mood and theme over narrative mechanics
Overview
The Life of Chuck is the kind of movie that wants to make you look at an ordinary life as something vast, strange, and worth celebrating. Its reverse-order structure gives it a melancholy charge, while the fantasy framing keeps it from becoming merely solemn. The result is a film that feels both intimate and cosmic, with a strong emotional current running underneath the formal experiment.
Worth noting
What stands out most is its willingness to be unabashedly sincere. The dance-heavy, theatrical stretches and the reflective monologues suggest a filmmaker interested in wonder as much as grief. That can be moving when it clicks, though the film’s shape may leave some viewers feeling distanced from the central character before the emotional payoff arrives.
Bottom line
For audiences receptive to Flanagan’s blend of comfort, mortality, and metaphysical longing, this is likely to be a rewarding watch. It’s less about plot than about accumulation: small moments, lived-in details, and the idea that a single person contains an entire universe.
Top Letterboxd reviews
Mike Flanagan · 11185 likes
US: June 6 2025France: June 11 2025UK/Australia/Mexico: August 22, 2025Spain: September 12, 2025
Hope you enjoy!
Vinny Simms (4.5★) · 7145 likes
Life’s too short to repress your inner theater kid
mel (3★) · 6443 likes
a monologue romanticizing accounting is the true horror jumpscare of the film
Connor Stewart (3.5★) · 5796 likes
Mark Hamill tries to gaslight you into thinking math is fun
Sydney🚀 (3★) · 4600 likes
There’s something really interesting here that for some reason just never fully comes to fruition - it could be the structure? That we don’t actually spend much time with present day Chuck? The teacher scene got to me a bit, the dancing is fun, but otherwise Flanagan’s musings about the cosmos have yet again failed to move me in the way I think he’s intending. The ending fell completely flat for me. Clearly that’s not the case for most people… more There’s something really interesting here that for some reason just never fully comes to fruition - it could be the structure? That we don’t actually spend much time with present day Chuck? The teacher scene got to me a bit, the dancing is fun, but otherwise Flanagan’s musings about the cosmos have yet again failed to move me in the way I think he’s intending. The ending fell completely flat for me. Clearly that’s not the case for most people… more