Curator Watchlist
My Favorite Year
A warm, witty showbiz comedy with a surprisingly touching core. Peter O’Toole’s performance gives it real spark, and the backstage TV setting adds a nostalgic, lightly satirical charm.
Curator Watchlist
A warm, witty showbiz comedy with a surprisingly touching core. Peter O’Toole’s performance gives it real spark, and the backstage TV setting adds a nostalgic, lightly satirical charm.
Where to watch: Buy
Fri · 1h 32m
Director: Richard Benjamin
Starring: Peter O'Toole, Mark Linn-Baker, Jessica Harper
Fledgling comic Benjy Stone can't believe his luck when his childhood hero, the swashbuckling matinee idol Alan Swann, gets booked to appear on the variety show he writes for. But when Swann arrives, he fails to live up to his silver screen image. Instead, he's a drunken womanizer who suffers from stage fright. Benjy is assigned to look after him before the show, and it's all he can do to keep his former idol from going completely off the rails.
Richard Benjamin
Peter O'Toole, Mark Linn-Baker, Jessica Harper
A warm, witty showbiz comedy with a surprisingly touching core. Peter O’Toole’s performance gives it real spark, and the backstage TV setting adds a nostalgic, lightly satirical charm.
My Favorite Year is one of those easy-to-love backstage comedies that feels both breezy and carefully made. It uses the live-TV variety-show world as a playground for jokes, but the real pleasure is watching the film balance vanity, insecurity, and old-fashioned showbiz romance without losing its light touch.
Peter O’Toole is the engine here: flamboyant, self-destructive, and somehow still magnetic. The movie knows exactly how to let him be ridiculous while preserving the sadness underneath, and that mix gives the comedy more lift than a simple nostalgia piece usually has.
Mark Linn-Baker makes an excellent straight man, and the supporting ensemble helps the film feel lived-in rather than merely cute. It’s slight in the best way: a polished, affectionate comedy that lands because it understands both the glamour and the panic behind performance.
shahbakht (4★) · 85 likes
There are some movies that reinforce my love for the medium. As soon as I lay my eyes upon them, I know that I am going to love them. Some names come to mind like The Apartment, Goodfellas and of course The Godfather and this, for me, fell right into that group. Without a doubt one of the funniest movies I have seen and a sheer delight from start to end. Just a positive, light, fun and well made movie. Peter O'Toole is superb and getting an Oscar nomination for a comedic role is a rarity and he makes it look effortless.
David Sims (3★) · 82 likes
Mark Linn-Baker is in this a criminal amount
madmonsterparty (4.5★) · 71 likes
This is one of those movies that, due to bad timing, I end up usually just end up logging instead of going ahead and talking about with a review. Well, I'm going to go ahead and right that wrong now and talk about this one. It's charming, fun, sweet and nostalgic. Plus, you get Peter O'Toole thrown in there too and he brings so much charm and likability to this movie he could probably carry it all by himself. But… more
theironcupcake (4.5★) · 65 likes
"Do you think there are funny people and not-funny people?""Yes. Definitely. On the funny side there are the Marx Brothers, except Zeppo; the Ritz Brothers, no exceptions; both Laurel and Hardy; and Woody Woodpecker. On the unfunny side, there's anybody who has ever played the accordion professionally." For Jewish American Heritage Month and AAPI Heritage Month simultaneously: my favorite Richard Benjamin-directed film - a particular treat since today is his birthday - celebrating Brooklyn Jewishness (as is my own… more
David W (3★) · 61 likes
A film about TV hampered by its too-frequent TV sensibilities but saved, in the end, by the genuine star power of Peter O’Toole. The story is simple and ready-made for nostalgia-wallowing. We’re introduced to a young, up-and-coming talent, Benjy Stone (Mark Linn-Baker), who works in the writer’s room of a “Your Show of Shows” style variety hour. It’s 1954 and the week when a formerly great, increasingly washed-up star of earlier cinema, Alan Swann (O’Toole), is set to host the
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The gold standard for a comedy about performance, ego, and the machinery behind entertainment.
Fast, dialogue-driven comedy about media professionals under pressure, with a sharp backstage rhythm.
Light, polished, and very much about comic timing, ensemble chemistry, and theatrical energy.
Shares the mix of celebrity glamour, self-destruction, and emotional vulnerability.
A sharper, more cynical Hollywood satire that still thrives on industry insider pleasures.
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Another film that treats screen fantasy and audience longing with affection and melancholy.
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If the appeal is behind-the-scenes chaos and comic egos, this is a very good companion piece.
A great match for its show-business setting, comic timing, and human warmth beneath the jokes.
show business, nostalgia, mentor-protege dynamic, washed-up celebrity, live television, self-image vs reality, coming-of-age, romantic comedy
backstage comedy, nostalgic period piece, showbiz satire, character-driven, ensemble comedy, sentimental, 1950s setting, live TV, star vehicle, coming-of-age