Curator Watchlist
A stylish, ambitious neo-noir with a strong ensemble, sharp visual design, and a fun mystery-box structure, but it’s also overlong and occasionally overcomplicated. If you like pulpy crime stories with chaptered reveals, retro atmosphere, and a little genre-bending, it’s worth a look; if you need tight pacing or… Read more
Where to watch: Buy
Thu · 2h 21m
Director: Drew Goddard
Starring: Jeff Bridges, Cynthia Erivo, Lewis Pullman
Lake Tahoe, 1969. Seven strangers, each one with a secret to bury, meet at El Royale, a decadent motel with a dark past. In the course of a fateful night, everyone will have one last shot at redemption.
Drew Goddard
Jeff Bridges, Cynthia Erivo, Lewis Pullman
A stylish, ambitious neo-noir with a strong ensemble, sharp visual design, and a fun mystery-box structure, but it’s also overlong and occasionally overcomplicated. If you like pulpy crime stories with chaptered reveals, retro atmosphere, and a little genre-bending, it’s worth a look; if you need tight pacing or deeply drawn characters, it may frustrate you.
Bad Times at the El Royale is the kind of movie that arrives with a swagger: neon corridors, split identities, hidden rooms, and a motel that feels like a trap built by a filmmaker who loves traps. Drew Goddard stages it as a pulpy chamber piece, letting the setting do a lot of the storytelling while the cast cycles through secrets, lies, and sudden bursts of violence.
The movie’s biggest strength is its mood. It has a glossy, old-school Hollywood sheen, and the shifting perspectives keep the mystery alive even when the plotting gets busy. The performances help a lot too, especially when the film leans into character reveals and uneasy power dynamics. It’s entertaining, and often very entertaining, but it can feel like it’s reaching for a grand design that the script doesn’t always fully support.
If you’re in the right mood, the flaws are part of the appeal: a little too long, a little too self-conscious, but undeniably confident. It plays like a filmmaker having a blast with genre toys, and that energy carries it farther than the structure sometimes deserves.
issy 🥝 (2.5★) · 4257 likes
so you’re telling me that wasn’t tom holland
demi adejuyigbe (4★) · 3987 likes
[drew goddard watching The Hateful Eight] hahahaha what? no. noooo. no no no no, this is all wrong. it’s fine, i’ll do it myself
Patrick Willems (3★) · 2353 likes
Alternate title: "Pretty Okay Times at the El Royale That Could Be Great With Some Tighter Pacing and One More Draft of the Script to Flesh Out the Characters A Bit More"
cinéfila... 🕯️ (3.5★) · 1703 likes
STORYTIME: i got stuck at a shitty motel with an fbi agent, a fake priest, a military trained killing machine, a murderess with a heart of gold and a whole cult?!? ***NOT CLICKBAIT***
Karsten (4★) · 1409 likes
Omg what a load of fun this was. It’s a miracle this wasn’t a mess. I think what I loved and appreciated more than anything was how Hollywood this felt. Everything from the cinematography to the writing felt so classic, if that makes sense. This thing is also long and that scared me at first but I didn’t feel the runtime at all. Before I knew it the credits started rolling. A few points dragged pretty hard and it… more
A closed-location mystery with multiple strangers, shifting suspicions, and a pulpy reveal structure.
A clever, old-school ensemble whodunit built around secrets, manipulation, and a deadly game.
For viewers who enjoy a playful, theatrical murder mystery with a strong sense of genre pastiche.
The motel setting, hidden identities, and suspenseful atmosphere make this a foundational companion piece.
A genre-shifting crime story that pivots into something wilder, with a similar love of escalation.
Another long, sealed-space ensemble thriller driven by suspicion, backstory, and violent payoffs.
A stylized mystery with hardboiled dialogue, strong atmosphere, and a filmmaker’s precise control of tone.
A sleek, retro-leaning thriller that mixes menace, charisma, and genre fun.
For audiences who like fractured storytelling and a mystery that unfolds through structure as much as plot.
A witty, period-flavored crime caper with chemistry, momentum, and a playful noir sensibility.
A self-aware crime comedy that balances mystery, violence, and sharp character banter.
A compact, dialogue-driven crime puzzle with controlled tension and elegant staging.
secrets and hidden identities, redemption, corruption, cult influence, moral compromise, violence, surveillance and voyeurism, ensemble dynamics
neo-noir, thriller, crime, mystery, ensemble cast, 1960s setting, cult, motel, stylized violence, retro atmosphere