A sharp, glossy workplace comedy-drama with real bite: it’s funny, stylish, and more emotionally observant than its frothy reputation suggests. The fashion-world setting is a perfect engine for power games, identity shifts, and career ambition, anchored by a famously commanding central performance.
62% ★★★☆☆ (3,027,577)
The Devil Wears Prada
Where to watch: Disney
Movie · Drama · Comedy · PG-13
2006 · 1h 49m · ★ 62% (3M)
Meet Andy Sachs. A million girls would kill to have her job. She's not one of them.
Director: David Frankel
Starring: Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, Emily Blunt
Overview
A young woman from the Midwest gets more than she bargained for when she moves to New York to become a writer and ends up as the assistant to the tyrannical, larger-than-life editor-in-chief of a major fashion magazine.
Director
David Frankel
Production
Fox 2000 Pictures, Wendy Finerman Productions, Dune Entertainment, Major Studio Partners
Cast
Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, Emily Blunt, Stanley Tucci, Simon Baker, Adrian Grenier, Tracie Thoms, Rich Sommer, Daniel Sunjata, David Marshall Grant, James Naughton, Tibor Feldman, Rebecca Mader, Jimena Hoyos, Gisele Bündchen, George C. Wolfe, John Rothman, Stephanie Szostak, Colleen Dengel, Suzanne Dengel
Where to watch
Disney Plus, Hulu, fuboTV, Philo, AMC+, AMC
Curator Review
Verdict
A sharp, glossy workplace comedy-drama with real bite: it’s funny, stylish, and more emotionally observant than its frothy reputation suggests. The fashion-world setting is a perfect engine for power games, identity shifts, and career ambition, anchored by a famously commanding central performance.
Best for
fans of smart workplace comedies
viewers who like fashion-world drama and makeover narratives
people who enjoy sharp dialogue and icy boss/assistant dynamics
audiences looking for a polished, rewatchable 2000s crowd-pleaser
Skip if
you want a low-stakes feel-good movie with no career stress
you dislike abrasive authority figures and humiliation-based comedy
you prefer subtle, understated character studies over glossy mainstream entertainment
Overview
The Devil Wears Prada works because it understands that style is never just style. Beneath the couture and one-liners, it’s a movie about labor, aspiration, compromise, and the cost of wanting to be exceptional. The office politics are funny because they’re cruel, and the cruelty is funny because the film knows everyone in the room is chasing status in different ways.
Worth noting
Its biggest asset is the central dynamic: a novice learning to survive inside a machine built by an intimidating perfectionist. The movie is brisk, cleanly made, and endlessly quotable, but it also has a surprisingly sharp eye for the way ambition can isolate you from the people who think they’re protecting you. It’s both a fantasy of reinvention and a cautionary tale about what reinvention demands.
Bottom line
What keeps it durable is the balance of glamour and discomfort. The clothes are seductive, the pace is crisp, and the supporting cast gives the film real texture, but it never loses sight of the emotional trade-offs underneath the surface polish. It’s one of the defining mainstream comedies of the 2000s for a reason.
Top Letterboxd reviews
clownhead (4★) · 38655 likes
incredible how emily blunt plays a character called emily whose main characteristic is "blunt." one of many visionary elements in this seminal Masterpiece.
tamar (4★) · 38010 likes
emily not in paris
Erik 🎼 (5★) · 37724 likes
every single man in this movie is a dumb selfish disgusting whiny loser except for Nigel. big dick energy was invented for Stanley Tucci.
beck (3.5★) · 32593 likes
this is just the fashion version of whiplash
amanda (4.5★) · 27089 likes
andy's self-centered, emotionally manipulative, dismissive, and egotistical sous-chef boyfriend who was a dead weight in her life and did nothing but make her feel worthless and guilty of her own success was the REAL antagonist, not miranda who pushed andy to become the BEST version of herself. in this essay i will-
A satisfying underdog story about competence, confidence, and earning respect in a hostile environment.
Themes
ambition, workplace power dynamics, fashion industry, identity and reinvention, mentor-protégé conflict, career vs personal life, class and aspiration, female professionalism
Topics
workplace comedy, drama, fashion, career ambition, 2000s, sharp dialogue, glossy style, female-led, power dynamics, coming-of-age