Curator Watchlist
A glossy, empathetic rise-and-fall biopic with strong performances and a clear affection for its subject, but it plays more like a polished awards vehicle than a fully sharp or surprising character study. The movie is most compelling when it leans into Tammy Faye’s contradictions, faith, and public image; it’s less… Read more
Where to watch: Buy
Fri · 2h 6m
Director: Michael Showalter
Starring: Jessica Chastain, Andrew Garfield, Cherry Jones
From the 1960s to the 1980s, evangelist Jim Baker and his ambitious wife, Tammy Faye, rose from humble beginnings to build an empire based on big-time evangelical Christianity--only for the couple to fall from grace because of some all-too-human sins.
Michael Showalter
Jessica Chastain, Andrew Garfield, Cherry Jones
A glossy, empathetic rise-and-fall biopic with strong performances and a clear affection for its subject, but it plays more like a polished awards vehicle than a fully sharp or surprising character study. The movie is most compelling when it leans into Tammy Faye’s contradictions, faith, and public image; it’s less effective when it smooths over the messier edges of the story.
The Eyes of Tammy Faye is built around a fascinating contradiction: a woman who was both a product of televangelist spectacle and, at times, one of its more humane faces. Michael Showalter keeps the film accessible and brisk, and Jessica Chastain gives the role a vivid, lived-in warmth that makes Tammy Faye feel larger than the tabloid version of her life.
The movie works best as a character portrait and a period piece. It captures the garish optimism of 1970s and 1980s evangelical celebrity culture, the money, the TV-ready smiles, and the moral rot underneath. Andrew Garfield is effective as Jim Bakker, though the film’s emotional center is clearly Tammy Faye’s need to be loved, seen, and forgiven.
Still, the film can feel a little too tidy for a story this strange and ugly. It wants to be compassionate rather than ruthless, which makes it appealing, but also limits its bite. If you’re in the mood for a human-scale biopic with strong craft and a memorable lead performance, it’s worth a look; if you want something sharper or more unsettling, it may leave you wanting more.
bre (3★) · 3388 likes
rip tammy faye you would have loved coke zero and eyelash extensions
Ethan Ethan (3★) · 2877 likes
We should just give up on trying to make Andrew Garfield look old
Amanda the Jedi (3.5★) · 2875 likes
Never forget that Jim Bakker went on to try and sell people colloidal silver as a covid cure and is a genuine menace to the world. Hallelujah.
jourdain searles (3★) · 2120 likes
tale as old as time—fun, cool lady marries a loser
megan (3.5★) · 1943 likes
we need the tammy faye meal at chick fil a
A searching, morally complicated drama about faith, charisma, and self-deception, with a stronger spiritual edge and a more rugged emotional texture.
A classic portrait of religious showmanship and opportunism that pairs well with the film’s televangelist themes.
Explores revival-style faith as performance, persuasion, and commerce, with a similar mix of charisma and critique.
For viewers interested in cultish devotion, charismatic leaders, and the emotional mechanics of belief.
A great companion piece for ambition, corruption, and the American appetite for spectacle and power.
Shares the tension between faith, confusion, and the search for meaning, though in a more ironic register.
If the appeal is watching institutions and personalities unravel under greed and performance, this offers a sharper modern equivalent.
A brash rise-and-fall story about charisma, excess, and moral collapse in public view.
Another biographical drama about public identity, activism, and the power of visibility.
For a similar underdog energy and a central performance that turns a real person into a vivid screen presence.
A media-scandal biopic that balances provocation, sympathy, and the ugly machinery of public judgment.
For a more daring, spiritually charged exploration of belief, desire, and religious controversy.
televangelism, faith and hypocrisy, celebrity culture, public image, scandal and downfall, female resilience, marriage and manipulation, American religious history
biopic, drama, historical drama, religious scandal, television culture, 1980s, camp, melodrama, character study, period piece