A high-energy, emotionally direct musical about creative panic, ambition, and the fear of running out of time. It works best as a performance piece and a portrait of artistic obsession, with Andrew Garfield carrying it through its rough edges.
tick, tick... BOOM!
Where to watch: Buy
Movie · Drama · Music
Thu · 2h 0m
Director: Lin-Manuel Miranda
Starring: Andrew Garfield, Alexandra Shipp, Robin de Jesús
Overview
On the brink of turning 30, a promising theater composer navigates love, friendship and the pressure to create something great before time runs out.
Director
Lin-Manuel Miranda
Cast
Andrew Garfield, Alexandra Shipp, Robin de Jesús
Curator Review
Verdict
A high-energy, emotionally direct musical about creative panic, ambition, and the fear of running out of time. It works best as a performance piece and a portrait of artistic obsession, with Andrew Garfield carrying it through its rough edges.
Best for
theater kids
viewers who like biographical musicals
fans of emotionally driven performance showcases
people drawn to stories about creative anxiety
audiences who enjoy energetic, stage-inflected filmmaking
Skip if
you dislike showy musical numbers
you want a strictly realistic biopic
you prefer understated acting
you are tired of self-reflexive artist stories
Overview
tick, tick... BOOM! is a buoyant, anxious, and surprisingly moving musical about the pressure to make something meaningful before life moves on without you. It captures the specific dread of being talented, broke, and almost 30 with unusual clarity, turning creative frustration into a propulsive emotional engine.
Worth noting
Andrew Garfield gives the film its pulse, balancing charm, desperation, and raw vulnerability in a way that makes the character’s spiraling feel lived-in rather than theatrical in the wrong sense. The movie is at its strongest when it treats artistic ambition as both a gift and a curse, and when it lets the songs function as inner monologue.
Bottom line
Lin-Manuel Miranda’s direction is energetic and affectionate, though occasionally a little too eager to underline its own inspiration. Even so, the film lands as a crowd-pleasing, cathartic tribute to the messy process of making art and the people who keep going anyway.
Top Letterboxd reviews
James (Schaffrillas) (4★) · 15607 likes
You see how much good Lin-Manuel Miranda can do when he's not in front of the camera?
giada (5★) · 14450 likes
congrats to tick, tick… boom! for being a james corden-free musical
davidehrlich (3.5★) · 10180 likes
Andrew Garfield's performance in this is a historic landmark for theater kid cinema.
Brett Arnold (4★) · 9575 likes
RIP Jonathan Larson, you would have loved the Notes app
Shawn Peer (4★) · 8334 likes
Jonathan Larson: “Aw man, I can’t figure out my next musical. :(” Landlord: “Ayyy, Johnny, do you have my… rent?” Cut to black
Themes
creative anxiety, coming of age, ambition, time pressure, friendship, romantic uncertainty, artistic identity, mortality
Topics
musical drama, biographical, theater, creative burnout, coming-of-age, New York City, ambition, emotional, performance, 1990s