I can’t say I’ve even been super into Anthony Bourdain or have any kind of connection with him. To be totally honest, I didn’t really know anything about him other than that he was a celebrity chef who tragically died in 2018. Maybe it was actually that lack of knowledge that made me want to see this movie, to learn something. That plus the cast of up-and-coming stars I have some vested interest in. Tony comes from BlackBerry and Nirvana the Band the Show the Movie writer/director Matt Johnson, which, if you’ve seen either of those movies, seems like a curious choice of director for something in this tone. It is the first fictional accounting of Anthony Bourdain’s life as much of the previous work is self-accounts in his own books like “Kitchen Confidential” and “Medium Raw”. Tony is what I like to call a “micro-biopic”, a trend as of late where films are “not your cradle-to-grave biographies. The micro-biopic is a snapshot of a short period of time in a famous figure’s life. We just saw this with The Smashing Machine and … A Complete Unknown, which mainly focused on Bob Dylan’s pivot from folk to electric,” (Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere review). Tony focuses on the summer of 1975, when Anthony Bourdain was not yet Anthony Bourdain and was, instead, a 19-year-old kid trying to figure out who he is and who he wants to be.

Tony tells you what it’s about right off the bat. The movie opens with a quote from Anthony Bourdain’s first book “Kitchen Confidential” in which he says of his 19-year-old self, “I was — to be frank — a spoiled, miserable, narcissistic, self-destructive and thoughtless young lout, badly in need of a good ass-kicking.” That kind of says everything you need to know about where we find the Tony character and what he’s in for. He’s got a big ego, he’s pretentious, he is simmering with frustration, and is constantly lying to everyone around him to seem cooler or smarter or better than he actually is. The fascinating thing about the movie is that they’re not afraid to make Tony unlikable. That’s a genuine feat in a biopic (and one where the estate approved the film), especially in the year of Michael, a film so controlled by the estate it not only glossed over anything that might be seen as unflattering, but actually tried to reframe some of it in a positive light (a move I found quite shocking and appalling). But the real Tony was very honest about himself in his own words, so the film actually honors him by staying true to that depiction. 

At the beginning of the film, Tony is pitching an idea to try to get a writing fellowship at his school, Vassar College. He tells the board the novel is a bildungsroman, a German literary term for a coming-of-age story. Once again, the movie is telling us exactly what it is. Tony’s narcissism and temper come from the insecurity of feeling lost and aimless in life. He has so much ambition but nowhere to direct it. He’s a young man searching for a purpose when he starts working in the kitchen at The Flagship, a local seafood restaurant in Provincetown where he’s spending the summer. Tony starts as a dishwasher out of necessity, but works his way up to a cook as he falls in love with the kitchen. At a certain point, even he doesn’t know if he’s lying about being a chef or lying about being a writer. The movie is perfectly bookended with scenes of Tony sitting in front of a board. In the first, he’s applying for a writing fellowship. In the last, he’s applying for the Culinary Institute of America. Turns out that “good ass-kicking” he was in need of got him exactly where he was supposed to go.

I’m a sucker for a “formative summer” movie, especially ones about people getting a job for the summer and finding family with those coworkers (should I make a Letterboxd list for more of these?). I think that’s why Tony really worked for me, because it’s more of a hangout movie with great summer beach town vibes than it is a traditional biopic. The cinematography by Michael Bauman (who was just Oscar-nominated for his work on One Battle After Another) beautifully captures coastal New England with rich sunsets, hazy fog, and soft light in a way that evokes a nostalgic, old-school American summer. And Matt Johnson displays some really skilled filmmaking in his shot selection and framing. There is some of The Bear energy in the kitchen. (It’s almost impossible not to think about the show when it comes to any kitchen-set entertainment these days.) The stress, the banter, the physical fights, the injuries. But, similarly to The Bear, that dysfunction serves to highlight the underlying darkness in these spaces and in many of the people who work there. It’s all fun and games until someone pulls out a needle. These scenes show an honest side of the food industry but also maybe foreshadow Bourdain’s struggles later in life. Mostly, though, the movie keeps it fairly light. Maybe the standout scene of the film is one where Antonio Banderas’s head chef takes Tony into the restaurant on their day off to refill salt shakers with salt boiled down from sea water and refill Heinz bottles with homemade ketchup. They do this mostly in silence. It’s not a brief glimpse or part of a montage, it’s a moment that’s given room to breathe and time to make an impact. It’s the perfect example of showing and not telling. Tony is young and egotistical and wants praise and credit for everything he does. Chef is so talented but humble, making ketchup from scratch because it’s better but not boasting about it or taking any credit at all. He’s doing it for the love of the craft. Tony observes that and so do we. This one scene says so much about their characters in a way that allows the audience to come to that conclusion on their own, without the movie overexplaining it. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again and again: trust your audience to be smart enough to understand what you’re trying to say without hitting them over the head with it.

You also need a terrific cast to communicate subtext and all of these performers deliver. Dominic Sessa first broke out in 2023’s The Holdovers (another 1970s set story, he just has the look for it!) and brings a similar “boy dealing with the growing pains of burgeoning adulthood” to Tony. He nails the socially awkward yet somehow still magnetic and intriguing balance of the character. He’s unlikable but we still root for him. Leo Woodall plays Sal, a fellow worker in the kitchen who acts as an embodiment of the dark side of this profession. He’s a cautionary tale for Tony. Leo is incredible, playing a totally different role from his work in Tuner earlier this year (which I’ll say again I loved and everyone should watch), showcasing his range. And his bad boy performance still worked for me. I’ve been high on Emilia Jones since her unbelievable performance in Task (for which she was completely snubbed by the Emmys) and she’s so captivating whenever she’s on screen in Tony, but truthfully isn’t given so much of a fleshed out character to work with. Antonio Banderas as Chef is the soul of the movie. He brings so much warmth and humanity and gravitas. You just want to spend time with him and be near his wise, grounding presence. It’s a small but strong ensemble that makes this world feel alive and lived-in.

Tony is based on only a few early chapters from “Kitchen Confidential”, but also takes a lot of liberties with the story. Still, it definitely made me more curious about the real person behind it all. The chef, the writer, the Emmy-winning host, the man. Afterwards, I went back to read his 1999 article for The New Yorker, “Don’t Eat Before Reading This”, that launched him to fame and also brought restaurant culture into the mainstream. Even from that short piece you can tell this is a person with a strong voice and perspective. Does the movie Tony teach you anything about the man Anthony Bourdain would become? Maybe a little. But that’s not really the point. It’s strange to say about a biopic, but this movie could be about anyone and be entertaining. The focus isn’t on hitting all the bullet points of a person’s life (a format that often hinders a movie in this genre), but instead it’s about capturing an essence of a person and a place and a time. And, in that, it’s extremely successful. I really liked the vibes and I liked living in them while watching this movie. I would definitely recommend it!

2026 Count: 59 movies, 40 seasons of television, 1 special