Matthew Percefull
The world seems divided when it comes to biopics. On one end of the spectrum, it’s nice to see iconic or historical moments represented on the big screen. It can be a great way to either relive nostalgia or experience a bygone era. On the other hand, these films are becoming stale and repetitive. Many modern biopics are too busy following a timeline of events and forget to make a film— a real film with characters, scenes, and conflict. A24’s Tony, a film about Anthony Bourdain, attempts to strike this balance by focusing on a time in his life before he was an icon.
The idea of an Anthony Bourdain biopic feels wrong. My first instinct when hearing of its existence was to roll my eyes and write it off as a cynical exercise that Bourdain himself would likely despise. I trust Matt Johnson with biographical material after he knocked it out of the park with 2024’s Blackberry, but even his involvement in Tony wasn’t enough to fully ease my skepticism. This first trailer, however, has completely changed my mind.
Tony tells you exactly the sort of film it wants to be in the first moments of the trailer. “This is a coming-of-age story,” says a young Anthony Bourdain (portrayed by The Holdover’s Dominic Sessa). The trailer that follows this claim certainly backs it up; this film feels closer to a classic teen drama full of romance, summer hijinks, and self-discovery than it does a traditional biopic (at least in the way we expect one in 2026). We focus on a nineteen-year-old Bourdain during the summer of 1975. As an aspiring writer who strikes out of his fellowship, he must take a summer job as a dishwasher, where he discovers his love for the culinary arts. This ‘origin story’ approach feels like a no-brainer, but most biopics or ‘based on a true story’ films would rather just recreate moments that are free to watch on YouTube than do something interesting with the material.
I find that biopics focusing on a specific event or moment in time are usually more interesting than the traditional formula. I was surprised by 2024’s A Complete Unknown for this reason. In that film, we still grapple with Bob Dylan’s place in pop culture, but it does so within a contained story that has a concrete plot structure. Tony is taking that same approach.
These films don’t have to be Wikipedia adaptations that tell a linear cradle-to-grave story. They can just be regular films that happen to tell stories about cultural icons. Based on what we’ve seen of Tony so far, Matt Johnson and his team completely understand this. Sessa’s performance will be freed up because he isn’t playing an iconic chef with decades of documented history; he’s playing a kid with a dream, facing a few roadblocks on his path. That’s a spot most of us can relate to, and based on this trailer, Sessa is sinking his teeth into this role. He may not perfectly resemble the Anthony Bourdain we grew up watching and reading, but I honestly think that works in Tony‘s favor.
Sessa doesn’t have to carry the film by himself; this cast is stacked with talent. Antonio Banderas appears as Bourdain’s mentor and head chef. He’s a natural for a fatherly role like this and looks right at home in Tony. We also see White Lotus‘s Leo Woodall alongside comedian and podcaster Stavros Halkias as Bourdain’s jaded but playful coworkers. CODA‘s Emelia Jones rounds out the cast as Bourdain’s love interest. This is a fun cast of young and exciting faces with the veteran presence of Banderas to anchor them, much like the kitchen crew they will be portraying.
I can’t remember the last time I was legitimately excited for a biopic. I’ve simply been burned too many times in the past to let myself get my hopes up. This trailer and the talent involved are enough for me to go in with high expectations. Matt Johnson’s Tony is shaping up to be a layered coming-of-age film about dream chasing and the nonlinear path to success that I hope informs how filmmakers approach biopics in the future.
