Anthony Bourdain Biopic Lands Perfect Rotten Tomatoes Debut

Anthony Bourdain remains one of the most respected chefs and food writers in the world. Known for his sharp, sardonic wit and open-minded approach to food, Bourdain became a superstar thanks to his book Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly and his hit series Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations and Parts Unknown. Eight years after his death, his legacy lives on, as the early years are now the subject of the upcoming film Tony.

Tony debuted on Rotten Tomatoes with a perfect 100% rating based on 21 reviews. William Bibbiani wrote in his review for The Wrap that the film “does earn our affection, mostly because it never pretends Bourdain has. We are invited to view the genius as a work in progress.” Siddhant Adlakha at IGN gave the movie a 9/10 and said, “Matt Johnson’s second film this year is an act of controlled chaos, tapping into the nostalgia of naïve youth while examining how creativity is born.” In her A rating for Fresh or Fiction, Courtney Howard called Tony, “fresh, intoxicating, profound and deeply resonant.”

Tony is directed by Matt Johnson, his second film of 2026, following the critically acclaimed Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie. It stars The Holdovers‘ Dominic Sessa as Anthony Bourdain and explores the future chef at 19 taking a job at a restaurant in Cape Cod during the summer of 1975. The film also stars Emilia Jones, Antonio Banderas, Dagmara Domińczyk, Rich Sommer, Monica Raymund, Leo Woodall, and Stavros Halkias.

While most of the reviews for Tony have been positive, there has been some criticism. David Ehrlich for IndieWire gave the film a B, noting that “Tony struggles for an ending, but it doesn’t really need one; the real fun here lies in paving the way to parts unknown.” Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian gave the film a 3/5, calling it “a strange film in some ways” that is “watchable and entertaining, but its feelgood trajectory is compromised by what we know of the author.”

Between Tony’s 100% Rotten Tomatoes score and Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie sitting at 96% on the website, Johnson appears to have directed two of the best-reviewed movies of the year. Tony is being distributed by A24 and is set to open in limited release on Aug. 7, 2026. It will expand nationwide starting on Aug. 21.