Anthony Bourdain takes center stage in “Tony,” a biopic of the late chef and author.
In the film, Dominic Sessa, known for his work in the Academy Award-winning 2023 comedy-drama “The Holdovers,” as well as 2025’s “Now You See Me: Now You Don’t,” fills the role of a young, blunt Bourdain. The film, directed by Matt Johnson, also stars Antonio Banderas, Emilia Jones and Leo Woodall.
Bourdain died by suicide in 2018, yet the author — who wrote bestselling 2000 book “Kitchen Confidential,” which rocketed him to stardom — continues to inspire fans to this day.
“Tony” takes moviegoers back to a 19-year-old Bourdain in the summer of 1975, when he worked at a seafood restaurant in Cape Cod, Massachusetts.
The film, which has a 100% score on Rotten Tomatoes as of July 29, opens Aug. 7 and is poised to take a bite out of the box office.
Thinking of checking it out? Here’s what the critics are saying.
The Hollywood Reporter
“A slender slice of a famous life, the movie feels a little wispy in its mix of scrappy and sweet, rough-edged and yet bathed in the balming glow of nostalgia,” David Rooney writes.
“But it has an idiosyncratic charm that fits the title character, without ever sanding down the abrasive side of a chronic liar or masking his insecurities.”
Rooney also praised Sessa’s performance.
“Making good on his promise in ‘The Holdovers,’ Dominic Sessa is excellent in the role, nailing the contradictory aspects of a slippery character while mapping his coming-of-age arc with empathy and honesty,” he writes.
“There’s no dark foreshadowing of the tragedy we know will come 43 years later — only chutzpah, raw potential and intermittent flickers of vulnerability.”
The Daily Beast
Nick Schager’s review echoed the sentiment that Sessa holds his own in the film, noting it “becomes more convincing and authentic with each passing scene, it has a rough-around-the-edges charm that’s in keeping with its go-for-broke protagonist.”
Schager also cites the film’s “spontaneity and genuineness” and lauds Banderas’ work.
“‘Tony’ swings and sways like a lobster boat in choppy waters off the New England coast, and though that setting would seem to be an unlikely place to find Antonio Banderas, the star makes for a delightful boss and, eventually, mentor,” he writes.
Schager says “Tony” serves as a “prologue” for the success Bourdain would later find, calling it a “tad slight” when considering the rich life Bourdain eventually led. However, the film is successful when assessed in its own “limited terms.”
“It may be little more than a tease that leads viewers to Bourdain’s copious written and screen works, but as far as amuse-bouches go, ‘Tony’ is a memorably tasty one,” he writes.
Variety
Owen Gleiberman opens his review, pondering “what Bourdain himself would have made of the movie.”
“To me, if an Anthony Bourdain biopic can’t clear the bar called ‘Bourdain would have liked it,’ it’s probably not a good movie,” he continues. “‘Tony’ clears that bar.”
He also applauds Johnson’s directorial effort.
“‘Tony’ has been framed as the origin story of how Anthony Bourdain became Anthony Bourdain,” he writes. “But one of the many things that Matt Johnson … understands is that Anthony — or, as he called himself then, Tony — already was Anthony Bourdain.”
Gleiberman said the film marks a watershed moment for Sessa.
“To me, one of the most pleasurable things in movies is that moment when you see an actor become a movie star,” he writes “That’s what happens to Dominic Sessa in ‘Tony.’ I don’t care if the film is a summer indie smash or not (though it deserves to be) — it shows you that Sessa has the goods.”
The Wrap
William Bibbiani’s review begins by comparing “Tony” to “The Social Network,” explaining how the biopic understands “how to really make us care about” a person who is not necessarily appealing.
“‘Tony’ never makes young Bourdain entirely likable,” he writes later.
“This isn’t a superhero origin story where he changes and becomes a do-gooder at the end,” he continues. “This is an origin story about Bourdain’s inciting incident, the exact moment in his life where he realized he needed to change. In Matt Johnson’s hands, that’s epic enough for a whole film.”
Still, the movie left him feeling somewhat hollow.
“By the time the credits roll, ‘Tony’ has long since receded in a formula,” he writes. “The big finale feels contrived and a little unconvincing. I guess the filmmakers thought subverting the tone of a biopic was enough, so Johnson throws Bourdain’s fan base a bone. It just doesn’t have any meat on it.”
The film, Bibbiani goes on to write, does however earn the viewer’s affection — “mostly because it never pretends Bourdain has.”
“We are invited to view the genius as a work in progress. Bourdain’s rough draft stinks; the film about this rough draft is polished and interesting, but another round of notes wouldn’t have killed it,” he writes. “We’re watching a guy who will one day reach his full potential, in a movie that doesn’t entirely reach its own.”
Associated Press
Mark Kennedy’s opening paragraph takes a big swing at a missed opportunity.
“Like all first courses, it leaves you with a nice first taste — but still hungry,” he writes.
Kennedy writes that the film’s director and co-writer Matt Johnson took “liberties with a formative period in Bourdain’s life.”
However, he “still only manages to tell the story of how a callow lad became somewhat of a less callow lad after toiling in a restaurant kitchen on Cape Cod in 1975,” Kennedy writes.
Kennedy laments how this picture could’ve been even better.
“In ‘Tony,’ the world-weary, forever romantic, noodle-slurping Bourdain that we would fall in love with decades later via travel shows like “Parts Unknown” stays firmly out of grasp,” he writes.
Kennedy also asks whether it was necessary to place Bourdain at the center of this film.
“Who doesn’t like a good coming of age?” Kennedy writes. “Why did it have to be Bourdain if Bourdain never gets to be Bourdain?”
ScreenRant
Matt Harrison credits the film, which he calls “laugh-out-loud funny” for making an entertaining flick with Bourdain as the central character.
“It works on its own terms, with or without the halo of its subject’s career. It’s actually about something. And it’s a delight to watch,” he writes.
“It’s sincerely interested in who this lost 19-year-old thinks he is, who he actually is, and who he’s going to choose to become,” he adds.
Harrison, who calls the film “thoroughly enjoyable,” also singled out how the scenes in the kitchen feel “truly alive.” And Sessa “can embody all the epigraph’s unlikable traits and remain remarkably easy to root for.”
IndieWire
“‘Tony’ retains the sincere flavor of street meat despite being factory-processed within an inch of its life,” David Ehrlich writes.
He also salutes Sessa’s “wholly self-possessed lead performance” and how Johnson framed one of the early and key parts of Bourdain’s journey.
“Johnson recognizes how this, at heart, is a coming-of-age story about a rising star who’s learning to be unburdened by a future that’s better than he could ever imagine — a kid who’s learning that no one can become the person they pretend to be without being the person they actually are along the way,” he writes.
“‘Tony’ struggles for an ending, but it doesn’t really need one; the real fun here lies in paving the way to parts unknown.”