--- title: "The Laundromat" year: 2019 kind: "film" canonical: "https://film.one/film/the-laundromat" fi1m_id: "the-laundromat" imdb_id: "tt5865326" tmdb_id: 517909 wikidata_id: "Q57273426" fi1m_score: 48 critics_score: 45 critics_reviews: 21 published: "2026-09-09" updated: "2026-09-18T08:37:53.381834+00:00" region: "US" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # The Laundromat (2019) Directed by Steven Soderbergh · 1h 36m · MPA R · Crime, Drama, Comedy ## Identity The Laundromat - **Canonical:** https://film.one/film/the-laundromat - **Type:** Film - **Fi1m ID:** the-laundromat - **IMDb ID:** tt5865326 - **TMDB ID:** 517909 - **Wikidata ID:** Q57273426 - **Same entity:** https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5865326/, https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/517909, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q57273426 **Fi1m score: 48** · Critics 45 from 21 reviews *In a sentence:* The crooks host the show, and the widow they robbed has to wait her turn to speak > Soderbergh and Burns turn the Panama Papers into a 96-minute revue hosted by the villains, talking straight to camera. Streep’s widow gives it a heart it keeps wandering away from, then asks us to be angry on her behalf anyway. ## Synopsis Ellen Martin (Meryl Streep) is newly widowed, and when she goes looking for the money she is owed she finds nobody who will say who owes it. The trail leads, by way of men played by David Schwimmer and Jeffrey Wright, to a law firm in Panama. That firm’s partners, Jürgen Mossack (Gary Oldman) and Ramón Fonseca (Antonio Banderas), narrate the film straight to camera, breaking the business of shell companies into chapters with a small story attached to each. Steven Soderbergh directs, shoots and edits from Scott Z. Burns’s script, which draws on the Panama Papers leak. Melissa Rauch, Robert Patrick and Will Forte appear along the way. ## Review Steven Soderbergh’s account of the Panama Papers runs 96 minutes and is hosted by the two men whose firm the papers came from. Jürgen Mossack (Gary Oldman) and Ramón Fonseca (Antonio Banderas) talk straight to camera and explain money from the beginning. Scott Z. Burns’s script then breaks the scandal into chapters, each with a small story attached. It is a decent way to explain something that resists explaining. It is a poor way to build a film around a person, and this one has a person it keeps putting down. She is Ellen Martin (Meryl Streep), a widow trying to find out who owes her what and why nobody will say. David Schwimmer and Jeffrey Wright turn up along the way, each a link in a chain that leads back to Panama. Streep plays Ellen as a woman who has been polite all her life and is now discovering, phone in hand, what politeness buys. We felt the anger build in her and in us over those calls: the hold music, the second number, the man who cannot say who he works for. It is the best stretch of the film, and Soderbergh leaves it far too soon. Oldman and Banderas are the reason he leaves. Oldman does a German accent that a school revue would send back; Banderas is silkier and more amused, and the better of the two. Ellen Mirojnick dresses them like men who have never been told no, and Soderbergh, shooting it himself, puts them in flat, bright, saturated frames, a beach like a brochure, a bar like a set. The look suits them: men who sell cardboard companies living in a cardboard world. But they are on screen a great deal, they are having a good time, and by the third occasion they assure us it is all perfectly legal the film has started having a good time with them. The other chapters are where it comes apart. They go off to other countries and other crooks, none of them has a Streep in it, and they play like sketches cut from a longer, better-organised film. Soderbergh edits as well, and he cuts between the strands cleanly enough, but there is nothing for the cuts to connect. Howard Cummings builds the Panama offices as glass and beige, rooms in which nothing is meant to happen, and David Holmes scores the whole thing as a caper, organ and brushed drums, so that even the widow’s chapter bounces along when it might have been allowed to hurt. We were bored by the chapters without her, which is odd, because on paper they are the most dramatic things here. *The Big Short* did this four years earlier, with the same direct address and the same famous faces explaining paperwork, and *The Laundromat* knows it and does not mind. The better comparison is closer to home. Burns wrote [*Contagion*](https://film.one/film/contagion) for Soderbergh in 2011, and that film followed half a dozen strands across the world and never lost hold of one of them. Here they have a widow with a stronger claim on our attention than any of those strands and keep handing the camera to the men who cheated her. We had stopped caring somewhere in the second half, and the fault was the film’s: it spends forty minutes telling us how clever the fraud was and about eight telling us who paid for it, then asks us to be angry on the widow’s behalf as if it had not been the one changing the subject. Most critics landed about where we have, some finding it fun while it lasts, more finding it a lecture with sketches, and we do not think either camp is wrong. It is 96 minutes and rated 15. Watch it at home on a week night. Streep’s phone calls are worth that much, and the rest will go past without asking much of you. *Fi1m score 48, published 9 September 2026.* ## What the critics say Most critics find Soderbergh’s Panama Papers comedy a muddle. The reviews lean negative: roughly half call it messy, scattershot or glib, and only a handful recommend it. Where praise gathers, it gathers around Meryl Streep, whose wronged widow is repeatedly named as the film’s anchor, and several reviews single out her closing direct address to camera as the one moment that lands. The ambition of explaining offshore finance through skits is credited even by those who think it fails. The reservations cluster around structure and tone. The episodic vignettes, celebrity cameos and fourth-wall breaks are said to leave the film without narrative glue, and The New Yorker argues that the villains, played by Gary Oldman and Antonio Banderas, enjoy themselves so much that the satire revels in what it condemns. The Evening Standard calls it an indignant lecture. The spread is wide: The Playlist and /Film find it breezy and better than expected, and Vulture thinks the explaining is worth the labour. ## Straight answers **Is The Laundromat worth watching?** *The Laundromat* is worth watching only for Meryl Streep's stretch as a widow chasing her money through hold music and unhelpful men, and we scored it 48. Steven Soderbergh keeps leaving her to let Gary Oldman and Antonio Banderas explain the fraud to camera, and the film has a better time with the crooks than with their victim. Watch it at home on a week night and expect little of the second half. **How long is The Laundromat, and what is it rated?** *The Laundromat* runs 1h 36m and is rated R by the MPA in the US. It is a crime and drama film. **Where can I watch The Laundromat in the US?** *The Laundromat* is streaming on Netflix in the US. Availability is checked daily; the links above go straight to each service. **How violent or frightening is The Laundromat, and is it suitable for children?** *The Laundromat* is rated 15 in the UK and R in the US, and it is a comedy about money laundering rather than a violent or frightening film. The certificate points to adult language and adult subject matter, not to anything that will scare; the squeamish have nothing to fear here. It is not for children, chiefly because 96 minutes of shell companies explained by their sellers will lose them long before anything alarming happens. **How does The Laundromat compare to The Big Short?** *The Laundromat* borrows the direct-to-camera explaining of [*The Big Short*](https://film.one/film/the-big-short) and comes off worse in every way that matters. Adam McKay's film keeps its greed angry and its people in focus; Soderbergh's hands the camera to the villains, who are enjoying themselves, and puts down the widow with the strongest claim on our attention. Choose the earlier film unless Streep is the whole point of your evening. **What should I watch after The Laundromat?** After *The Laundromat*, try [*The Big Short*](https://film.one/film/the-big-short) (2015, Fi1m 80): The same direct-address explainer, four years earlier and with a firmer grip on its people. Then [*Contagion*](https://film.one/film/contagion) (2011, Fi1m 78): Soderbergh and Burns follow a dozen strands round the world and drop none of them; and [*Inside Job*](https://film.one/film/inside-job) (2010, Fi1m 82): The crash explained without sketches; the anger arrives on its own and stays. ### Reviews we read (26) - **Los Angeles Times**, Justin Chang (70/100, inferred): Soderbergh delivers a playful, uneven globetrotting comedy that surveys financial chicanery with wit and self-aware trickery, but it lacks a fully satisfying resolution or depth. [Read](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/movies/story/2019-09-25/the-laundromat-review-netflix-meryl-streep) - **Film Comment**, Nicolas Rapold (65/100, inferred): The critic sees the film as a star-powered experimental wake-up call on offshore accounts that chutes-and-ladders its way to distraction but keeps its eyes on the prize. [Read](https://www.filmcomment.com/article/short-take-the-laundromat/) - **Little White Lies**, David Jenkins (5/3/4): Soderbergh delivers a patchwork of comic vignettes on the Panama Papers that is fun while it lasts but feels haphazard and doesn't fully land, though the final direct plea for change is striking. [Read](https://lwlies.com/reviews/the-laundromat) - **The New York Times**, A.O. Scott (50/100, inferred): The film tries to enliven its urgent subject of global financial corruption with breezy irreverence and skits, but ends up feeling like a textbook lark rather than a deep exploration. [Read](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/25/movies/the-laundromat-review.html) - **Sight and Sound**, Trevor Johnston (45/100, inferred): Soderbergh and Burns opt for a light-hearted comedy approach to the Panama Papers scandal rather than a straight exposé, but the result is wispy and uneven with flailing humour that undercuts its muckraking aims. [Read](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/reviews/laundromat-review-light-jest-swamps-dark-money) - **Empire**, Alex Godfrey (40/100, inferred): The film is a muddle trying to make sense of the Panama Papers scandal through episodic stories and fourth-wall breaks, feeling self-satisfied and frustrating despite some charm and a righteous message. Streep's widow anchors it but is sidelined among cameos. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/the-laundromat/) - **The i Paper**, Demetrios Matheou (★★): Soderbergh attempts a Big Short-style exposé of the Panama Papers but delivers a flippant, incoherent film that loses its grip early. Streep's widow performance nearly saves it amid cartoonish turns from Oldman and Banderas and bland vignettes. [Read](https://inews.co.uk/culture/film/the-laundromat-netflix-review-meryl-streep-343541) - **The Guardian**, Peter Bradshaw (30/100, inferred): The critic finds the film messy, unsatisfying and dramatically redundant as a satire on the Panama Papers scandal. It faults the patchwork structure, lack of focus and phoned-in star performances despite its righteous subject. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/oct/18/laundromat-review) - **The New Yorker**, Anthony Lane (30/100, inferred): Soderbergh lets the villains (Banderas and Oldman) dominate the narrative and enjoy themselves too much, causing the satire to revel in the very outrages it condemns while sidelining the meek victims like Streep's character. [Read](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/09/30/villains-hog-the-spotlight-in-the-laundromat) - **Time Out**, Phil de Semlyen (30/100, inferred): Soderbergh delivers a rare misfire with this bumpy satire that uses too many celebrity cameos and lacks narrative glue, resulting in tonal whiplash and a glib treatment of the Panama Papers scandal. [Read](https://www.timeout.com/movies/the-laundromat) - **The Times** (25/100, inferred): The critic calls the film scattershot, sophomoric and digressive, faulting its lack of coherence and amateurish execution despite ambitions as an informative satire. It criticizes the multiple disjointed tales and uneven tone. [Read](https://www.thetimes.com/culture/film/article/the-laundromat-review-scattershot-sophomoric-and-digressive-qgx6cq3xg) - **Evening Standard**, David Sexton (1/5): Soderbergh's comic-didactic take on the Panama Papers features Oldman and Banderas as leering hosts and Streep as a widow seeking justice, but the episodic film amounts to an indignant lecture that ends with a direct harangue. [Read](https://www.standard.co.uk/culture/film/venice-film-festival-2019-the-laundromat-review-an-indignant-lecture-on-the-panama-papers-a4226806.html) - **Screen Daily** (20/100, inferred): Soderbergh's self-indulgent take on the Panama Papers is poorly conceived and executed, relying on showboating stars and confusing vignettes that drown its good intentions in razzle-dazzle. [Read](https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/the-laundromat-venice-review/5142215.article) - **Financial Times**, Raphael Abraham: The critic sees the film as a short, sharp and diverting take on tax avoidance and money laundering in the style of The Big Short. It praises the loose, comic approach but finds it scattershot and slight by comparison, better suited to home viewing than a festival. [Read](https://www.ft.com/content/5e61c276-cf06-11e9-99a4-b5ded7a7fe3f) - **The Hollywood Reporter**, Todd McCarthy: The critic finds the film an eccentric, slap-happy but tonally unsteady account of the Panama Papers scandal, with an arch comic tone that clicks only part-time. Streep's performance as the determined truth-seeker is praised, but the satirical aim does not fully measure up to the ambitions. [Read](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/laundromat-review-1235261/) - **Vulture**, David Edelstein: The critic calls it a broad agitprop comedy that is labored in parts but sensationally valuable overall, a convoluted but breezy and fun take on the Panama Papers that explains and delights while highlighting how the meek are screwed by the rich. [Read](https://www.vulture.com/2019/09/steven-soderberghs-the-laundromat-movie-review.html) - **The Playlist**, Jessica Kiang (B): The critic calls it a sly, cheerful shaggy dog tale that is breezy and unsubtle yet better than expected, with infectious energy from its cast and impeccable filmmaking. It singles out the witty use of the villains as guides and the infectious fun despite the cynical subject matter. [Read](https://theplaylist.net/steven-soderbergh-the-laundromat-review-20190901/) - **/Film**, Marshall Shaffer (7.5/10): The critic finds it an uneven but undeniably ambitious explainer on the Panama Papers, with strong emotional throughlines and a powerful final monologue from Streep. It singles out the fourth-wall-breaking structure and the way it ties personal stories to systemic issues. [Read](https://www.slashfilm.com/569099/the-laundromat-review/) - **Collider**, Adam Chitwood (B-): The film is a largely compelling, often funny, and ultimately infuriating ensemble piece that uses star power, direct address, and a strong final shot to make its political point about the Panama Papers scandal. It functions well as dramatized infotainment suited to Netflix. [Read](https://collider.com/the-laundromat-review-netflix/) - **Polygon**, Karen Han (60/100, inferred): The film showcases Soderbergh’s high-wire energy through colorful vignettes and a charming cast, with Streep as the standout in her main role, but its righteous anger folds into knots and includes a notable misstep with one of her performances. It is slick and self-satisfied but ultimately mixed in effectiveness. [Read](https://www.polygon.com/2019/9/27/20885766/the-laundromat-review-netflix-steven-soderbergh-meryl-streep/) - **Film Stories**, Mark Harrison (55/100, inferred): The critic views the film as the least personal of Soderbergh's post-retirement works, with a format that prioritizes system critique over character stories. It is praised for strong performances, particularly Streep's central role, but faulted for disconnecting from its more engaging personal angles. [Read](https://filmstories.co.uk/reviews/the-laundromat-review-the-netflix-movie-that-survived-a-legal-threat/) - **The Ringer**, Rob Harvilla (50/100, inferred): The film is a maddeningly good-not-great Issues Movie that loses focus on its star Meryl Streep amid too many explanations and vignettes, though it delivers some caustic wit and a memorable closing moment from her. It frustrates by sidelining its ostensible main character. [Read](https://www.theringer.com/2019/10/18/movies/meryl-streep-laundromat-steven-soderbergh-netflix-film) - **Digital Spy**, Gabriella Geisinger (40/100, inferred): The critic finds the film a lecture that falls short, trying too hard to inspire and enrage while sidelining its main character despite a strong cast. [Read](https://www.digitalspy.com/movies/a28868082/the-laundromat-netflix-review-movie-panama-papers/) - **Consequence** (20/100, inferred): The film is sloppy and self-indulgent, with its mix of farce, information, and grandstanding feeling muddy and hollow despite amusing moments and solid performances from the cast. Its execution fails to match its ambition or intent. [Read](https://consequence.net/2019/09/film-review-the-laundromat/) - **Deadline**, Pete Hammond: The critic says the story is worth telling but the film is uneven and tonally off. Streep's performance as the wronged widow stands out as the best element. [Read](https://deadline.com/video/the-laundromat-review-meryl-streep-steven-soderbergh-panama-papers-netflix/) - **The Wrap**: The critic calls it a well-intentioned hot mess that fails to achieve dramatic traction despite good intentions and a strong cast. The narrative's frequent zigzagging and odd casting choices are singled out for criticism. [Read](https://www.thewrap.com/the-laundromat-film-review-meryl-streep-steven-soderbergh-gary-oldman-antonio-banderas-netflix/) ## Details - **Director:** Steven Soderbergh - **Director:** Steven Soderbergh - **Writer:** Scott Z. Burns - **Cinematography:** Steven Soderbergh - **Editor:** Steven Soderbergh - **Music:** David Holmes - **Production design:** Howard Cummings - **Costume design:** Ellen Mirojnick - **Producer:** Lawrence Grey, Scott Z. Burns, Michael Sugar - **Cast:** Meryl Streep as Ellen Martin / Elena; Gary Oldman as Jürgen Mossack; Antonio Banderas as Ramón Fonseca; Jeffrey Wright as Malchus Irvin Boncamper; Melissa Rauch as Melanie; Jeff Michalski as Norm Sidley; Jane Morris as Barb Sidley; Robert Patrick as Captain Paris - **Runtime:** 1h 36m - **Certificate (MPA):** R - **Release (the US):** 27 September 2019 - **Genres:** Crime, Drama, Comedy - **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wuBRcfe4bSo ## Where to watch in the US - Netflix: streaming *Checked 2026-09-10.* Also available in: AE, AR, AT, AU, AZ, BE, BG, BR, CA, CH, CL, CO, CZ, DE, DK, EC, EE, ES, FI, FR, GB, GR, HK, HR, HU, ID, IE, IL, IN, IS, IT, JP, KR, LT, MX, MY, NL, NO, NZ, PA, PE, PH, PL, PT, RO, RS, SE, SG, SI, SK, TH, TR, UA, US, VN, ZA. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## If you liked this - *The Big Short* (2015), Fi1m 80: The same direct-address explainer, four years earlier and with a firmer grip on its people. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/the-big-short.md) - *Contagion* (2011), Fi1m 78: Soderbergh and Burns follow a dozen strands round the world and drop none of them. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/contagion.md) - *Inside Job* (2010), Fi1m 82: The crash explained without sketches; the anger arrives on its own and stays. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/inside-job.md) - *Margin Call* (2011), Fi1m 82: One night in a bank, quiet and exact, where nobody needs to break the fourth wall. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/margin-call.md) - *Le Capital* (2012): Costa-Gavras on a French banker with no scruples; drier, colder and more patient than this. --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/film/the-laundromat