--- title: "The Room" year: 2003 kind: "film" canonical: "https://film.one/film/the-room" fi1m_score: 46 critics_score: 63 critics_reviews: 7 published: "2026-09-16T14:52:28.345643+00:00" updated: "2026-09-16T14:52:52.894026+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 Room (2003) Directed by Tommy Wiseau · 1h 40m · MPA R · Drama, Romance **Fi1m score: 46** · Critics 63 from 7 reviews *In a sentence:* The Golden Gate Bridge gets plenty of screen time and wisely declines to speak > *The Room* is a failed romantic drama whose misplaced confidence produces occasional, involuntary comedy. Tommy Wiseau’s sincerity keeps it interesting in patches, but the repetition makes a full evening difficult to recommend. ## Synopsis Johnny (Tommy Wiseau) is presented as an ordinary man in a romantic drama concerned with whether anyone can be trusted. Lisa (Juliette Danielle) and Mark (Greg Sestero) share the story with Denny (Philip Haldiman), Claudette (Carolyn Minnott) and Michelle (Robyn Paris). Sex scenes, pillow fights and repeated shots of the Golden Gate Bridge are among the film’s recurring elements. Tommy Wiseau also writes and directs the film. *The Room* runs for 100 minutes and carries an 18 certificate. ## Review *The Room* asks to be taken seriously as a story about romance and trust, and we think it deserves to be judged on that basis before the laughing begins. On those terms, it is poor. Tommy Wiseau writes, directs, produces and plays Johnny, giving the film a personal commitment that remains visible through its failures. There is something touching about that effort, though it does little to make the dialogue persuasive or the relationships involving. Johnny is presented as an ordinary man, but Tommy Wiseau’s performance makes that proposition difficult to accept. The effort to communicate strong feeling is so exposed that we keep noticing the actor struggling to convince us. Juliette Danielle, as Lisa, and Greg Sestero, as Mark, have little chance of establishing a convincing dramatic rhythm around him. With dialogue this awkward, even an exchange meant to sound casual feels like something everyone has been required to demonstrate. We laughed at the pillow fights, then felt slightly mean about it. Their forced cheerfulness is funny, but there is an earnest wish to make these people seem happy together, and that is harder to dismiss. The sex scenes are less endearing: their protracted insistence on intimacy makes the film feel stalled. There is a limit to how long accidental comedy can excuse a scene that has not found a reason to continue. Todd Barron’s cinematography repeatedly returns to the Golden Gate Bridge, until those views start to feel like interruptions. They give us a landmark without making the surrounding conversations any more believable. Mercedes Younger supplies the production design, but the writing and performances leave those settings struggling to suggest an ordinary life. When every exchange sounds rehearsed, it is difficult to accept that anybody belongs in the space around them. Eric Chase’s editing does little to organise the script’s scattered concerns into a story with some forward movement. Scenes occupy time without making the next conversation feel necessary, and the repeated material becomes more noticeable as the film goes on. Mladen Milicevic’s score tries to supply the emotional conviction missing from the exchanges, but it cannot make us care on the characters’ behalf. At 100 minutes, the film gives its uneven rhythms plenty of time to become wearing, especially once the initial surprise has passed. Most critics disagree with us, finding enough pleasure in the film’s peculiar sincerity and participatory screenings to recommend it. We think that judgement gives too much credit to the audience: people entertaining one another can rescue an evening without improving the film they have come to see. The appeal is understandable, and nobody needs permission to enjoy a failed melodrama. But a romantic drama needs to make us care about the people and their choices, and this one rarely manages it. There is a virtue here that more competent films sometimes lack: it never feels anonymous. The awkwardness belongs to somebody who plainly wanted these feelings to matter, and the laughter does not erase that. We would not recommend it as a romantic drama, and its accidental comedy is too intermittent to sustain the evening unaided. Choose your company carefully; they will be supplying some of the entertainment. *Fi1m score 46, published 16 September 2026.* ### Reviews we read (7) - **Evening Standard**, Tim Cooper (80/100, inferred): The piece portrays The Room as a staggeringly bad film that has become a cult phenomenon enjoyed through audience participation at screenings. The critic singles out the interactive experience and Tommy Wiseau's enigmatic presence for enjoyment. [Read](https://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/london-life/the-room-probably-the-best-worst-film-ever-made-and-i-can-t-wait-to-see-it-again-a3463706.html) - **The AV Club**, Scott Tobias (80/100, inferred): The critic celebrates The Room as a worthy successor to Rocky Horror in the midnight movie tradition, highlighting its uniquely amateurish and revealing ineptitude that has spawned audience rituals like throwing spoons. He singles out Wiseau's nakedly personal pain and odd personal fetishes, such as repeated Golden Gate Bridge shots and pillow fights, as what makes the film stranger and more compelling than a typical bad movie. [Read](https://www.avclub.com/the-room-1798216096) - **The New Yorker**, Richard Brody (80/100, inferred): The critic argues that The Room is a more compelling and deeper work than The Disaster Artist, praising its raw, unfiltered expression of the director's personality and worldview despite (or because of) its technical and narrative flaws. [Read](https://www.newyorker.com/culture/richard-brody/why-the-room-is-a-better-movie-than-james-francos-the-disaster-artist) - **The Independent**, Tim Walker (60/100, inferred): The critic describes The Room as incoherently scripted, appallingly acted and unintelligibly edited, yet notes that it makes audiences happy in its awfulness. He singles out its cult following and audience participation at screenings for praise. [Read](https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/columnists/tim-walker/the-couch-surfer-it-may-be-sublimely-rubbish-but-the-room-makes-audiences-happy-1752708.html) - **Variety**, Scott Foundas (10/100, inferred): The film is extremely unpleasant and prompts most viewers to ask for their money back well before the halfway point. It singles out the ludicrous attempt to portray the freakish Wiseau character as a normal everyday guy, along with the soft-core sex scenes. [Read](https://variety.com/2003/film/reviews/the-room-1117921325/) - **Collider**, Ross Bonaime (75/100, inferred): The critic views The Room as both one of the worst films ever made and a masterpiece, crediting its singular, idiosyncratic vision by Wiseau that defies conventional criticism. He singles out the way audience participation and reinterpretation have transformed it into a unique communal experience that transcends the director's original dramatic intent. [Read](https://collider.com/the-room/the-room-is-good/) - **Paste**, Rory Doherty (60/100, inferred): The critic examines The Room's enduring cult status as the quintessential so-bad-it's-good film but argues it is time to move on from that mode of appreciation, noting its scattershot structure and unintentional comedy as the source of its appeal. He singles out the self-serious dramatic intent clashing with the results as what makes it uniquely fascinating yet ultimately limiting for cult cinema discourse. [Read](https://www.pastemagazine.com/comedy/the-room/the-room-and-so-bad-its-good-cinema) ## Details - **Director:** Tommy Wiseau - **Director:** Tommy Wiseau - **Writer:** Tommy Wiseau - **Cinematography:** Todd Barron - **Editor:** Eric Chase - **Music:** Mladen Milicevic - **Production design:** Mercedes Younger - **Costume design:** Safowa Bright-Asare - **Producer:** Tommy Wiseau - **Cast:** Tommy Wiseau as Johnny; Juliette Danielle as Lisa; Greg Sestero as Mark; Philip Haldiman as Denny; Carolyn Minnott as Claudette; Robyn Paris as Michelle; Kyle Vogt as Peter; Scott Holmes as Mike - **Runtime:** 1h 40m - **Certificate (MPA):** R - **Release (the US):** 27 June 2003 - **Genres:** Drama, Romance - **Budget:** $6 million - **Box office:** $2 million - **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WJsSTCzo14 ## Where to watch in the US - Tubi: free, hd, leaving 2026-10-10 *Checked 2026-09-16.* Also available in: US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## If you liked this - *Plan 9 from Outer Space* (1959), Fi1m 67: A similarly earnest oddity, with enough handmade conviction to survive the dialogue. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/plan-9-from-outer-space.md) - *Troll 2* (1990), Fi1m 40: Another straight-faced nightmare whose peculiar dialogue keeps sabotaging its attempts at terror. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/troll-2.md) - *Miami Connection* (1987): Martial arts, friendship and rock music, delivered with a comparable shortage of restraint. - *Beyond the Valley of the Dolls* (1970): For lurid melodrama that knows exactly how ridiculous its characters can become. - *The Happiness of the Katakuris* (2001): Family disasters become musical numbers in a far more deliberately peculiar entertainment. --- © 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-room