---
name: "Tony McNamara"
canonical: "https://film.one/person/tony-mcnamara"
fi1m_id: "tony-mcnamara"
imdb_id: "nm1110111"
tmdb_id: 77723
wikidata_id: "Q59506363"
roles: ["Writer","Producer"]
born: "31 December 1966"
reviewed_on_fi1m: 5
average_fi1m_score: 73
average_as: "writer"
average_over: 5
updated: "2026-10-03T01:56:54.872699+00:00"
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."
---

# Tony McNamara

## Identity

Tony McNamara

- **Canonical:** https://film.one/person/tony-mcnamara
- **Type:** Person
- **Fi1m ID:** tony-mcnamara
- **IMDb ID:** nm1110111
- **TMDB ID:** 77723
- **Wikidata ID:** Q59506363
- **Same entity:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_McNamara_(writer), https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q59506363, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1110111/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/77723

Writer and producer. Born 31 December 1966 in Kilmore, Victoria, Australia.

## Details

- **Work:** Writer, Producer
- **Born:** 31 December 1966, Kilmore, Victoria, Australia
- **Active:** 2018–present
- **Also known as:** Tony MacNamara, Τόνι ΜακΝαμάρα
- **Frequently works with:** [Emma Stone](https://film.one/person/emma-stone.md), [Nicholas Hoult](https://film.one/person/nicholas-hoult.md), [Olivia Colman](https://film.one/person/olivia-colman.md), [Yorgos Lanthimos](https://film.one/person/yorgos-lanthimos.md)
- **Academy Awards:** 2 Oscar nominations
- **Average Fi1m score:** 73, as writer, over 5 titles
- **Fi1m score by decade:** 2010s 87 (1), 2020s 69 (4)
- **Fi1m against the critics:** 73 to 72 across 5 titles
- **Score spread:** 1 at 80+, 4 at 60–79, 0 under 60
- **Genres:** Comedy 5, Drama 3, Romance 2, Crime 1, History 1, Science Fiction 1
- **Screen time:** 8 hours of reviewed films
- **Box office:** $499m across 4 films with figures
- **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_McNamara_(writer), https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q59506363, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1110111/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/77723

## Streaming the US now

- **Disney+:** [*The Great*](https://film.one/tv/the-great.md) (74), [*Cruella*](https://film.one/film/cruella.md) (66), [*The Roses*](https://film.one/film/the-roses.md) (61)
- **Hulu:** [*Poor Things*](https://film.one/film/poor-things.md) (76)

For United States; add `?region=XX` for another country.

## Fi1m on Tony McNamara

> McNamara writes the rudest lines in period drama and gives them to women who want more than their century allows. Over two hours it is a real pleasure; over ten the trick wears thin, and the films are at their best when Lanthimos keeps them cold.

Early in the first episode of *The Great* (2020), Catherine, newly arrived in Russia with a head full of philosophers, presents her husband with a twig. Peter, who greeted her with a bear, looks at it in honest confusion. That is the McNamara method in one exchange: a woman who has read too much offers something sincere to a man who has not, and both talk as if it were last Tuesday. He puts the modern sentence in the old room and lets the gap between the wig and the words make the joke. We laughed, loudly, because the confusion is real and nobody is winking.

He came to this late. Twenty-five years of Australian theatre and television preceded it, along with two features he directed himself, *The Rage in Placid Lake* (2003) and *Ashby* (2015). The turn was *The Favourite* (2018), co-written with Deborah Davis for Yorgos Lanthimos, and everything since has been a variation on it: *The Great*, built from his own play and running to 2023; *Cruella* (2021) with Emma Stone; *Poor Things* (2023), again for Lanthimos and again with Stone. He has said he did not want to be "yoked to details of history that didn’t help tell her story, and were anti drama", and that is the licence he writes under.

What he does well is give malice a conversational ease, so a scene about power sounds like a scene about attention: who has Queen Anne’s, who is about to lose it. In *The Favourite* he and Davis keep the manoeuvring close to the business of being noticed, and the actors find embarrassment and need under the rude words. Lanthimos helps. His cold frames stop the lines from being merely quotable, and *The Favourite* is the one time the writer’s warmth and the director’s chill sit in balance.

The weakness is repetition, and it grows with the running time. In *The Favourite* a few exchanges are another round of a contest we already understand. *Poor Things* runs out of new things to say about Bella a good half hour before it stops, and it wants so badly to be liked that jokes land and then hold for a beat to check we got them. Given thirty hours for *The Great*, the one great trick is doing the plot’s work by the sixth episode of any season; the coup advances an inch and retreats an inch. The violence is filmed as a punchline and lands as one perhaps half the time. The other half, when somebody was shot for sport and the show asked us to laugh, we felt slightly grubby, and we do not think that was the intention.

*The Roses* (2025) is next. Watch it, two hours at a time, and hope the director in the room is one who does not laugh at the jokes.

## Biography

Tony McNamara is an Australian playwright, screenwriter and television producer. Born in Kilmore, Victoria, he studied writing at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology and screenwriting at the Australian Film, Television and Radio School.

After writing stage plays and television episodes, he made his feature directorial debut with *The Rage in Placid Lake* (2003). He is known for co-writing the screenplay for *The Favourite* (2018) with Yorgos Lanthimos and for writing the screenplay for *Poor Things* (2023), also directed by Lanthimos. He created the comedy-drama series *The Great* (2020–2023).

McNamara has also written the screenplay for *Cruella* (2021) and directed *Ashby* (2015). He received Academy Award nominations for Best Original Screenplay for *The Favourite* and Best Adapted Screenplay for *Poor Things*.

*Sources: en.wikipedia.org, variety.com.*

## On Fi1m (5)

- *The Roses* (2025), Fi1m 61, Screenplay — [page](https://film.one/film/the-roses.md)
- *Poor Things* (2023), Fi1m 76, Screenplay — [page](https://film.one/film/poor-things.md)
- *Cruella* (2021), Fi1m 66, Screenplay — [page](https://film.one/film/cruella.md)
- *The Great* (2020), Fi1m 74, Writer, Executive Producer, Theatre Play, Creator — [page](https://film.one/tv/the-great.md)
- *The Favourite* (2018), Fi1m 87, Executive Producer, Writer — [page](https://film.one/film/the-favourite.md)

## Complete filmography (27)

Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page.

- *The Roses* (2025), Screenplay — Fi1m 61, [page](https://film.one/film/the-roses.md)
- *Poor Things* (2023), Screenplay — Fi1m 76, [page](https://film.one/film/poor-things.md)
- *Cruella* (2021), Screenplay — Fi1m 66, [page](https://film.one/film/cruella.md)
- *The Great* (2020), series, Executive Producer, Writer, Theatre Play, Creator — Fi1m 74, [page](https://film.one/tv/the-great.md)
- *The Favourite* (2018), Executive Producer, Writer — Fi1m 87, [page](https://film.one/film/the-favourite.md)
- *Doctor Doctor* (2016), series, Producer, Writer, Creator
- *Ashby* (2015), Writer, Director
- *Puberty Blues* (2012), series, Writer
- *Spirited* (2010), series, Writer
- *Offspring* (2010), series, Writer
- *Tangle* (2009), series, Writer
- *Rush* (2008), series, Writer
- *Moving Wallpaper* (2008), series, Writer
- *Echo Beach* (2008), series, Writer
- *Love My Way* (2004), series, Writer
- *The Rage in Placid Lake* (2003), Director, Screenplay
- *Danny Deckchair* (2003), Script Consultant
- *The Secret Life of Us* (2001), series, Writer
- *Angst* (2000), Additional Dialogue
- *Dating the Enemy* (1996), Thanks
- *The Beat Manifesto* (1995), Writer
- *All Together Now* (1991), series, Writer
- *Mosquito*, series, Writer, Executive Producer
- *Cruella 2*, Writer
- *The Hawkline Monster*, Screenplay
- *The Seven Five*, Writer
- *Avengelyne*, Screenplay

## Gallery

- ![PoorThingsBFILFF141023 (14 of 33) (2023)](https://film.one/media/person/12177/gallery-ea096ce49b50.jpg) PoorThingsBFILFF141023 (14 of 33) (2023) — Raph_PH, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8c/PoorThingsBFILFF141023_%2814_of_33%29_%2853258364192%29.jpg/1280px-PoorThingsBFILFF141023_%2814_of_33%29_%2853258364192%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)
- ![PoorThingsBFILFF141023 (15 of 33) (2023)](https://film.one/media/person/12177/gallery-c5c6d96b64d0.jpg) PoorThingsBFILFF141023 (15 of 33) (2023) — Raph_PH, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/85/PoorThingsBFILFF141023_%2815_of_33%29_%2853259593184%29.jpg/1280px-PoorThingsBFILFF141023_%2815_of_33%29_%2853259593184%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)
- ![Tony McNamara](https://film.one/media/person/12177/gallery-bc55cd41fc58.jpg) Tony McNamara — Raph_PH, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d8/PoorThingsBFILFF141023_%2815_of_33%29_%2853259593184%29_%28cropped%29.jpg/1280px-PoorThingsBFILFF141023_%2815_of_33%29_%2853259593184%29_%28cropped%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)
- ![PoorThingsBFILFF141023 (32 of 33) (2023)](https://film.one/media/person/12177/gallery-92c8d67a6c72.jpg) PoorThingsBFILFF141023 (32 of 33) (2023) — Raph_PH, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7f/PoorThingsBFILFF141023_%2832_of_33%29_%2853259727960%29.jpg/1280px-PoorThingsBFILFF141023_%2832_of_33%29_%2853259727960%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)
- ![Tony McNamara](https://film.one/media/person/12177/gallery-9d9ef305c10c.jpg) Tony McNamara — Image via TMDB
- ![Tony McNamara](https://film.one/media/person/12177/gallery-5199c4f4258a.jpg) Tony McNamara — Image via TMDB
- ![Tony McNamara](https://film.one/media/person/12177/gallery-da4825eeeb04.jpg) Tony McNamara — Image via TMDB
- ![PoorThingsBFILFF141023 (15 of 33) (2023)](https://film.one/media/person/12177/gallery-77791de9b2a4.jpg) PoorThingsBFILFF141023 (15 of 33) (2023) — Raph_PH, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0d/PoorThingsBFILFF141023_Tony_McNamara.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled)

## Awards

### Academy Awards — 0 won, 2 nominated

- 2024: Best Writing, Adapted Screenplay (nominated), for *Poor Things*
- 2019: Best Writing, Original Screenplay (nominated), for *The Favourite*

### Other awards — 2 won, 1 nominated

- European Film Award for Best Comedy 2019: European Film Award for Best Comedy (won), for *The Favourite*
- European Film Award for Best Film 2019: European Film Award for Best Film (won), for *The Favourite*
- European Film Award – People's Choice Award for Best European Film 2019: European Film Award – People's Choice Award for Best European Film (nominated), for *The Favourite*

*From Wikidata, which records wins more completely than nominations.*

---
© 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/person/tony-mcnamara