---
title: "Entourage"
year: 2004
kind: "series"
canonical: "https://film.one/tv/entourage"
fi1m_score: 63
critics_score: 77
critics_reviews: 7
published: "2026-09-17T00:06:12.484672+00:00"
updated: "2026-09-17T00:06:13.187498+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."
---

# Entourage (2004)

Created by Doug Ellin · MPA TV-MA · Comedy, Drama

**Fi1m score: 63** · Critics 77 from 7 reviews

*In a sentence:* A show about a man being handed things, for eight years, and the only one working for a living is the agent

> Doug Ellin’s Hollywood comedy has one great character in Jeremy Piven’s Ari Gold and three amiable ones, and runs them for eight seasons on charm and expensive cars. Easy company for a while; it never grows, and never seems to want to.

## Synopsis

Los Angeles, 2004. Vincent Chase (Adrian Grenier), an actor from Queens, has had his first hit and brought the neighbourhood with him: Eric Murphy (Kevin Connolly), his best friend and new manager, who has never managed anything; Johnny ‘Drama’ Chase (Kevin Dillon), his older half-brother, whose acting career peaked on a cancelled television show; and Turtle (Jerry Ferrara), who drives the car and rolls the joints. Vince wants to make films he likes and go to bed with whoever is nearest. His agent Ari Gold (Jeremy Piven) wants him to take the big studio cheque. The first season is the argument over what Vince does next, conducted from a house in the hills, nightclubs and the passenger seat.

## Review

Doug Ellin’s series carries the tagline “A lifestyle is a terrible thing to waste”, and that is the most honest thing about it. *Entourage* is about a young film star, Vincent Chase, and the three friends from Queens who live off him, and it wants you to want their life: the house, the cars, the women who arrive and leave without names. For two seasons it does this with enough speed and good humour that we did not mind. Over eight seasons and 96 episodes it becomes plain that nothing will happen to these men that cannot be undone by the next episode, and the good humour wears thin. It is decent company. It is not much more than that.

The reason to watch is Jeremy Piven. Ari Gold, Vince’s agent, is the only character on screen with a job he might lose, a wife (Perrey Reeves’ Melissa Gold) who might leave, and a temper he cannot afford. Piven plays him at full volume, a phone in each hand, abusing his assistant Lloyd Lee (Rex Lee) with an inventiveness Lloyd returns in kind, and the scenes between those two are the best-written thing the show ever does. We laughed at Ari, out loud, far more than we had expected to. He is a monster with a mortgage, and the show knows it.

The boys are pleasant. Kevin Connolly’s Eric is the one with a conscience, and the one the writers most often forget to give a joke. Jerry Ferrara’s Turtle drives and eats. Kevin Dillon’s Johnny Drama, the older half-brother whose career has already happened, is the show’s second-best creation: a man auditioning for his own life every day and losing on a technicality, and Dillon gets real sadness into the bluster. Adrian Grenier has the hardest job, because Vince is written as a man things happen to. He is handsome, agreeable and interested in nothing, and Grenier plays that accurately, which is not the same as playing it well.

The directors, among them Julian Farino, Mark Mylod and David Nutter, shoot Los Angeles as a place where it is always four in the afternoon. Sunlit boulevards, palms, glass, the car with the top down; Jeff Groth cuts the driving into brisk montages so that getting from one party to the next feels like an event. It is handsome television and it moves. It also looks the same in the eighth season as it did in the first, and by then the sameness is the problem rather than the style.

Somewhere in the fourth season we noticed we had not laughed at anything but Ari for some time, and that the show did not mind. Season 3 alone runs to 20 episodes, and the plots (a film Vince wants, a film Ari wants, a director, Rhys Coiro’s Billy Walsh, who treats every note as an assault) begin to repeat with the names changed. Nothing costs anyone anything. Every setback is reversed within an episode or two, and the boys greet each rescue as if it were the natural order. The women, Emmanuelle Chriqui’s Sloan McQuewick chief among them, are written to wait for the men to grow up, and since the men never do, the women mostly wait. We began amused by the boys’ indifference to consequence and ended up sharing it, which is not what a comedy is for.

Set against the Hollywood comedies it grew up alongside, [*The Larry Sanders Show*](https://film.one/tv/the-larry-sanders-show) and [*Curb Your Enthusiasm*](https://film.one/tv/curb-your-enthusiasm), it is softer and less curious. Those shows were about people who were awful and knew it. *Entourage* is about people who are lucky and think it is a virtue. Most critics have been warmer than we are, and about the first two seasons we would not argue with them. The trouble is the other six.

Watch the first two seasons, an episode at a time, with someone who will enjoy shouting along with Ari. Stop when you find yourself checking how many episodes are left in the season. That is the show telling you it has finished, whatever the episode count says.

*Fi1m score 63, published 17 September 2026.*

## What the critics say

Most critics like Entourage, and for the same reasons. The reviews find a quick, snappy comedy that gets Hollywood’s hangers-on and its superficiality about right, and forgive the shallowness of the friends at its centre because the ensemble is easy company. The praise clusters on one performance: Jeremy Piven as the agent Ari Gold, whose foul mouth and one-liners several critics name as the main reason to keep watching. The insider satire, the star cameos and the name-dropping are counted as pleasures rather than vices.

The reservations are mild and mostly early. Variety, reviewing the first episodes in 2004, finds them short on laughs and subtext, with characters proudly shallow, though it notes the writing sharpens by the third episode. A twentieth-anniversary retrospective in The Ringer judges the show durable and aware of its characters’ ridiculousness, while treating it as wish-fulfilment. The spread is narrow: one mixed notice, no negative ones, and broad agreement that this is escapism done with charm.

### Reviews we read (7)

- **The Hollywood Reporter**, THR Staff (90/100, inferred): The original 2004 review praises the series as a kicky, crackling HBO comedy with savagely realistic veneer, brutal showbiz truths, and snappy dialogue that spotlights celebrity emptiness. It highlights the pilot's energetic direction and realistic portrayal of hangers-on and Hollywood superficiality. [Read](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/entourage-first-episode-thrs-2004-799737/)
- **The Times**, Sean Macaulay (90/100, inferred): The critic praises the sharp comedy and standout performance of Jeremy Piven as the foul-mouthed agent Ari Gold in the HBO series about a young Hollywood star and his friends. It highlights the show's insider Hollywood satire, star cameos and unashamed name-dropping as making it delicious viewing. [Read](https://www.thetimes.com/culture/tv-radio/article/la-story-8d09hq93vf3)
- **Empire**, William Thomas (80/100, inferred): The series proves entertaining rather than vacuous thanks to its charm and likeable characters. Jeremy Piven's performance as the agent Ari stands out as particularly mesmerising. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/tv/reviews/entourage-season-1-review/)
- **The AV Club**, Scott Tobias (80/100, inferred): The critic finds the show surprisingly funny and lovable despite its shallow Hollywood characters, praising the ensemble's charm and the balanced pacing of the first season's episodes. [Read](https://www.avclub.com/entourage-the-complete-first-season-1798200683)
- **Variety** (50/100, inferred): The review finds the early episodes lacking subtext and laughs, with characters who are proudly shallow, though the agent Ari Gold stands out as the strongest element. It notes improvement by the third episode with sharper writing, a self-contained arc, and more developed characters. [Read](https://variety.com/2004/film/awards/entourage-5-1200532194/)
- **NME**, NME Blog (75/100, inferred): The reviewer finds the series appealing for its escapist fantasy of Hollywood life and tight-knit male friendships. They single out the vicious wit and memorable one-liners of agent Ari Gold as the main draw. [Read](https://www.nme.com/blogs/nme-blogs/entourage-season-5-a-review-42716)
- **The Ringer**, Paul Thompson (75/100, inferred): The critic offers a detailed retrospective ranking of all episodes to mark the series' 20th anniversary, concluding that Entourage remains a durable comedy that understands its characters' ridiculousness and delivers wish-fulfillment. One element singled out for praise is the pilot's unique tonal balance as the friends navigate wealthy L.A. while maintaining deep friendships. [Read](https://www.theringer.com/2024/07/18/tv/best-entourage-episodes-ranked-hbo-20th-anniversary)

## Details

- **Created by:** Doug Ellin
- **Creator:** Doug Ellin
- **Director:** Mark Mylod, Julian Farino, David Nutter, Dan Attias, Ken Whittingham, Doug Ellin, Seith Mann, Patty Jenkins, Kevin Connolly, David Frankel, Adam Bernstein, Tucker Gates, Adam Davidson, Leslie Libman, Roger Kumble, Craig Zisk
- **Writer:** Doug Ellin, Rob Weiss, Ally Musika, Brian Burns, Larry Charles, Marc Abrams, Michael Benson, Stephen Levinson, Lisa Alden, Chris Henchy, Cliff Dorfman, Dusty Kay
- **Editor:** Jeff Groth
- **Music:** Freddie Gibbs
- **Producer:** Wayne Carmona, Lori Jo Nemhauser, Janace Tashjian
- **Cast:** Kevin Connolly as Eric Murphy; Adrian Grenier as Vincent Chase; Kevin Dillon as Johnny 'Drama' Chase; Jerry Ferrara as Turtle; Jeremy Piven as Ari Gold; Rex Lee as Lloyd Lee; Debi Mazar as Shauna Roberts; Rhys Coiro as Billy Walsh
- **Certificate (MPA):** TV-MA
- **Release (the US):** 18 July 2004
- **Genres:** Comedy, Drama

## Where to watch in the US

- HBO Max: streaming
- Amazon Prime Video: add-on
- The Roku Channel: add-on, hd
- Hulu: add-on, hd
- Amazon Prime Video: buy, hd

*Checked 2026-09-16.*

Also available in: AR, AT, AU, BE, BG, BR, CA, CH, CL, CO, CZ, DE, DK, EC, EE, ES, FI, FR, GB, HK, HR, HU, ID, IE, IL, IS, IT, LT, MX, MY, NL, NO, NZ, PA, PE, PH, PL, PT, RO, RS, SE, SG, SI, TH, TR, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country.

## If you liked this

- *The Larry Sanders Show* (1992), Fi1m 91: The same town, the same egos, and a writers’ room that made them pay for it. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/tv/the-larry-sanders-show.md)
- *The Player* (1992), Fi1m 85: Altman’s studio satire, where the cameos are jokes and the executive is the victim. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/the-player.md)
- *Swingers* (1996), Fi1m 80: Young men in Los Angeles waiting for the phone to ring, made for nothing and funnier. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/swingers.md)
- *Extras* (2005), Fi1m 81: Gervais and Merchant on the far end of the business, where nobody is handed anything. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/tv/extras.md)
- *Sunset Boulevard* (1950), Fi1m 93: What happens to the Vincent Chases of the world about thirty years on. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/sunset-boulevard.md)

---
© 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/tv/entourage