Film Review: Tony

5 Stars

By Joseph Beyer | Sept. 5, 2026

So large is the mythology of writer/adventurer Anthony Bourdain, that with the debut of the independent film Tony, he has achieved fame on a one-name basis and joined the ranks of Prince, Bruce, and his dreaded nemesis, Emeril. But none of that celebrity and fortune matters here, as Tony spans just a tiny sliver of Bourdain’s previously-unknown life during the summer of 1975. The fictional drama directed by Matt Johnson bears witness to Bourdain’s baptism of fire with kitchens, cooking, and young love, and does so with a gorgeous restraint.

As with all lives, there are moments of chance or fate that can change our course forever, and in Tony, it’s the summer of 1975 when a tall and awkward 19-year-old found his people in the backroom of The Flagship restaurant in Provincetown, Massachusetts, a tourist trap of local fried fish, lobster rolls, and fries cooked all day by a motley kitchen crew.

Later, he’d call them pirates and degenerates, misfits and raconteurs, but these cooks and their captain took the young Bourdain in, and his life would never be the same.

From the beginning, the college boy was a dreamer, imagining a future life as an influential writer even as he washed dishes in this chaotic new world, a job given to him along with a beachfront hammock to sleep in when he was done partying and drinking with the crew.

Produced and released by the edgy distributor A24, Tony uses some of the writer’s own source material from his bestseller Kitchen Confidential, while taking generous doses of creative liberties in a script co-written by Johnson alongside Todd Bartels, Lou Howe, and Matthew Miller, particularly with the central romantic plot, designed to bookend a summer of love story.

In real life, Bourdain was forced into the kitchen to pay his rent. In the film, he’s following his crush with barely a plan, other than to find a way to make her notice him. Portraying this angst for love and the young Bourdain is American actor Dominic Sessa (The Holdovers), who brings all the right tones and details to the performance, perfectly capturing the egocentric writer who saw stories everywhere and keenly observed how the world worked with equal parts curiosity and fear. Sessa avoids a Bourdain impression, and instead delivers a soulful essence.

British actress Emilia Jones (CODA) here plays Bourdain’s crush Nancy, who can’t quite push away Bourdain, but can’t quite fall for him either. Their chemistry works well, and in Tony we see a foreshadowing of the romantic vulnerabilities he carried throughout his real life.

More fascinating is the relationship of Tony to the restaurant’s captain, Ciro, a chef who abandoned a fine-dining career for the relaxation and simplicity of the beach, and who takes Tony in and gives him a structure that would influence the rest of his life. Played with feeling by Antonio Banderas, the character is a blend of father-figures and mentors Bourdain mentioned throughout his life, but with a stronger narrative that shows the beginnings of a curiosity with food and the discovery of a hidden world.

Tony is a movie made up of a string of small moments, but whether they add up to something big I’m still not sure. As a portrait of a young man on the brink of the clumsiness of adulthood, it’s a highly engaging coming-of-age piece. As a window into the soul of one Anthony Bourdain, we get to witness the discovery of a subculture, knowing it would take decades from that moment to the international stardom and influence he achieved before ultimately taking his own life at age 61.

In that context, Tony is a portrait of the beginning of a much-longer tragedy—and where it may have started—while still being a joyful celebration of this transformative time in his life.

Rated R, as any Bourdain fan would expect, the film contains adult language, sex and nudity, portrayals of drug use, and runs a tight 1 hour 46 mins.