Ed Wood

1994 Directed by Tim Burton

When it came to making bad movies, Ed Wood was the best.

The mostly true story of the legendary "worst director of all time", who, with the help of his strange friends, filmed countless B-movies without ever becoming famous or successful.

Johnny Depp Martin Landau Sarah Jessica Parker Patricia Arquette Jeffrey Jones Bill Murray Lisa Marie George Steele G. D. Spradlin Vincent D'Onofrio Mike Starr Max Casella Brent Hinkley Jim Myers Juliet Landau Clive Rosengren Norman Alden Leonard Termo Ned Bellamy Danny Dayton Ross Manarchy Bill Cusack Stanley DeSantis Biff Yeager Joseph R. Gannascoli Carmen Filpi Lisa Malkiewicz Melora Walters Conrad Brooks Show All…

Alternative Titles

艾得伍德, 艾活传, Ед Ууд, Ed Vud, Эд Вуд

comedy drama history

127 mins More details at IMDb TMDb Report this film

Popular reviews

Review by Matt Singer ★★★★½ 3

This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

“Filmmaking is not about the tiny details. It’s about the big picture.”
This movie gets the details and the big picture right. And the dialogue is so wonderful, from the resonant power of the scene with Orson Welles about artistic independence (“Visions are worth fighting for. Why spend your life making someone else’s dreams?”) to Bill Murray eagerly anticipating his upcoming sex change ("Goodbye penis!"). ED WOOD is an absurdly rose-colored view of the real Ed Wood at times; it ends with him in "triumph" at the exact second before Wood's life began an irreversible slide into alcoholism, destitution, and death. But it's also a genuinely affectionate tribute to this guy who stuck to his guns, loved the movies, and was, in a lot of ways, years ahead of his time.
Review by SilentDawn ★★★★★ 9

98
A life-affirming, empathetic work. This is as good as it gets in terms of Tim Burton, but it's also one of the greatest films of the 1990s, so it's no small feat. Watching it, all I could do is marvel at the glorious monochrome imagery, towering performances, and Burton's warmth and care for the subject and the aesthetic. Best scene: Ed Wood sharing his secret to the woman who would become his second wife in the middle of a malfunctioning Dark Ride. Surrounded by the macabre is a person looking to be accepted as they are.
Review by Braden ★★★★ 3

“You know, you're, you're much scarier in real life than you are in the movies.”
Maybe my favourite Tim Burton movie; Ed Wood is a lively film about the infamous director that seems to perfectly capture his spirit in the way all biopics should. It’s classic, B-movie horror-esque style appropriately complements the subject matter without getting in the way, and Johnny Depp’s performance in the titular role paints a gracious, sympathetic portrait of the man, that although omits some of the darker parts of his life really captures the essence of what his early work was about. Burton’s movie is an appreciative tribute to all the passion Wood put into his career despite the constant negative press, and its gleeful optimism feels so true to the story it wants to tell.
Review by Dragonknight ★★★★½ 9

Film #44 of Project 90
” We are going to finish this picture just the way I want it... because you cannot compromise an artist's vision.”
Making a biopic about someone who is known as “The Worst Director of All Time” looks like an easy task, there is a reason that people call him the worst so if you want to make a funny and entertaining comedy you only need to show his “style” of film making and his childish passion for his own works. His life gives you enough material to make at least a couple of parodies, but Tim Burton chooses another way. He doesn't see Edward J. Wood as a talentless man who can be laughed at,…
Review by The_Shape_ 24

"Well I see the usual cast of misfits and dope addicts are here."
I think what makes this movie work so well is that director Tim Burton and writer's Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski have a lot of care for the characters and don't criticize or ridicule them for being unique and I appreciate their favorable and sensitive approach. Though Ed Wood is known for being one of the worst filmmakers, they still have a lot of respect for him as a person and how he was able to create his dreams. I feel like considering that Tim Burton went on to make Mars Attacks! right after this, that he actually even enjoyed old low-budget sci-fi and horror. (Plan 9…
Review by Mr. DuLac ★★★★½ 8

This story's gonna grab people. It's about this guy, he's crazy about this girl, but he likes to wear dresses. Should he tell her? Should he not tell her? He's torn, Georgie. This is drama.
-Edward D. Wood, Jr.
This is probably my favorite Tim Burton film now. Most of his films of the last few years have been style over substance, but like I noted with Frankenweenie, he seems to be at his best when he's passionate about the subject matter. You can clearly see this is a personal film for Burton made with a lot of heart.
You can tell from the get-go that this is not a factual based biopic of Ed Wood, but rather a tribute…
Review by Demon Slayer With A Dragonslayer ★★★★★ 6

I think I fell in love.
Such a beautiful film ❤
Review by Mike D'Angelo ★★★★ 1

80/100
Faulting this movie for whitewashing Wood's life is goofy—no one could possibly mistake its cartoonish exaggeration for a traditional biopic. Instead, it uses the broad outline of his career as the foundation for an affectionate, heartfelt paean to cockeyed optimism, with Depp as the poignant personification of drive and passion divorced from talent. Making this funny and even borderline heroic rather than cruel was no small feat, and ultimately I don't care that Lugosi was actually married for the last year of his life, or that Wood was a skirt-chasing drunk from an early age. And has there ever been such a non-judgmental portrait of tranvestism? (Even if there has, I bet it's comparatively dreary.) Stunningly beautiful, too—maybe the…
Review by truman ★★★★★ 6

tb to when tim burton cared about his work
Review by Darren Carver-Balsiger ★★★★½ 23

What's this? A Tim Burton film with substance, whoa!
Ed Wood is a tribute to misplaced dreams, being a very sympathetic depiction of art gone astray. There's no mockery here. The script's structure is clunky and this is a very phoney film, but given the context it works perfectly. Ed Wood does capture the "magic" and "heart" at the centre of Ed Wood's films. The visuals are also amazing, probably Burton's best effort that I have seen, being restrained and only overdone in a deliciously reverential sense. There's many referential shots and music cues, underlying the idea that films are a reflection of life. It's about friendship and love more than anything, something that can be seen in Wood's films.…
Review by Will ★★★★ 5

Weird, wacky and wonderful. Everything you expect from a Tim Burton film. The more I watch his work, the more I love it. He's one of the most unique filmmakers around and has such a distinctive style.
Ed Wood captures Tim Burton's style perfectly. It has the black and white german expressionism feel, where the black is extremely dark and the white pops. It has the typical great cast with some brilliant performances (especially Johnny Depp, this is now one of my favourite performances by him). To me, this film was trying to project that you should always feel comfortable in your own skin and to not give a fuck about what other people think and to keep on persevering. I feel like it put that point across extremely well.
Review by basketcasejoel

Tim Burton’s last film

Recent reviews

Review by sofia🤎 ★★★★

if johnny depp told me on a first date he liked wearing angora sweaters i’d fall in love too
Review by lauchlan ★★★★

Early Tim Burton and Johnny Depp having a blast. Crazy but true story and now I feel compelled to watch Plan 9.
A sympathetic look at a guy who'd be easy to lampoon. Instead, it has that joyous scrappy band of underdogs feel.
Review by Harvey Penson ★★★★

"Visions are worth Fighting for"
A beautiful tribute to the dreamers who fight for their dreams to come true, even if they are terrible.
With some great grainy B-movie esc visual style and old fashioned dramatic score, beautifully shot, Ed Wood is a visual treat of old Hollywood. But is essentially made by wonderful performances by Johnny Depp and Martin Landau's whose chemistry and screen friendship is the film's heart with its internal layers of homage to inspiration.
Review by ele_r_na ★★★

Peak of the movie: the colorblind bit
Review by brettmiller5358 ★★★½

Not a lot to say about this one. I really enjoyed it and I’m excited to watch it again.
I think it added to my enjoyment having already seen Plan 9 before.
It was a nice reminder that Johnny Depp can be a great screen presence when he wants to.

This trivia made me smile: “Tim Burton said that he was drawn to the story because of the similarities between Edward D. Wood Jr.'s relationship with Bela Lugosi and his own friendship with Vincent Price late in the actor's life.”
Review by matthew ★★★★½

This just proves there is nothing better than a movie about making a movie 🥲 🛸 🧛🏻‍♂️
Review by Em @Verbal Diorama ★★★★½

It's no exaggeration to say that I loved Ed Wood. It felt like a timeless Burton/Depp pairing, unlike some of their more recent efforts. It was a fascinating insight into a complex, interesting storyteller and his friendship with Bela Lugosi, and Johnny Depp just sold it.
Review by Kade Rollins ★★★★★ 2

People are always like “Samuel L. Jackson should’ve won an Oscar for Pulp Fiction.”
Like, motherfucker did you watch Ed Wood?
Added to: My Favourite Films (Rank #13)
Review by Joel Duscher ★★★★

“This is the one, this is the one I’ll be remembered for”
Timmy Burton pulls a huge move here and instead of being like “Ed Wood was a tragic figure and his movies sucked so much shit that he is often considered the worst director of all time” Big Timbo has Ed Wood’s optimism and lack of compromise as the heart of this movie. It doesn’t matter that the films are bad! He got to make his visions come true! Plan 9 only exists due to Ed Wood’s burning passion! That’s huge!
Plus Johnny Depp has never been more likable in a role and that’s big from me because I FUCKEN HATE THE GUY.
Review by merci ★★★½

johnny depp in that white fluffy sweater >>>
Review by Christian Nichols ★★★★½

Ed Wood and Bela Lugosi. Together they are two of the most misunderstood and under appreciated people to ever walk onto a film set respectively, and while the film may take some personal liberties with the characterization of Lugosi in the film (which is mostly fine considering the movie constantly blurs the line between fiction and reality) it is still a pretty oddly heartfelt film that has a deep love for B-movies, the misfits who made them, and of course, Ed Wood, one of the kings of B-movies. The love and attention to detail is obvious when you consider the man behind the camera, Tim Burton (at his peak), and his love for oddball cinema and was obviously inspired by…
Review by Josh ★★★★½

Tim Burton’s best movie, sue me