Eleanor the Great (2025)

The lie at the center of Eleanor the Great is a hard one to sit with: a grieving ninety-four-year-old borrows her late best friend’s Holocaust survival story and tells it as her own. June Squibb plays Eleanor, freshly moved from Florida to her daughter’s place in New York, sidelined by a busy family and lonely in a way that makes the mistake feel human instead of cruel. She wanders into a survivors’ support group by accident and never speaks up. Erin Kellyman plays Nina, a journalism student mourning her own mother, and the friendship they build is the warmest stretch of the film. Scarlett Johansson, directing her first feature, gets a lovely performance out of Squibb, but the movie keeps swinging between gentle caper and heavy grief without settling. Critics landed at 67%, and audiences were kinder. A 6.2 because Squibb is wonderful and the tone never finds its footing. $524.77 says you ask the oldest person in your family for a story this weekend and let them take as long as they need.

What works: June Squibb is terrific, and her scenes with Erin Kellyman carry real warmth about grief and unlikely friendship.

What doesn’t: The tone wobbles between light caper and heavy drama, and the uneven script never settles on which kind of story it’s telling.

Who it’s for: Anyone who has lost a best friend and still tells their stories every chance they get.