Poster © Fox Searchlight Pictures. Shown at reduced size for review and commentary.
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GenreComedy & Drama
RatedR
Runtime1 hr 41 mins
ReleasedJuly 26, 2006
StreamingSee Where to Watch
DirectorJonathan Dayton, Valerie Faris
StarringGreg Kinnear, Steve Carell, Toni Collette
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Little Miss Sunshine (2006)
| ▶Stream It | ★The Numbers |
| 🎫Get Tickets | ✎Edit History |
| iIMDb Profile | %Rotten Tomatoes |
| WWikipedia | LLetterboxd |
| TTMDB | +Add to Top 8 |
| Little Miss Sunshine's Details | |
| Genre | Comedy & Drama |
| Rated | R |
| Released | 01/20/2006 (Sundance); 07/26/2006 (United States) |
| Streaming | See Where to Watch on this page. |
| Running Time | 1 hr 41 mins |
| Budget | $8M (reported) |
| Box Office | Updated daily from Box Office Mojo. See the numbers below. |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Little Miss Sunshine's Interests | |
| General | Yellow VW vans, beauty pageants, nine-step programs, notepads, fighter jets, Proust, waffles with ice cream. |
| Music | Mychael Danna and the Denver band DeVotchKa, all warm, wobbly road trip energy. |
| Movies | Ruby Sparks (2012). Same directors, and Paul Dano gets to talk this time. |
| Television | The Office. Steve Carell, swapping Michael Scott's chaos for quiet sarcasm. |
| Heroes | Olive. Glasses on, dance routine locked in, zero doubts. |
| Little Miss Sunshine's Crew | |
| Director | Jonathan Dayton, Valerie Faris |
| Writers | Michael Arndt |
| Producers | Marc Turtletaub, David T. Friendly, Peter Saraf, Albert Berger, Ron Yerxa |
| Cinematography | Tim Suhrstedt |
| Music | Mychael Danna |
| Edited By | Pamela Martin |
| Production | Big Beach Films, Bona Fide Productions, Third Gear Productions |
| Distributed By | Fox Searchlight Pictures |
Yellow van. Silent teenager. Uncle who studies Proust. Grandpa with zero filter. Little Miss Sunshine checks every indie box so hard it should come with a festival lanyard, and for a while it kinda plays like a quirk machine. Then the van’s clutch dies and the whole family has to push it, run alongside and jump in one by one, and the movie finds its heart right there. Steve Carell plays sad and quiet so well it’s almost unfair to his comedy career. Paul Dano says more with a notepad than most actors do with a script, and Alan Arkin steals every scene he’s in. Greg Kinnear’s success-program dad wears thin, though. Made on a reported $8M, it pulled in over $100 million worldwide. An 8.6 because it’s a road trip with no wasted passengers. $10.87 says the next time your car won’t start, you make everyone get out and push.
What works: The ensemble, especially Steve Carell and Alan Arkin, and the van itself, which turns a running gag into the movie’s whole idea of family.
What doesn’t: The early stretch leans hard on indie quirks, and Greg Kinnear’s motivational-speaker dad stays one note for too long.
Who it’s for: Anyone whose family vacations involved at least one breakdown, mechanical or emotional.
Spoilers
Grandpa dies at a motel on the way, and the family sneaks him out of the hospital so they can still make the pageant. Olive’s big dance routine, coached by Grandpa, horrifies the crowd, so the whole family jumps on stage and dances with her. They get banned from ever entering a California pageant again and drive home happy.
Seven-year-old Olive Hoover (Abigail Breslin) has just qualified for the Little Miss Sunshine pageant in California, and her whole family is coming along whether they like it or not. Dad Richard (Greg Kinnear) is pushing a nine-step success program nobody wants. Mom Sheryl (Toni Collette) is holding everything together. Teen brother Dwayne (Paul Dano) has taken a vow of silence. Uncle Frank (Steve Carell) is a Proust scholar coming off a very rough stretch, and Grandpa Edwin (Alan Arkin) is Olive's dance coach. They all pile into a yellow Volkswagen van with a busted clutch. Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris direct. One hundred two minutes, push to start.
Anyone whose family is a little much. Push, then jump in.
| Greg Kinnear | Richard Hoover |
| Toni Collette | Sheryl Hoover |
| Steve Carell | Frank Ginsburg |
| Paul Dano | Dwayne Hoover |
| Abigail Breslin | Olive Hoover |
| Alan Arkin | Grandpa Edwin Hoover |
| Bryan Cranston | Stan Grossman |
| Beth Grant | Pageant Official Jenkins |
| Wallace Langham | Kirby |
| Matt Winston | Pageant MC |
| Julio Oscar Mechoso | Mechanic |
| Paula Newsome | Linda |
| Dean Norris | State Trooper McCleary |
| Mary Lynn Rajskub | Pageant Assistant Pam |
| Mel Rodriguez | Officer Martinez |
- (cur | prev) 14:30, 17 October 2026 DataBot +400 Numbers refreshed: Worldwide box office $100.5M; Domestic box office $59.9M; Opening weekend $371K; Profit / loss (est.) +$38.3M; Rotten Tomatoes 91%; box office chart updated; Rotten Tomatoes critics 91% (218 reviews); Metacritic 80 / 100; IMDb users 7.8 / 10 (567,562 votes); movie.guru score 9.0.
- (cur | prev) 12:00, 17 October 2026 DataBot +2,000 Profile created from Wikipedia and Box Office Mojo: cast, crew, release dates, budget, official trailer.