Poster © Focus Features. Shown at reduced size for review and commentary.
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GenreCrime, Drama & Mystery
RatedR
Runtime1 hr 53 mins
ReleasedDecember 25, 2020
StreamingSee Where to Watch
DirectorEmerald Fennell
StarringCarey Mulligan, Bo Burnham, Alison Brie
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Promising Young Woman (2020)
| ▶Stream It | ★The Numbers |
| 🎫Get Tickets | ✎Edit History |
| iIMDb Profile | %Rotten Tomatoes |
| WWikipedia | LLetterboxd |
| TTMDB | +Add to Top 8 |
| Promising Young Woman's Details | |
| Genre | Crime, Drama & Mystery |
| Rated | R |
| Released | 01/25/2020 (Sundance); 12/25/2020 (United States) |
| Streaming | See Where to Watch on this page. |
| Running Time | 1 hr 53 mins |
| Budget | $10M (reported) |
| Box Office | Updated daily from Box Office Mojo. See the numbers below. |
| Country | United States, United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Promising Young Woman's Interests | |
| General | Pastel coffee shops, candy-colored nails, an unfinished medical degree, old friendships that still hurt. |
| Music | Anthony Willis. The needle drops are pure pop, and every one of them is doing a job. |
| Movies | Saltburn (2023). Fennell's next one, just as sharp, just as pretty. |
| Television | Killing Eve, season two. Fennell ran the writers room before making this. |
| Heroes | Carey Mulligan, who plays every scene like a locked door. |
| Promising Young Woman's Crew | |
| Director | Emerald Fennell |
| Writers | Emerald Fennell |
| Producers | Margot Robbie, Josey McNamara, Tom Ackerley, Ben Browning, Ashley Fox, Emerald Fennell |
| Cinematography | Benjamin Kračun |
| Music | Anthony Willis |
| Edited By | Frédéric Thoraval |
| Production | FilmNation Entertainment, LuckyChap Entertainment |
| Distributed By | Focus Features (United States), Universal Pictures (select territories), Sky Cinema, Now (United Kingdom) |
Candy colors and pop songs wrap Promising Young Woman, and the movie swings between rom-com and revenge thriller so hard you can feel the gears grind. Carey Mulligan is ferocious as Cassie, a medical school dropout who works at a coffee shop and is avenging what happened to her best friend. She plays it with a tired, polite smile that’s scarier than any shouting. Bo Burnham is the surprise. His Ryan is goofy and sweet, and their pharmacy singalong to a Paris Hilton song is the most charming scene here. Jennifer Coolidge and Clancy Brown make her worried parents feel real. The trouble is that Emerald Fennell writes some of the people Cassie confronts as cartoons, and the message arrives in bold capital letters. The ending will split any room you watch it in. It holds a 90% on Rotten Tomatoes. A 7.3 because Mulligan is unforgettable even when the movie swerves. $187.67 says you hear that Paris Hilton song in a store this year and catch yourself smiling about a pharmacy.
What works: Mulligan’s calm, funny, unnerving lead, plus a candy-colored look that keeps you off balance the whole way through.
What doesn’t: The tone lurches hard between sweet and grim, and several characters are written as broad cartoons instead of people.
Who it’s for: Grown-up viewers who like bold, dark thrillers that start arguments on the drive home.
Spoilers
Cassie’s last plan costs her her life, but she built it so the truth comes out anyway. The police arrive at a wedding, led there by a package and messages she set up before she left.
Cassie Thomas (Carey Mulligan) dropped out of medical school years ago. Now she is thirty, lives with her parents Stanley (Clancy Brown) and Susan (Jennifer Coolidge), and pours coffee for her boss Gail (Laverne Cox). Her life looks stalled from the outside, but she has a purpose: she is avenging what happened to her best friend. Then Ryan (Bo Burnham), a former classmate who became a pediatric surgeon, walks into the coffee shop, makes her laugh, and asks her out. Emerald Fennell writes and directs her first feature, wrapping a sharp story in candy colors and pop songs. One hundred fourteen minutes, all of it sharper than it looks.
Anyone ready to listen, and to believe her.
| Carey Mulligan | Cassandra "Cassie" Thomas |
| Bo Burnham | Ryan Cooper |
| Alison Brie | Madison McPhee |
| Clancy Brown | Stanley |
| Jennifer Coolidge | Susan |
| Laverne Cox | Gail |
| Chris Lowell | Al Monroe |
| Molly Shannon | Mrs. Fisher |
| Connie Britton | Dean Elizabeth Walker |
| Adam Brody | Jerry |
| Max Greenfield | Joe |
| Ray Nicholson | Jim |
| Christopher Mintz-Plasse | Neil |
| Steve Monroe | Lincoln |
| Sam Richardson | Paul |
- (cur | prev) 14:30, 18 October 2026 DataBot +40 Numbers refreshed: IMDb users 7.5 / 10 (260,787 votes) → 7.5 / 10 (260,828 votes).
- (cur | prev) 14:30, 17 October 2026 DataBot +520 Numbers refreshed: Worldwide box office $18.9M; Domestic box office $6.5M; Opening weekend $719K; Profit / loss (est.) -$5.6M; Rotten Tomatoes 90%; CinemaScore B+; box office chart updated; Rotten Tomatoes critics 90% (429 reviews); Metacritic 72 / 100; PostTrak audience 73% positive; CinemaScore B+; IMDb users 7.5 / 10 (260,787 votes); movie.guru score 7.2.
- (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.