Poster © Sony Pictures Releasing. Shown at reduced size for review and commentary.
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GenreBiography, Comedy & Drama
RatedR
Runtime1 hr 49 mins
ReleasedSeptember 27, 2024
StreamingSee Where to Watch
DirectorJason Reitman
StarringGabriel LaBelle, Rachel Sennott, Cory Michael Smith
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Saturday Night (2024)
| ▶Stream It | ★The Numbers |
| 🎫Get Tickets | ✎Edit History |
| iIMDb Profile | %Rotten Tomatoes |
| WWikipedia | LLetterboxd |
| TTMDB | +Add to Top 8 |
| Saturday Night's Details | |
| Genre | Biography, Comedy & Drama |
| Rated | R |
| Released | 08/31/2024 (Telluride); 09/27/2024 (United States) |
| Streaming | See Where to Watch on this page. |
| Running Time | 1 hr 49 mins |
| Budget | $25–30M (reported) |
| Box Office | Updated daily from Box Office Mojo. See the numbers below. |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Saturday Night's Interests | |
| General | Cue cards, rewrites, NBC hallways, nervous executives, a ticking clock, one very long night. |
| Music | Jon Batiste, who also shows up as Billy Preston. |
| Movies | Birdman (2014). Another backstage scramble before the curtain goes up. |
| Television | Saturday Night Live. Still on the air, fifty-plus seasons later. |
| Heroes | Lorne Michaels. Kept a straight face through all of it. |
| Saturday Night's Crew | |
| Director | Jason Reitman |
| Writers | Gil Kenan, Jason Reitman |
| Producers | Jason Blumenfeld, Peter Rice, Jason Reitman, Gil Kenan |
| Cinematography | Eric Steelberg |
| Music | Jon Batiste |
| Edited By | Nathan Orloff, Shane Reid |
| Production | Columbia Pictures, Reitman/Kenan Productions |
| Distributed By | Sony Pictures Releasing |
Jim Henson is fuming about his Muppets, John Belushi has walked out, and the host, George Carlin, thinks the whole gig is embarrassing. That’s Saturday Night: a whole season of backstage chaos packed into one evening, and somewhere in all the shouting it forgets to tell a story. Gabriel LaBelle plays Lorne Michaels, a green producer who has to get a brand-new live comedy show on NBC before the night is over, on October 11, 1975. Willem Dafoe’s NBC exec, David Tebet, has a Tonight Show rerun cued up as a backup. LaBelle holds the center like a guy spinning plates on a moving train, and Dylan O’Brien’s Dan Aykroyd is the surprise of the ensemble. The best scene is Lorne and Gilda Radner tracking Belushi down at the Rockefeller Plaza ice rink. Critics mostly liked it, landing at 77% on Rotten Tomatoes. A 6.6 because the cast crackles and the story is mostly hallway sprints. $5,153 says you pull up the real first episode afterward and spot every difference.
What works: Gabriel LaBelle carries the whole movie as Lorne Michaels, and Dylan O’Brien’s Dan Aykroyd is a genuine transformation.
What doesn’t: All that frantic running around never adds up to much of a story, so the movie ends up feeling busy rather than built.
Who it’s for: SNL lifers and comedy history nerds who already know who Michael O’Donoghue is.
Spoilers
Andy Kaufman’s Mighty Mouse bit wins over Tebet, and Lorne hands Weekend Update to Chevy Chase, who nails it with brand-new material. The show goes live, and the film ends as Chase steps up to deliver the famous opening line.
October 11, 1975. Lorne Michaels (Gabriel LaBelle) is a young, untested producer walking into NBC's New York studios with one night to get NBC's Saturday Night on the air, live. Nothing is ready. His cast, including Chevy Chase (Cory Michael Smith), John Belushi (Matt Wood), Dan Aykroyd (Dylan O'Brien) and Gilda Radner (Ella Hunt), swings between feuding and open rebellion, and the crew isn't sold either. His boss Dick Ebersol (Cooper Hoffman) warns that network exec David Tebet (Willem Dafoe) is bringing suits to watch, with a Johnny Carson rerun ready to go if it flops. Jason Reitman directs. One hundred nine minutes, live from New York.
Anyone who has ever thrown a show together at the last minute. Places in five.
| Gabriel LaBelle | Lorne Michaels |
| Rachel Sennott | Rosie Shuster |
| Cory Michael Smith | Chevy Chase |
| Ella Hunt | Gilda Radner |
| Dylan O'Brien | Dan Aykroyd |
| Emily Fairn | Laraine Newman |
| Matt Wood | John Belushi |
| Lamorne Morris | Garrett Morris |
| Kim Matula | Jane Curtin |
| Finn Wolfhard | an NBC page |
| Nicholas Braun | Jim Henson and Andy Kaufman |
| Ellen Boscov | Mrs. Kaufman |
| Cooper Hoffman | Dick Ebersol |
| Andrew Barth Feldman | Neil Levy |
| Leander Suleiman | Anne Beatts |
| Taylor Gray | Al Franken |
| Mcabe Gregg | Tom Davis |
| Abraham Hsu | Leo Yoshimura |
| Corinne Britti | Valri Bromfield |
| Nicholas Podany | Billy Crystal |
| Rowan Joseph | Jim Fox |
| Kirsty Woodward | Audrey Peart Dickman |
| Kaia Gerber | Jacqueline Carlin |
| Robert Wuhl | Dave Wilson |
- (cur | prev) 14:30, 20 October 2026 DataBot +560 Numbers refreshed: Worldwide box office $10.1M; Domestic box office $9.5M; Opening weekend $270K; Profit / loss (est.) -$36.2M; Rotten Tomatoes 77%; CinemaScore B+; box office chart updated; Rotten Tomatoes critics 77% (255 reviews); Metacritic 60 / 100; Rotten Tomatoes audience 83% (500+ verified ratings); PostTrak audience 82% positive; CinemaScore B+; IMDb users 6.8 / 10 (40,562 votes); movie.guru score 6.1.
- (cur | prev) 12:00, 20 October 2026 DataBot +2,000 Profile created from Wikipedia and Box Office Mojo: cast, crew, release dates, budget, official trailer.