That Thing You Do! (1996)

That Thing You Do! (1996)

Tom Hanks writes and directs this sweetly nostalgic sleeper hit about a one-hit-wonder band in the ‘60s

7.7

Movie

United States of America
English
Comedy, Drama, Music, Romance
1996
TOM HANKS
Alex Rocco, Barry Sobel, Benjamin John Parrillo
108 min

What it's about

A Pennsylvania band scores a hit in 1964 and rides the star-making machinery as long as it can, with lots of help from its manager.

The take

Plenty of films have been made about the grueling climb to rock-and-roll fame, but few carry the effortless charm that That Thing You Do! has. Written and directed by Tom Hanks, the film is as cookie-cutter as it gets, dodging the dark depths that typically haunt rock biopics. But that isn’t to say That Thing You Do! is boring—just the opposite, its simplicity and nostalgia make it wholly enjoyable. It’s a confection of a film that goes down easy, and it will have you smiling and bopping your head from start to end.

Comments

Add a comment

UP NEXT 

UP NEXT 

UP NEXT 

The Peasants (2023)

DK Welchman returns to her roots in this oil-painted adaptation of the haunting Young Poland folk saga

7.6

Falling in Love Like in Movies (2023)

A contemplative Indonesian romance film that rewrites and re-examines the genre’s conventions

8.4

The Trial of the Chicago 7 (2020)

A star-studded and riveting legal drama with a blockbuster feel.

8.1

Bray Wyatt: Becoming Immortal (2024)

WWE’s best effort to pay tribute to Windham “Bray Wyatt” Rotunda

8.5

River (2023)

A delightful and ultimately life-affirming Japanese time loop comedy clearly made with love

8.8

Forgotten Love (2023)

The stunning third take of the classic Polish pre-war melodrama

7.7

The Guilty (2018)

A minimalist, razor-sharp thriller that will have you gasping for air.

9.0

Blind Date Book Club (2024)

A perfectly saccharine bookstore romance for light viewing

7.5

System Crasher (2019)

A tale of trauma and one of the most talked about movies on Netflix in 2020.

9.0

Yannick (2023)

Quentin Dupieux interrogates his audience in this hour long hostage situation

7.4

Curated by humans, not algorithms.

agmtw logo

© 2024 agoodmovietowatch, all rights reserved.