menu_open Columnists
We use cookies to provide some features and experiences in QOSHE

More information  .  Close

Anthony Bourdain would have hated his own biopic

12 0
12.08.2026

Reviews Lifestyle The New Sober Boom Getting Hooked on Quitting Education Liberal Arts Cuts Are Dangerous Is College Necessary? Finance Dying Parents Costing Millennials Dear Gen Z Investing In Le Creuset Crypto Investing SEC vs Celebrity Crypto Promoters ‘Dark’ Personalities Drawn to BTC

Lifestyle The New Sober Boom Getting Hooked on Quitting

Getting Hooked on Quitting

Education Liberal Arts Cuts Are Dangerous Is College Necessary?

Liberal Arts Cuts Are Dangerous

Is College Necessary?

Finance Dying Parents Costing Millennials Dear Gen Z Investing In Le Creuset

Dying Parents Costing Millennials Dear

Gen Z Investing In Le Creuset

Crypto Investing SEC vs Celebrity Crypto Promoters ‘Dark’ Personalities Drawn to BTC

Investing SEC vs Celebrity Crypto Promoters ‘Dark’ Personalities Drawn to BTC

SEC vs Celebrity Crypto Promoters

‘Dark’ Personalities Drawn to BTC

Reviews Lifestyle The New Sober Boom Getting Hooked on Quitting Education Liberal Arts Cuts Are Dangerous Is College Necessary? Finance Dying Parents Costing Millennials Dear Gen Z Investing In Le Creuset Crypto Investing SEC vs Celebrity Crypto Promoters ‘Dark’ Personalities Drawn to BTC

Lifestyle The New Sober Boom Getting Hooked on Quitting

Getting Hooked on Quitting

Education Liberal Arts Cuts Are Dangerous Is College Necessary?

Liberal Arts Cuts Are Dangerous

Is College Necessary?

Finance Dying Parents Costing Millennials Dear Gen Z Investing In Le Creuset

Dying Parents Costing Millennials Dear

Gen Z Investing In Le Creuset

Crypto Investing SEC vs Celebrity Crypto Promoters ‘Dark’ Personalities Drawn to BTC

Investing SEC vs Celebrity Crypto Promoters ‘Dark’ Personalities Drawn to BTC

SEC vs Celebrity Crypto Promoters

‘Dark’ Personalities Drawn to BTC

Anthony Bourdain would have hated his own biopic

Matt Johnson's uninspired "Tony" confines Bourdain to the public's imagination. It sorely lacks Bourdain's depth

Published August 12, 2026 12:00PM (EDT)

Director Matt Johnson’s latest feature, “Tony” — a biopic following a young Anthony Bourdain (Dominic Sessa) through his first kitchen experience, slinging cheap fish in a Provincetown greasy spoon — exists inside a quote. The film opens with a pull from Bourdain’s beloved pseudo-memoir, “Kitchen Confidential,” in which Bourdain reminisces about his 19-year-old self, trolling around Cape Cod trying to impress a girl and become a writer, with zero experience doing either. “I was — to be frank — a spoiled, miserable, narcissistic, self-destructive and thoughtless young lout, and badly in need of a good ass-kicking,” Bourdain writes early in the book. 

From the jump, it’s hard to shake the feeling that “Tony” is mistakenly aligning itself with the public’s idea of Bourdain rather than the man’s reality. When I think of Anthony Bourdain, I think of two people. The first is the enigmatic yet ultimately unknowable chef, whose charm and good nature sometimes dulled a cloud of unmistakable darkness to the eyes of the public; the second is the idealistic version of Bourdain, who exists........

© Salon