Back to trending
I Used to Be Funny

I Used to Be Funny

Drama · Comedy · 2024

Sam, an aspiring stand-up comedian and au pair struggling with PTSD, weighs whether to join the search for Brooke, a missing teenage girl she used to nanny. As she fights to recover from her trauma and return to the stage, memories of her deep bond with Brooke rush back—making it impossible to ignore her disappearance.

Movie details

I Used to Be Funny

2024 Drama · Comedy 1h 46m

Critical arithmetic

One number, for now.

TMDB

6.7 / 10

Community rating

Sam, an aspiring stand-up comedian and au pair struggling with PTSD, weighs whether to join the search for Brooke, a missing teenage girl she used to nanny. As she fights to recover from her trauma and return to the stage, memories of her deep bond with Brooke rush back—making it impossible to ignore her disappearance.

CriticWise case file

What this film says about your taste.

Not a recommendation score. A measure of how closely the film’s taste signals resemble yours.

The archetype split

Who fights over I Used to Be Funny?

The split comes from the same five-axis model used by the test, not audience ratings or review sentiment.

Taste neighbourhood

Nearby on the taste map.

TMDB supplies the candidates. CriticWise reorders them by craft, strangeness, prestige, emotion, and pace.

Tully

Tully

Comedy · 2018

Marlo, a mother of three, including a newborn, is gifted a night nanny by her brother. Hesitant at first, she quickly forms a bond with the thoughtful, surprising, and sometimes challenging nanny named Tully.

Where'd You Go, Bernadette

Where'd You Go, Bernadette

Comedy · 2019

When architect-turned-recluse Bernadette Fox goes missing prior to a family trip to Antarctica, her 15-year-old daughter, Bee, goes on a quest with Bernadette's husband to find her.

I Like Movies

I Like Movies

Comedy · 2023

Socially inept 17-year-old cinephile Lawrence Kweller gets a job at a video store, where he forms a complicated friendship with his older female manager.

Instant Family

Instant Family

Comedy · 2018

When Pete and Ellie decide to start a family, they stumble into the world of foster care adoption. They hope to take in one small child but when they meet three siblings, including a rebellious 15 year old girl, they find themselves speeding from zero to three kids overnight.

Paradise

Paradise

Drama · 1991

A 10-year-old boy spends a summer in the country with a childless couple and a precocious girl.

Fatherhood

Fatherhood

Drama · 2021

A widowed new dad copes with doubts, fears, heartache and dirty diapers as he sets out to raise his daughter on his own. Inspired by a true story.

Come from Away

Come from Away

Comedy · 2021

Filmed live on Broadway, the Tony Award-winning musical tells the remarkable true story of 38 flights grounded in a small Canadian town on September 11, 2001. As the locals host these “come from aways,” they come together and find hope.

Starving in Suburbia

Starving in Suburbia

Drama · 2014

When seventeen-year-old Hannah stumbles upon a website about Thinspiration--an online community devoted to anorexia as a life choice--she becomes an obsessive follower of the site founder, ButterflyAna. By the time Hannah's family realizes what is happening and get Hannah the help she needs, the disease has fully taken hold and Hannah is refusing to eat. Will this family be able to exorcise the demon of anorexia from their lives?

SubUrbia

SubUrbia

Comedy · 1997

A group of suburban teenagers try to support each other through the difficult task of becoming adults.

A Taste of Honey

A Taste of Honey

Drama · 1961

While out to avoid spending time with her narcissistic and promiscuous mother, sixteen-year-old Jo has a brief affair that leaves her pregnant and abandoned. When her mother remarries, Jo's only support becomes her friend Geoffrey, a homosexual.

Where it lives

Watch in your region.

Cinema release signals and current streaming, rental, and purchase options for your region.

Streaming availability data supplied by JustWatch.

Names above the title

The people responsible.

Directed by

Ally Pankiw

Written by

Ally Pankiw

Rachel Sennott

Rachel Sennott

Sam Cowell

Olga Petsa

Olga Petsa

Brooke Renner

Jason Jones

Jason Jones

Cameron Renner

Sabrina Jalees

Sabrina Jalees

Paige

Caleb Hearon

Caleb Hearon

Philip

Ennis Esmer

Ennis Esmer

Noah

Dani Kind

Dani Kind

Jill

Court is in session

Put I Used to Be Funny on trial.

Two incompatible taste archetypes. One film. Read the arguments, then issue a completely binding cultural ruling.

The defence The Prestige Tourist

“Sincerity is not manipulation.”

The film risks embarrassment to make emotion communal, and that openness is harder than fashionable detachment.

The prosecution The Popcorn Loyalist

“The strings are showing.”

Every cue tells you exactly what to feel and when, leaving sentiment to do the work character should have done.