Synecdoche, New York

2008 Directed by Charlie Kaufman

A theater director struggles with his work, and the women in his life, as he attempts to create a life-size replica of New York inside a warehouse as part of his new play.

Philip Seymour Hoffman Samantha Morton Jennifer Jason Leigh Michelle Williams Catherine Keener Emily Watson Tom Noonan Sadie Goldstein Hope Davis Dianne Wiest Kristen Bush Alice Drummond Amy Wright Deirdre O'Connell Elizabeth Marvel Charles Techman Tom Greer Josh Pais Lynn Cohen Jerry Adler Daisy Tahan Frank Girardeau Peter Friedman Daniel London Robert Seay Stephen Adly Guirgis Joe Lisi Michael Medeiros Christopher Evan Welch Show All…

Alternative Titles

紐約浮世繪, New York, Iscenesat, Kis-nagy világ, 纽约提喻法, Нью-Йорк, Нью-Йорк

drama

124 mins More details at IMDb TMDb Report this film

Popular reviews

Review by Lucy ★★★★★ 49

“the end is built into the beginning”
the most ridiculous thing about living is that childhood is its own eternity and then suddenly you’re an adult. time moves faster and faster and life is sectioned off into sleeping eating working blinking repeating, and deja vu happens more and more. i forget what day of the week it is all the time. i sleep until after 5pm some days just because i can. i can go into a store and buy whatever they’ll let me and whatever i have the money for. nothing means anything but also everything means something. i work so hard and get paid almost nothing. i stare into space between customers and think of being somewhere else.…
Review by Karsten Runquist ★★★★★ 52

Watched this morning and have since been going back, rewatching scenes, figuring out how to write this review, and reading up on some other people's takes. This film is much bigger and more personal than...anything I've seen in my life. To summarize everything I have to say about this and everything it meant to me in one review would be absolutely silly. Will probably be making a video on it soon, but even that won't do it justice. Something (many things) about this film is too powerful, too personal, and too honest for me to put into words. Sometimes you just know when you've seen the best movie you've ever seen, that's what happened with Synecdoche, New York. Why am I so sad?
Review by Adam Cook ★★★★★ 38

This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

**NOTE: This is less a review and more a rough analysis of the film so please do not read if you have yet to see the film.**
I think this will be Kaufman's Eyes Wide Shut in that it won't get the recognition it truly deserves for at least ten years. Synecdoche, New York is pure cinema. No other medium could possibly attempt to tell this story. It would be largely incomprehensible as a novel and too bogged down in detail to have any real emotional resonance. Whilst no theatre could do justice to the scale the story demands or unfold in such a unique time frame.
I appreciate that the film won’t be for everyone but I just fell…
Review by Lucy ★★★★★ 5

someone, eventually: why do u like this movie so much
me: i have depression
Review by brat pitt ★★★★ 20

i need to think about this film for at least 3 years before understanding it enough to be able to write any cohesive thoughts on it
Review by DirkH ★★★★★ 34

This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

This is Charlie Kaufman's crowning achievement. It is not only his best film to date, it is one of the best films I have ever seen.
I rarely come across films anymore that manage to ensnare me in a narrative so disjointed, yet so enthralling I cannot help but be absorbed by it wholly. This film stretches the medium to its limits in a non-obfuscating way that is refreshing, unique and despite the deep layers it possesses, accessible in so far that there is an appealing and universal truth at the surface of it all.
Creation is art is life.
Kaufman's story has to be a film. It was created purposefully for it and he understands the medium so well.…
Review by katie ★★½ 29

damn charlie kaufman pick a struggle
Review by YI JIAN ★★★★★ 23

Get busy living, or get busy dying.
Weeks lost in one cut, years lost between scenes, lives lost in a blink of an eye. Time is slipping through our fingers. You may mind your own problems, sort your own miseries as if they are the only thing in this world worthy of your attention. You may play pretend; pretend you are a fairy, or an actor, or an actor playing an actor playing an actor. Set a daily routine for yourself as a distraction from the fact that we are all hurtling towards death. Still, before you know it, reality will catch up with you. You will suddenly wake up on what soon to be your own deathbed and realize…
Review by Wes ★★★★★

"Most of your time is spent being dead or not yet born. But while alive, you wait in vain, wasting years, for a phone call or a letter or a look from someone or something to make it all right. And it never comes or it seems to but it doesn't really. And so you spend your time in vague regret or vaguer hope that something good will come along. Something to make you feel connected, something to make you feel whole, something to make you feel loved. And the truth is I feel so angry, and the truth is I feel so fucking sad, and the truth is I've felt so fucking hurt for so fucking long and for…
Review by SilentDawn ★★★★★ 8

Synecdoche, New York is baffling, weird, effusive, intoxicating, honest, and utterly perfect. It transcends the expectations of a mere film and conjures up something tangible and heartbreaking, lonely and imaginative, hopeful and yearning. Charlie Kaufman's vision rips into your soul and sets up camp, hitting your tear ducts and playing your heartstrings as every line of poetic whimsy and cosmic wit sends your state further down into different phases of confusion and awe.
Saying that this film is a keeper is an understatement, but if you asked me what it all meant, I would respond with a guffaw to end all guffaws. All I know is that I was a weeping mess by the end of it, I was fascinated…
Review by matt lynch ★★★ 3

Conceptually complicated, thematically rich, structurally audacious, and often bleakly funny, and still I find it as suffocating and unforgiving as Charlie Kaufman appears to find his own life.
Review by Evan ★★★★★ 5

Synecdoche, New York is a film that must be experienced by everyone. If you have yet to see this movie, I suggest you stop what you're doing and watch it now. Philip Seymour Hoffman truly was one of, if not the best actor of this generation. You're presence will forever be missed, RIP.

Recent reviews

Review by Dothechacha ★★★★½

?????
Review by youngthugsdad ★★★½

i’d probably rate this higher if it was easier to digest. a lot of heavy stuff in here, and not easily understandable. by no means does that make it a bad movie, just not my taste.
Review by Jukka Kuva ★★★★½

Synecdoche, New York is the story of a theater director who struggles with various things in his life, including possibly mortal sickness, his wife and daughter moving abroad and the problems of creating a life size replica of New York inside a warehouse.
This is Charlie Kaufman's directorial debut and it's by far his most daring and ambitious movie yet. Much in the footsteps of David Lynch but still in his completely own way, Kaufman throws away all traditional narration logic and builds a logic of his own for the movie. The result is mesmerising, profound and quite incomprehensible.
This is a movie viewed through the protagonist's mental illness. Or it's just some musings about the meaning of life and…
Review by poopjeans ★★★★★

every time i watch this movie, i find something new to fixate on. this time i found myself thinking about the scene about ten minutes into the movie where caden explains plumbing to his young daughter, olive, by relating it to the concept of veins in the body. olive starts to freak out, yelling “i have blood? i don’t want blood! i don’t want blood!” to which her mother goes “you don’t have to worry, you don’t have blood.” olive, of course, has blood.
so often, we try to find ways to worry about and avoid being human. it’s why caden digs through his shit but pisses blood like it’s nothing. we’re children and we’re told we don’t have blood, and, in the blink of an eye, we’re a grownup, a father, an old cleaning lady, dead.
Review by carpcarpcarp ★★★★★

Beautiful. No piece of media has ever explored sonder as well as this.
Review by olivia 🍓 ★★★

if you asked me to explain what happened in this film... i literally couldn’t tell you.
Review by anyamezhonova ★★★★★

Everything is everything. Cinematography at its gravest. But why does this film give so much hope? Nobody is special, everyone is everyone.
Exhale, live your life, die.
Review by Solid_Snake ★★★★

Synecdoche, New York certainly wasn’t what I was expecting. Sure, art film that follows a neurotic character who’s relationship are always failing like clockwork, while death is always following them. But, a film that attempts to expand that neurotic mans anxieties into a world where who he is becomes a theory, one that’s always more simple to crack, but one that he simply will not allow to be understood. This character dynamic already makes the film painfully difficult to watch.
Do I think this is a good film? Yeah, actually I think this is great. Kaufman really is at his most manic? (Seems like the right word lol), and for some reason, this obviously watched the self-description of Caden, who is…
Review by Jackson Codiga ★★★★½

The end is built into the beginning. What can you do?
Review by Cristian Uriostegui ★★★★

*extremely E News voice* OK so in conclusion I’m NOT going to upstate New York! hahah!
*puts down mic with a big E on it* Jokes aside the first half of this movie was really good/funny and the second half was also incredible but SUCH a bummer to the point that I couldn’t connect with it. Maybe my life has just been too awesome.
Like oh OK everybody dies?? That’s sucks got it....
Oh so they die and they’re dead? Whoa yeah definitely that’s crazy, man.
So they die and they rot? *looking at my iPad* What a new and interesting uhh perspective.
All of the ideas about specificity in art and memory and projection were really amazing to see embodied visually. I totally get why this bombed at the BO (box office) tho. It’s too ahead of it’s time! A true piece of life encompassing art. Is anyone still reading? *slides my flaccid penis into an M&M Minis tube*
Review by lowshoulder

I could not tell you what this movie about. I will have to watch it twice before I can give it a rating
Review by Joshua T. Ruth ★★★★★

It’s those racing thoughts, fears and fantasies you have in your most vulnerable, private and desperate moments splattered on screen. This film envelops you.