Film

My Dinner with Andre

Name: My Dinner with Andre
Genre: Drama, Comedy
Released: 1981
Cast: Andre Gregory, Wallace Shawn, Jean Lenauer, Roy Butler, Cindy Lou Adkins

Two old friends meet for dinner in Manhattan and talk. That's the whole film — no subplot, no crisis, just Andre's cosmic parables and Wally's dry skepticism circling each other over wine and quail. It's a movie for people who like being in a room with two smart, self-absorbed men arguing about what a life is for, and don't need much else to happen.

TMDb rating

7.5

If you liked this

Before Sunrise1995

Two strangers talk their way through a night in Vienna, and the whole film runs on the same fuel as Andre's dinner: two people convincing each other, and themselves, that this conversation matters.

But It's romantic where Andre is skeptical — if you wanted the film's chillier, more argumentative register, this is softer.

Sideways2004

Two friends on a wine trip, one a failed romantic and one a pompous fraud, hash out disappointment and self-delusion over meal after meal — Wally and Andre with more Pinot and self-pity.

But It's funnier and sadder in a more conventional Hollywood way; the philosophy is buried under plot and slapstick.

Coffee and Cigarettes2004

Jarmusch's anthology of strangers and friends talking over coffee, in short bursts rather than one long haul — same theory that a table and a conversation are enough to build a movie on.

But Fragmented rather than sustained; you lose the slow accumulation that makes Andre's monologues land.

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Waking Life2001

Same premise — conversation as the entire engine of the film — but traded for hand-drawn, morphing animation instead of a static restaurant booth, so the ideas literally become unstable and visual.

A man drifts through a rotoscoped dream, falling into one philosophical conversation after another about consciousness, fate and reality — Andre's monologues set loose from the dinner table and set on fire visually.

But No plot, no relationship anchor, and the shifting animation style can feel disorienting rather than grounding.

Manhattan1979

Woody Allen's black-and-white New York is full of people exactly like Wally and Andre — articulate, neurotic, endlessly discussing art, love and their own importance.

But More plot, more romance, more jokes at everyone's expense — Allen's persona can grate if you're not already fond of it.

12 Angry Men1957

Proof that a single room and pure talk can carry unbearable tension — no dinner, no friendship, just men arguing themselves into who they really are.

But It's a moral thriller with a verdict at the end, not a meandering philosophical hang; the stakes are external, not internal.

Frost/Nixon2008

Another two-man verbal duel, this one with history riding on it — watch how much can be won or lost purely through what's said across a table.

But It's a thriller dressed as conversation; the tension is plotted and escalating, not loose and digressive like Andre's.

Locke2014

Tom Hardy alone in a car, talking his way through a single night on the phone — an even more extreme experiment in whether voice and text alone can hold a film together.

But No second person in the room, no back-and-forth chemistry — it's a monologue with phone calls, colder and lonelier.

My Night at Maud's1969no page yet

Rohmer's talkiest film: a man spends one long night arguing philosophy, religion and desire with a woman he's just met, in the same unhurried, sentence-by-sentence way Andre unspools his stories.

But French, black-and-white, and even less interested in plot — a real test of patience if Andre already felt slow.

Slacker1990

Linklater's day-in-the-life wander through Austin, hopping between strangers mid-conversation, shares Andre's faith that talk itself — however rambling — is worth filming.

But No central relationship, no arc, just drift — it can feel more like eavesdropping than storytelling.

The Trip2011

Structurally identical: two men, a string of meals, a real-life creative partnership being tested through conversation — just with the sincerity dialled down and the comic cruelty dialled way up.

Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon eat their way across northern England, needling each other about ego, failure and who's actually funnier, in restaurant scene after restaurant scene of pure competitive talk.

But It's genuinely a comedy — improvised, petty, frequently absurd — where Andre stays composed and philosophical even at its most heated.

Journey to Italy1954

An earlier film making the same bet — that sustained, unshowy conversation between two people can carry an entire feature — but aimed at marital despair instead of two friends debating how to live.

A married couple drive through Italy, and their conversations — sniping, distant, occasionally raw — slowly reveal a marriage running out of road, decades before Malle made talk itself a film's whole subject.

But It's slower, sadder, and rooted in a crumbling marriage rather than a friendship reunion — no wit to cushion the disillusionment.