Film

My Week with Marilyn

Name: My Week with Marilyn
Genre: Drama, Romance
Released: 2011
Cast: Michelle Williams, Kenneth Branagh, Eddie Redmayne, Dominic Cooper, Philip Jackson

Period drama

A tactful, melancholic portrait of a week in 1956 when young film enthusiast Colin Clark befriended Marilyn Monroe on a London film set. The film catches Monroe as a woman—anxious, intelligent, achingly lonely—rather than a symbol, and finds unexpected tenderness in a brief human connection. For anyone moved by stories about the gap between public radiance and private fracture.

TMDb rating

3.4

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you want a backstage comedy-drama about film-making egos, where a fragile star and a pampered director make a young observer's first job both thrilling and sad.

Skip it if you need a plot that drives forward, since this is a loosely strung-together run of shoot-day moments paced by moods more than by story.

What it asks of you: Under two hours, unhurried and light on its feet, it spends its time watching people wobble between charm and cruelty, the mood airier than the stakes.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

The Prince and the Showgirl1957

Watch the actual film that brings this story to life—the one Colin Clark helped make. Seeing Olivier and Monroe together on screen, knowing what we now know about that fraught week, adds a layer of poignancy that retrospective knowledge alone can't provide.

But It's a lightweight romantic comedy by 1950s standards, and the narrative sometimes feels creaky. Monroe's brilliance shines through, but the film itself isn't particularly daring.

Atomic Blonde2017

An ambitious, formally inventive portrait of Monroe's entire life as experienced through her own fractured consciousness. Treats her with the complexity and seriousness that 'My Week' only gestures toward, and Ana de Armas delivers a career-best performance of devastating depth.

But It's unrelentingly bleak, sexually graphic, and sometimes uses experimental technique in ways that feel self-conscious. At nearly three hours, it demands emotional stamina.

All About Eve1950

Laurence Olivier wasn't in it, but this is the film that defines the golden age of Hollywood acting and ambition. It's incisive, funny, and features career-making performances in a story about theatre and ego that echoes the tensions at the heart of 'My Week.'

But The pacing is deliberate and talky—it's a film for people who love watching actors act, not for those who need constant forward momentum.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from My Week with Marilyn

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Unfaithful2002

Both films understand that the most dangerous performances are the ones we give in private moments, and both suggest that authenticity itself might be a kind of fiction.

Adrian Lyne's film about desire, performance, and the gap between a public persona and private appetite. It shares 'My Week's fascination with beautiful women performing versions of themselves, but approaches the material with erotic sophistication and moral ambiguity rather than tenderness.

But It's a contemporary thriller rather than a period piece, and some viewers find it exploitative rather than insightful. The sexuality is explicit.

The Asphalt Jungle1950

Monroe's first significant film role, a brief appearance that nonetheless demonstrates her natural charm and comedic timing. Watching her before she became 'Marilyn Monroe' offers crucial context for understanding what she's carrying in 'My Week.'

But It's a heist noir, and Monroe's bit part can feel incidental to the main story. The film is good but her presence is secondary.

Some Like It Hot1959

Perhaps Monroe's best film, directed by Billy Wilder with a script that actually serves her talents. If you want to understand what Monroe could do when given proper material, this is the answer. Hilarious and surprisingly touching.

But It's very much a product of its era in how it handles gender and sexuality—some of the comedy landing depends on premises that feel dated now.

A Star Is Born1954

Judy Garland's masterpiece about ambition, fame, and the machinery that grinds people down. The emotional architecture is similar to 'My Week'—watching someone brilliant be consumed by the system that created them.

But It's nearly three hours and emotionally exhausting. Garland's performance is raw to the point of being uncomfortable at times.

The Killing1956

Made the same year as 'The Prince and the Showgirl,' this Kubrick film captures the creative ferment of mid-1950s cinema. A reminder that while Monroe was on one London set, cinema itself was being remade by directors who took narrative risks she was rarely allowed to take.

But It's a relatively obscure noir that requires attention. Not a comfort watch, and its pleasures are intellectual rather than immediately visceral.

Singin' in the Rain1952

The ultimate film-about-filmmaking, and a reminder of how Hollywood created its own mythology. Brilliant, joyful, and full of the behind-the-scenes intrigue and show business desperation that gives 'My Week' its texture.

But It's a musical, which automatically excludes people who don't want to watch people burst into song. The gender politics are also pretty dated.

Sunset Boulevard1950

The darkest possible meditation on stardom, celebrity, and the wreckage left behind. If 'My Week' makes you think about the human cost of Monroe's fame, this film will make you sit alone in silence afterward.

But It's genuinely bleak and offers no comfort. The film itself is deliberately ugly in its portrait of Hollywood, which is the point but not everyone's idea of entertainment.

Raging Bull1980

Both films refuse to separate the artist from the person, showing us how greatness and toxicity are sometimes inseparable—but where 'My Week' mourns the collision, 'Raging Bull' makes us feel it physically.

Scorsese's black-and-white portrait of Jake LaMotta, a man brilliant at his craft but a catastrophe as a human being. It shares 'My Week's interest in genius and damage, but transforms the genteel period drama into something visceral, violent, and formally uncompromising.

But It's a brutalist film about a brutish man. The boxing scenes are punishing, the character is often detestable, and there's no sentimentality to ease the difficulty.