Film

STILL: A Michael J. Fox Movie

Name: STILL: A Michael J. Fox Movie
Genre: Documentary
Released: 2023
Cast: Michael J. Fox, Tracy Pollan, Sam Fox, Aquinnah Fox, Schuyler Fox

Biopic

Michael J. Fox's documentary explores his improbable rise to '80s stardom and his life since a 1991 Parkinson's diagnosis at thirty. It's warm, unsentimental, and funny—Fox's own voice and perspective throughout. For anyone moved by resilience without melodrama, or curious about a public figure's private reckoning with mortality and purpose.

TMDb rating

3.9

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you want an intimate, candid look at a life and a marriage held together by humour and stubbornness, and you don't mind your heart being worked over along the way.

Skip it if you want a tidy career retrospective with plenty of clips; this one wanders, and its loose rhythm may test your patience.

What it asks of you: Ninety-five minutes of unhurried, mostly quiet conversation, where the pauses matter as much as the lines; it lands softly rather than shouting, and it rewards stillness.

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

If you liked this

Won't You Be My Neighbor?2018

A portrait of Fred Rogers' life and philosophy that finds profound meaning in everyday kindness. Like Still, it's a documentary about a beloved figure that respects the audience's intelligence and the subject's genuine depth.

But Fred Rogers' gentle philosophy might feel too earnest if you're in the mood for something sharp or confrontational.

The Toys That Made Us2017

Celebrates the cultural moment that made Fox a household name. Pairs beautifully with Still as a companion piece—here's the external mythology, there's his internal truth.

But It's Netflix pop-history fluff: entertaining but shallow, more nostalgia hit than genuine insight.

Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution2020

A disability documentary that reframes history and identity. Shares Still's refusal to treat disability as tragedy, finding agency and joy within real constraint.

But Focuses on activism and politics in ways Still doesn't; if you want pure personal memoir, this adds a manifesto.

Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution poster

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from STILL: A Michael J. Fox Movie

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

A Ghost Story2017

Both examine continuity and meaning in the face of finitude, but where Still is documentary and conversational, this is abstract and elegiac.

Casey Affleck as a ghost observing time, loss, and what remains. It's a film about presence and absence, about watching life continue without you, rendered in a completely different register. Thematically it shadows Still—both ask what persists when the body fails.

But It's experimental, slow, and deeply strange; there's a famous scene of eating pie that has confused or alienated many viewers. Not a conventional narrative.

Becoming2020

Michelle Obama's documentary has a similar architecture—intimate family footage, reflection on public life, the private self behind the icon. Both refuse to separate personal from political identity.

But It's more polished and less rough-edged than Still, which some find more honest and others find colder.

Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain2021

Morgan Neville's meditation on a charismatic public figure grappling with inner turmoil. Both films use archive and reflection to ask who we really are beneath the persona.

But It's elegiac and sometimes devastating; if you want uplift, this is the wrong choice. Also structurally more fragmented than Still.

Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain poster

RBG2018

A portrait of Ruth Bader Ginsburg's life and work that respects both her public legacy and private humanity. Like Still, it finds strength in the intersection of personal conviction and public service.

But It's respectful to the point of reverence; there's less of the wry self-aware humor that makes Still so warm.

The Farewell2019

Both refuse the tragedy frame and find humor in mortality; both center the patient's voice and autonomy rather than the sympathy of others.

Lulu Wang's film about a family gathering around a terminal diagnosis, told with comedy and tenderness. It approaches illness as a communal rather than solitary experience—where Still is Fox's reckoning, this is everyone's.

But It's a narrative film that dramatizes, rather than documents; the cultural specificity (Chinese-American family dynamics) may feel distant from your own experience.

The Wages of Fear1953

Both are about identity under duress: what remains when your assumed future is impossible, and whether you can build a different one.

Clouzot's masterpiece about men driving dynamite trucks across impossible terrain. It's about competence under pressure, about the gap between image and reality, about what you discover about yourself when everything is at stake. The thematic DNA connects to Still's core question: who are you when your body betrays the narrative you've built?

But It's a 1950s French thriller with no interest in sentiment or uplift; it's tense and cynical. Also, no connection to Fox or his world—purely formal and philosophical.