Film

The Laundromat

Name: The Laundromat
Genre: Crime, Drama, Comedy
Released: 2019
Cast: Meryl Streep, Gary Oldman, Antonio Banderas, Jeffrey Wright, Melissa Rauch

White-collar crime

Soderbergh's deliberately shapeless caper about money laundering and corruption, starring Meryl Streep as a widow on a comic crusade. It's playful and digressive, breaking format constantly, more interested in the absurdity of global finance than plot. For anyone who likes their crime stories strange and their morality messy.

TMDb rating

3.0

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you enjoy a sharp, talky satire that breaks the fourth wall to explain how money hides in plain sight, and you don't mind a story that jumps between vignettes rather than following one plot.

Skip it if you want a tightly driven thriller or an emotionally sustained drama; its restless, sketch-like structure keeps you at arm's length from the widow's grief.

What it asks of you: Roughly ninety-six minutes, it moves quickly through jokes and lectures, so you need to keep up with a lot of names, shell companies and tangled paperwork.

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

If you liked this

All the President's Men1976

Two reporters dogged enough to follow a thread to the center of power. Like The Laundromat, it's about ordinary people uncovering what the powerful would rather hide, and the satisfaction of putting pieces together.

But It's earnest and procedural where Soderbergh is playful. If you want the thriller, not the game, this delivers differently.

The Wolf of Wall Street2013

Scorsese also made a film about money, crime, and rich men breaking every rule. It's propulsive and blackly funny, driven by Leo's feral energy and a genuine rage underneath the party.

But Nearly three and a half hours, and relentless. The excess becomes the point; some find that exhausting rather than exhilarating.

Catch Me If You Can2002

Spielberg and Hanks on con men and the people chasing them. It has the same delight in the game—the geometry of the scam, the cleverness of escape—that Soderbergh clearly loves.

But It's more straightforward and sentimental. If you're after Soderbergh's formal playfulness, this is more conventionally shaped.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from The Laundromat

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

The Conversation1974

Both trace how individual conscience collapses against institutions designed to corrupt; both suggest that knowledge itself is dangerous and never protective.

Coppola's paranoid masterpiece about surveillance and the impossibility of staying clean in corrupt systems. Gene Hackman's paranoia is the mirror of Streep's determination—both caught in machinery bigger than themselves.

But Deliberately paced, from an era of cinema that rewards patience. Slow-burn doesn't work for everyone.

Network1976

Paddy Chayefsky's furious satire of systems that corrupt everyone who touches them. Anchored by Faye Dunaway, it's sharp and strange and genuinely enraged about how money warps institutions.

But Feels dated in its aesthetics. The anger is timeless but the 1970s trappings can put modern viewers at a distance.

A Prophet2009

A young man navigates systems designed to destroy him—prison, crime, the machinery of survival. It shares The Laundromat's fascination with how corruption functions at every level.

But It's bleak and brutal where The Laundromat is playful. Completely different tones, though the anatomy of criminality overlaps.

The Big Short2015

McKay's manic take on the 2008 financial collapse—it breaks format, addresses the camera, uses every trick in the book to make abstraction concrete. The DNA is similar to Soderbergh's approach here.

But The formal games can feel gimmicky if you're not already sold on the style. Some viewers find it tries too hard to make finance entertaining.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy2011

Gary Oldman (here too) in le Carré's vision of intelligence work as bureaucratic fog. Slow, controlled, more interested in atmosphere than momentum—a different approach to the same world of hidden systems.

But Very quiet and very patient. Some will find it glacial after Soderbergh's restless energy.

Ocean's Eleven2001

Soderbergh's own caper, lighter in tone but recognizably the same director—elegant, playful, more about the pleasure of the con than moral seriousness.

But Basically a different film entirely. If you want to understand Soderbergh's range, watch both, but this won't scratch the itch The Laundromat creates.

The Billion Dollar Code2021

Both show how modern criminality hides in plain sight behind incorporation and jurisdiction; both suggest that the real game is never the crime itself but the legal structures that make it vanish.

A three-part German series about artists suing Google over IP theft. Meticulous, focused, about how wealth transfers from creators to platforms through legal fog and sheer institutional inertia.

But Deliberately slow and procedural. No style, no performance fireworks—just the anatomy of how the powerful stay powerful through law and bureaucracy.