‘Funny and tender’ mind-bending film on Netflix ahead of its time – 94% rating | Films | Entertainment

The wait for series three of Severance is on. The blockbuster Apple TV show returned with a triumph this year as critics and fans alike raved about the second instalment about the “mysterious and important” work of Lumon Industries.

Hopefully the wait won’t last three years this time, but for fans of Severance craving something delivering on the same clever, trippy, and heartbreaking notes as the show, there’s a film streaming on Netflix for you. The Truman Show was before its time in many ways. The 1998 satire stars Jim Carrey as a man who discovers his entire life has been a 24-hour reality TV programme.

The Truman Show is what happens when its unwitting star discovers the shocking truth about his white picket life — including the rapt audience of millions that have been watching the entire time.

Even though it deals with an earth-shattering lie, the film is still funny and as heartfelt as it is thought-provoking.

And for viewers craving an original story, the film is neither based on a book or a sequel.

What people say about The Truman Show

The film is a hit with critics and viewers. It’s certified fresh on Rotten Tomatoes with a stellar 94% rating from critics and 89% from over 250,000 audience member ratings.

“A funny, tender, and thought-provoking film, The Truman Show is all the more noteworthy for its remarkably prescient vision of runaway celebrity culture and a nation with an insatiable thirst for the private details of ordinary lives,” reads the critical consensus.

It’s arguably one of Jim Carrey’s best performances, with the actor netting a Golden Globe for ‘Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama’.

The Guardian’s 1998 review of the film dubbed the actor “impressive in deftly satirical comedy” noting the role was a blend of “Cliff Richard’s wholesome grin, Jerry Lewis’s comic energy and Anthony Perkins’s spooky mildness”.

A 2024 review from The Highlander said: “Through Truman’s mannerisms from start to finish, Carrey truly excels in the main character role as his mannerisms along with his gradual realization that he is living in a simulated reality. Carrey has been known for many great performances, but this is one of his best.”

Co-star Ed Harris, who played the creator and director of The Truman Show, also won a Golden Globe.

The Truman Show’s enduring legacy

Although it’s a 27-year-old film, its themes of exploitative media, voracious audiences, and surveillance culture eeriely resonate in 2025.

At the time of its release in 1998, reality TV hadn’t hit its heyday — Big Brother US and UK debuted in 2000 — but it foreshadowed the age of reality TV and social media culture.

The film was a global box office hit as well as a critical success that garnered three Academy Award nominations.

When the film turned 25, its director Peter Weir told BBC Culture he didn’t expect it would be so ahead of its time: “I had no idea the tsunami of reality TV lay just below the horizon.”

He is still surprised about the film’s “enduring” relevance: “It seems to appeal to a young audience which is unusual for a film older than they are.”