A24 has unveiled "Tony," a biographical comedy-drama that casts Dominic Sessa as a 19-year-old Anthony Bourdain spending the summer of 1975 working in a Provincetown, Massachusetts seafood restaurant before college. The film is directed and co-written by Matt Johnson, whose previous work includes the tech-world satire "BlackBerry." Reviews landed across major trade publications in late July and early August 2026.

Deadline published its review on 4 August 2026, offering a first look at Sessa's turn as the man who would become one of the most recognised food and travel personalities on television (Deadline). Variety ran its review on 30 July, calling the film "a tasty biopic about the young Anthony Bourdain" and describing Sessa's work as his "first movie-star performance" (Variety). IndieWire weighed in the same day with its take on what it called a "briny Anthony Bourdain coming-of-age" movie (IndieWire).

Sessa broke through in Alexander Payne's "The Holdovers" (2023), where he played a prep-school student left behind over the Christmas holidays. In "Tony," he portrays a teenage Bourdain meant to appear out of his depth — a young man not yet the worldly chef audiences came to know from "No Reservations" and "Parts Unknown."

The ensemble around Sessa is packed. Antonio Banderas plays a chef credited simply as "Chef." Emilia Jones, the star of "CODA," plays Nancy, Bourdain's high school crush. Leo Woodall, seen in "The White Lotus" and "One Day," plays a character named Sal. Rich Sommer and Dagmara Dominiezyk play Bourdain's parents. The cast rounds out with Stavros Halkias as Dmitri, Monica Raymund as Mary, and Michael Jirkin as Tyrone (Deadline; The Hollywood Reporter).

Banderas's involvement was confirmed in April 2025, with Deadline reporting he would co-star opposite Sessa (Deadline). Sessa had been attached to the project as early as August 2024, when the film was set up at Star Thrower and acquired by A24 (Deadline). Star Thrower and Zapruder Films produce alongside A24 (Deadline).

The first trailer arrived in May 2026, giving audiences their first glimpse of Sessa in character (Deadline; The Hollywood Reporter).

Johnson took an unusual approach to the material. According to Deadline, the director had not read Bourdain's breakout memoir "Kitchen Confidential" nor watched any of his television shows before making the film. Bourdain himself, who died by suicide in 2018 at age 61, once described his younger self as "a spoiled, miserable, narcissistic, self destructive, thoughtless young lout."

For context, Bourdain's career arc made him a singular figure. The brash chef turned memoirist turned globe-trotting host reshaped how millions of people thought about food and the cultures behind it. That a director would skip the books and shows that made Bourdain famous, and instead focus on one sweaty, formative summer in a fish kitchen, is the creative choice that gives "Tony" its shape — though whether the approach lands is for the reviewers to argue and audiences to decide.

The film sits at the intersection of two trends the industry is watching closely: the appetite for biopics about well-known cultural figures, and A24's continued push into films built around rising young actors. Whether "Tony" finds the audience that met Bourdain through his books and programmes is a question the release — and its word of mouth — will answer.