The Birdcage

"Come as you are."

1996 1h 59m EN

👍

7.0

SOLID

★7.0TMDB · 1,429

ComedyRomance

Synopsis

Spoiler shield

A gay cabaret owner and his drag queen partner agree to put up a false heterosexual front so that their son can introduce them to his fiancée's conservative parents.

“Come as you are.”

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Cast

Robin Williams
Armand Goldman
Gene Hackman
Senator Kevin Keeley
Nathan Lane
Albert
Dianne Wiest
Louise Keeley
Dan Futterman
Val Goldman
Calista Flockhart
Barbara Keeley
Hank Azaria
Agador
Christine Baranski
Katharine Archer

Credits

Behind the camera

Director: Mike Nichols
Writers: Elaine May, Francis Veber, Marcello Danon
Languages: French, English
Countries: United States of America

Want more? Switch to Cinephile mode in the header for DP, composer, budget, box office, production companies, keywords, and release history.

Did you know?

Fun facts 🍿

1 / 8

MONEY

Did you know

Made its money back 6.0× over at the box office.

MoodPlayr · trivia#01

2 / 8

ERA

Did you know

30 years old — old enough to be someone's favourite childhood film.

MoodPlayr · trivia#02

3 / 8

WORLD

Did you know

Dialogue crosses 2 languages: French, English.

MoodPlayr · trivia#03

4 / 8

CAST

Did you know

277+ people credited in cast and crew — a small city's worth of labour.

MoodPlayr · trivia#04

5 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Directed by Mike Nichols, shot by Emmanuel Lubezki. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.

MoodPlayr · trivia#05

6 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Original score by Jonathan Tunick. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.

MoodPlayr · trivia#06

7 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Editor Arthur Schmidt shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.

MoodPlayr · trivia#07

8 / 8

CAST

Did you know

Robin Williams and Gene Hackman and Nathan Lane carry the top of the cast.

MoodPlayr · trivia#08

Cinephile deep dive

The take

Mike Nichols directs. Emmanuel Lubezki behind the camera. Jonathan Tunick scores. Arthur Schmidt cuts. Made its budget back several times over at the box office. Produced in United States of America. Dialogue in French, English.

Trivia

Things worth knowing

1Made its money back 6.0× over at the box office.
230 years old — old enough to be someone's favourite childhood film.
3Dialogue crosses 2 languages: French, English.
4277+ people credited in cast and crew — a small city's worth of labour.
5Directed by Mike Nichols, shot by Emmanuel Lubezki. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.
6Original score by Jonathan Tunick. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.
7Editor Arthur Schmidt shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.
8Robin Williams and Gene Hackman and Nathan Lane carry the top of the cast.
9Marketing tagline: "Come as you are.".
10IMDB entry: tt0115685 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.
11Classified under 19 themes, including "coming out", "florida", "homophobia", "drag queen".

The technical file

Cinematography: Emmanuel Lubezki
Original score: Jonathan Tunick
Editing: Arthur Schmidt
Production design: Bo Welch
Makeup / hair: James Lee McCoy
Sound: Lee Dichter
Stunt coordinator: Jery Hewitt
Runtime: 119 min · 1h 59m
Aspect ratio (typical): 1.37:1 (Academy)
Status: Released
Budget: $31,000,000
Box office: $185,300,000
Return: 598% of budget
Original language: EN
Certification (US): R
IMDB: The Birdcage (1996)

Awards

Actor Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture

Individual records documented via Wikidata; the summary above may count more.

Also by

Mike Nichols

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Trailers & featurettes

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Community reviews

What people are saying

CinemaSerf2024-01-14
★ 7/10
I remember thinking that Dan Futterman was quite attractive in this film as the young "Val", but boy does his turn out to be one of the most selfish and thoughtless of characters! He turns up at the eponymous nightclub run by his father "Armand" (Robin Williams) and his consort of twenty years "Albert" (Nathan Lane) to announce he is to wed. Thing is, he is going to marry the daughter of the rather puritanical senator "Keeley" (Gene Hackman) and so they are going to have to play happy, heterosexual, families when the prospective in-laws come to visit. "Armand" manages his disappointment rather better than his lover who, inclined to the histrionic at the best of times, takes it as all as a personal slight and a mega-strop ensues. Meantime, the worthy senator gets some shocking news of his own involving a colleague and a hooker! Suddenly he needs to get away, and so to the "Birdcage" he, wife "Louise" (Dianne Wiest) and intended bride "Barbara" (Calista Flockhart) duly head. The press get wind of this, and of the fact that it's a fairly ostentatious gay club - and so are just praying to get some snaps of this visit. Can the family stay on a even keel long enough for the estranged mother "Katherine" (Christine Baranski) to arrive, and can they manage to avoid implicating the holier-than-thou politician in the mother of all scandals? Time hasn't been especially kind to this, but Williams and an excellently hammy Nathan Lane do well keeping the momentum going as we to and fro with tantrums a-plenty. Weist and Hackman work well too, but the starring role has to belong to Hank Azaria's camp "Agador" who takes crop-tops to an whole new level. Jean Pouret's original play was written with it's tongue in it's cheek and this updates, but essentially carries on, the tradition of light farce. Stereoptypes galore? Yep, but they're still fun performances that are worth a watch.
badelf2026-02-01
★ 10/10
The Birdcage (1996) (rewatch) Directed by Mike Nichols Mike Nichols' The Birdcage is the American remake of La Cage aux Folles, with Robin Williams and Nathan Lane as a gay couple running a drag club in South Beach. When Williams' son brings home his fiancée whose parents happen to be ultra-conservative politicians (Gene Hackman and Dianne Wiest), the setup becomes a classic farce: can this flamboyant household pass for "normal" long enough to survive one dinner? Williams and Lane absolutely kick it. Both are tremendous actors and comedians, and both turn in top performances here. Williams plays the relative straight man, grounded and capable, while Lane unleashes controlled chaos as Albert, the club's star performer who can't quite hide his true self no matter how hard he tries. Their chemistry is genuine; beneath all the comedy is a portrait of a long-term partnership built on real love and affection. This is Mike Nichols at the height of his powers as both stage and film director in the '90s, and The Birdcage is his prize, a perfectly calibrated comedy that never sacrifices humanity for laughs. This is one of the early gay films that treats its characters with affection rather than as punchlines. Yes, there's comedy in Albert's dramatics and the elaborate charade everyone must maintain, but the joke is never on their queerness; it's on hypocrisy, on the absurdity of having to hide, on conservative politicians who preach family values while embodying none. Hank Azaria's Agador adds another layer of inspired lunacy as the housekeeper who can't quite master "masculine" domesticity. It's funny, or perhaps very sad, how the politics in this film haven't aged. The right-wing moral panic, the performance of traditional values by people who traffic in cruelty, the idea that certain families are acceptable and others must hide to survive—we're still fighting these battles nearly three decades later. What was satire then feels like documentary now. But The Birdcage endures because humor and humanity are so important, especially when they're deployed together. Nichols understood that comedy can be generous, that laughter doesn't require cruelty, that the best farce reveals truth while making us smile. Williams and Lane deliver performances that are both hilarious and heartfelt, reminding us why both were masters of their craft. This one holds up beautifully.