American Splendor

Cinephile deep dive

The take

Shari Springer Berman directs. Terry Stacey behind the camera. Mark Suozzo scores. Robert Pulcini cuts. Made its budget back several times over at the box office. Produced in United States of America. Dialogue in English.

Trivia

Things worth knowing

• 1Shot for just $2.0M — micro-budget by Hollywood standards.
• 2Made its money back 3.0× over at the box office.
• 3Released 23 years ago.
• 4Directed by Shari Springer Berman, shot by Terry Stacey. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.
• 5Original score by Mark Suozzo. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.
• 6Editor Robert Pulcini shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.
• 7Paul Giamatti and Hope Davis and Judah Friedlander carry the top of the cast.
• 8Marketing tagline: "Ordinary life is pretty complex stuff".
• 9IMDB entry: tt0305206 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.
• 10Classified under 17 themes, including "comic book", "biography", "based on comic", "v.a. hospital".

The technical file

Cinematography

Terry Stacey

Original score

Mark Suozzo

Editing

Robert Pulcini

Production design

Thérèse DePrez

Costume design

Michael Wilkinson

Runtime

101 min · 1h 41m

Aspect ratio (typical)

1.78:1 (16:9)

Status

Released

Budget

$2,000,000

Box office

$6,003,587

Return

300% of budget

Original language

EN

Certification (US)

R

IMDB

American Splendor (2003) ↗

Rotten Tomatoes

94% 🍅 Fresh

Metacritic

90/100

IMDB rating

7.4/10 · 53,964 votes

MPAA

R

Also by

Shari Springer Berman

• 
  The Young and the Dead

  2000 · ★ 9.0
• 
  Only Murders in the Building

  2021 · ★ 8.4
• 
  Succession

  2018 · ★ 8.3
• 
  Shameless

  2011 · ★ 8.2
• 
  Off the Menu: The Last Days of Chasen's

  1998 · ★ 7.5
• 
  WeCrashed

  2022 · ★ 7.4

Stills · wallpapers

Selected frames

Full-resolution frames — open one to save it as a wallpaper.

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Trailers & featurettes

Watch the pieces

• 

  ▶
  American Splendor (2003) 35mm film trailer, flat open matte, 2160p trichromy

  Trailer

Community reviews

What people are saying

• CinemaSerf2026-07-06
  ★ 7/10

  With his glass invariably half-empty, poor old Harvey (Paul Giammatti) discovers that he hasn't got throat cancer, but does have a nodule on his throat that will curtail his ability to speak for a few months. That proves to be quite a problem when he returns home to find his girlfriend is leaving him! Now on his own, he takes more solace in his mundane job as a clerk at an hospital where he engages with his colleagues about the price of jellybeans (and their suitability for abstinence during lent) whilst at home, he immerses himself in his books and his extensive collection of second hand jazz. It's at one of his favourite markets that he encounters the enigmatic "Crumb" (James Urbaniak) who designs the artwork for greetings cards. They remain friends throughout the forthcoming years as the latter man finds success with his own brand of comic book. That inspires Harvey to have a go at his own, more gritty, publication that draws it's inspiration from Jimmy Carter's America - and it doesn't pull it's punches. Whilst this publication isn't exactly a roaring success, it does get him onto the somewhat condescending chat show circuit and it also sees him hook up with "Joyce" (Hope Davis) whom he quickly discovers is a sort of soul mate and an equally powerful motivator for his succes - even if there is a fair degree of spatting going on between them! Running in parallel to this quite entertaining critique of his life is more of a documentary style of story that features the real Harvey Pekar whose contributions serve as almost an antidote to the eccentric characterisation from Giammatti whilst also authenticating it. He doesn't relive the same incidents from a different perspective, or anything like that. It's more like the film presents us with an anchor of the facts to remind us that what can appear as feintly ridiculous is in fact rooted in truth. In many ways this reminded me of something Woody Allen might have presented, especially as there's quite a reliance on the music and it is quite episodic in it's delivery as it quite successfully produces a work of faction that raises smiles and grimaces as his life meanders on erractically.

  Read full review ↓

Production companies

Who made it

• 

  HBO Films

  US

• 

  Good Machine

  US

Key crew

• NovelHarvey Pekar
• NovelJoyce Brabner
• EditorRobert Pulcini
• Costume DesignMichael Wilkinson
• Production DesignThérèse DePrez
• CastingAnn Goulder
• Set DecorationRobert DeSue
• ProducerTed Hope
• Comic BookHarvey Pekar

Themes & keywords

What it's about, really

• comic book
• biography
• based on comic
• v.a. hospital
• junk sale
• jellybean
• greeting card
• file clerk
• garage sale
• comic book art
• neurotic
• comic book artist
• woman director
• wilmington
• delaware
• comic book writer
• cleveland, ohio

Release history · US

When it landed

• Theatrical2003-08-15R
• Digital2015-12-14R· HBO Max
• Physical2004-02-03R· DVD

Also known as

International titles

• Esplendor americanoAR
• Görkemli hayatimTR
• Americka divotaCS