Being There

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Being There

PG

1979

2h 10m

Comedy

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Tomatometer

Popcornmeter

95%

Tomatometer

63 Reviews

92%

Popcornmeter

25,000+ Ratings

Simple-minded Chance (Peter Sellers), a gardener who has resided in the Washington, D.C., townhouse of his wealthy employer for his entire life and been educated only by television, is forced to vacate his home when his boss dies. While wandering the streets, he encounters business mogul Ben Rand (Melvyn Douglas), who assumes Chance to be a fellow upper-class gentleman. Soon Chance is ushered into high society, and his unaffected gardening wisdom makes him the talk of the town.

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Critics Consensus

Smart, sophisticated, and refreshingly subtle, Being There soars behind sensitive direction from Hal Ashby and a stellar Peter Sellers performance.

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Joe Pollack

St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Under the direction of Hal Ashby, in his first film since Coming Home, Sellers gives an impressively disciplined performance, always taut and under control. The difficulty with the film, however, is that the screenplay is basically a one-joke story.

Apr 7, 2022

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Ed Potton

The Times (UK)

Gently directed by Hal Ashby, this satire of a ruling class in which nobody knows anything is almost plausible, and certainly topical.

Rated: 4/5

Jan 17, 2020

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Richard Combs

Sight & Sound

The result must be one of the boldest of commercial comedies, for the way it turns on passages of dead time, the dreadful pauses while other characters struggle to see the significance in each of Chance's cryptically meaningless remarks.

Jan 16, 2020

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Danielle Solzman

Solzy at the Movies

Decades later, Being There endures not just for Sellers’ quietly brilliant performance, but as a sharp, prescient satire of celebrity, media, and political obsession—a comedy that feels as timely today as it did in 1979.

Rated: 5/5

Oct 20, 2025

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Bianca Garner

Filmotomy

Being There is simply reminding us of how fragile our state of being actually is.

Oct 3, 2024

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Christopher Lloyd

The Film Yap

Peter Sellers' last great performance came in this gently satiric look at the dawning mass media culture from the book by Jerzy Kosiński.

Rated: 4.5/5

May 30, 2022

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Kyle M

Sellers show evident passion in his performance, a mechanical conduit for the relevant satire that both foretold political television relationships and devil’s advocate on the platform’s ideological delivery, consequentially demeaning its conveyed messaging whilst substantially bland besides the intentions plus its framework. (B-)

Rated 3 out of 5 stars

10/23/25

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Isaiah Y

Worthwhile comedy with one of Peter Sellers' greatest performances

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

09/25/25

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Ed .

No one has the time to read anymore, but I made some time after recently learning that the movie was based on an earlier novel. This is one example of the motion picture being superior to a book, though, to be fair, the novel is a very brief 118 pages. You can find it by searching the Internet Archive - that is, if you can read.

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

08/22/25

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Stephen C

Funny in 2 1/6 hours!!!!!!!!!!!!! Starring Peter Sellers as Chance!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

06/10/25

Full Review

alan g

Highly over rated and strange. Peter Sellers is catatonic through the whole film. Critics liked it because it was artsy. They didn't want to be criticized as stupid. It is not artsy. It is stupid, unfunny, confusing and poorly made. It is supposed to be a commentary on modern society and how fake it is. It is a not. It is a narcissistic vision by a bunch of hasbeens. It should be confined to small out of the way theaters off the main stream.

Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars

08/13/25

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Russ G

An unfunny comedy, starring Peter Sellers when he was in the throes of severe mental illness.

Rated 1 out of 5 stars

02/05/25

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Hal Ashby

Director

Peter Sellers

Chance ('Chauncey Gardiner')

Shirley MacLaine

Eve Rand

Jack Warden

President 'Bobby'

Melvyn Douglas

Benjamin Turnbull Rand

Richard Dysart

Dr. Robert Allenby

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Synopsis

Simple-minded Chance (Peter Sellers), a gardener who has resided in the Washington, D.C., townhouse of his wealthy employer for his entire life and been educated only by television, is forced to vacate his home when his boss dies. While wandering the streets, he encounters business mogul Ben Rand (Melvyn Douglas), who assumes Chance to be a fellow upper-class gentleman. Soon Chance is ushered into high society, and his unaffected gardening wisdom makes him the talk of the town.

Director: Hal Ashby
Producer: Andrew Braunsberg
Screenwriter: Jerzy Kosinski
Distributor: United Artists, Warner Bros.
Production Co: NatWest Ventures, Northstar, BSB, Enigma, Lorimar Film Entertainment, CIP, Fujisankei
Rating: PG
Genre: Comedy
Original Language: English
Release Date (Theaters): Dec 19, 1979, Wide
Release Date (Streaming): May 7, 2015
Runtime: 2h 10m
Sound Mix: Mono

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