My Beautiful Laundrette

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My Beautiful Laundrette

R

Released Mar 7, 1986

1h 37m

Comedy

Drama

LGBTQ+

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Popcornmeter

98%

Tomatometer

47 Reviews

74%

Popcornmeter

5,000+ Ratings

In a seedy corner of London, Omar (Gordon Warnecke), a young Pakistani, is given a run-down laundromat by his uncle (Saeed Jaffrey), who hopes to turn it into a successful business. Soon after, Omar is attacked by a group of racist punks, but defuses the situation when he realizes their leader is his former lover, Johnny (Daniel Day-Lewis). The men resume their relationship and rehabilitate the laundromat together, but various social forces threaten to compromise their success.

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Critics Consensus

My Beautiful Laundrette is fast and all over the place because it has so much to say, and show, including a highly watchable fresh-faced Daniel Day-Lewis.

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Jay Carr

Boston Globe

An English film of astonishing freshness and emotional urgency.

Jul 30, 2024

Full Review

Pauline Kael

The New Yorker

It’s an enormous pleasure to see a movie that’s really about something, and that doesn’t lay on any syrupy coating to make the subject go down easily.

Sep 13, 2023

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Catherine Rambeau

Detroit Free Press

A brutally funny social comedy about the racial and social consequences of a Pakistani and an Englishman going into business and becoming lovers.

Rated: 8/10

Oct 27, 2021

Full Review

Dan Webster

Spokesman-Review (Washington)

The themes are familiar, but writer Hanif Kuerishi refuses to simplify the issues and director Steven Frears uses an interesting visual style to explore another seamy side of life.

Rated: 3/4

Jul 27, 2024

Full Review

Farah Cheded

A Good Movie To Watch

Watching [My Beautiful Laundrette] smash taboos and break new ground in all the ways it does decades later, you can’t help but lament that movies this clever and complex and radical in their focuses aren't more commonplace now.

Oct 21, 2023

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Sean Axmaker

Stream on Demand

It’s a grungy yet dynamic portrait of race and prejudice in the Thatcher-era London of East Indian immigrants and neo-Nazi gangs.

Jan 7, 2023

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Phil V

Way ahead of its time.

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

02/23/25

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Audience Member

I found the movie thoroughly unconvincing and boring. Maybe I was having a bad day. Perhaps you liked it thoroughly, and I would be the last to say you nay. De gustibus non est disputandum.

Rated 3 out of 5 stars

11/12/24

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David K

Interesting film but mainly for the early work of Daniel Day-Lewis. Also, the focus on the Pakistani immigrant experience in England.

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

06/18/24

Full Review

PridePosterStudios

Spillage in the back room 💦

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

04/24/24

Full Review

Shioka O

This film depict people and social issues in 80s particularly in UK cities. Small, but it hold many problematic contexts within, and not entertaining. Very fresh Daniel Day-Lewis showed compelling performance as a main character. Seems like many British actors emerged in 80s-90s tackled with this type in the early stage of their career. and this is one of the pioneer.

Rated 2 out of 5 stars

12/05/22

Full Review

isla s

This is a good film of its time, depicting a bleak picture for Indian immigrants in London, trying to fit in, in the big city. Its obviously set in the 1980s, when it was very much Thatchers Britain. The dialogue is quite frank at times, with racial slurs made by a local group of layabouts. It was certainly interesting to see Daniel Day-Lewis in one of his earlier roles - I'm not sure I would have recognised him, if I hadn't read up about the cast beforehand. There's some good dialogue present in the script, one line that particularly comes to mind being when the launderettes manager, the father, responds to someone saying 'I am a businessman, not a professional Pakistani!'. This is no big Hollywood type film at all - neither should it be but as a piece of social commentary its pretty effective. Yes I'd recommend it.

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

03/31/23

Full Review

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Stephen Frears

Director

Daniel Day-Lewis

Johnny

Gordon Warnecke

Omar

Saeed Jaffrey

Nasser

Roshan Seth

Papa

Derrick Branche

Salim

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Synopsis

In a seedy corner of London, Omar (Gordon Warnecke), a young Pakistani, is given a run-down laundromat by his uncle (Saeed Jaffrey), who hopes to turn it into a successful business. Soon after, Omar is attacked by a group of racist punks, but defuses the situation when he realizes their leader is his former lover, Johnny (Daniel Day-Lewis). The men resume their relationship and rehabilitate the laundromat together, but various social forces threaten to compromise their success.

Director: Stephen Frears
Producer: Tim Bevan, Sarah Radclyffe
Screenwriter: Hanif Kureishi
Distributor: Orion Pictures
Production Co: Channel Four Films, Working Title Films
Rating: R
Genre: Comedy, Drama, LGBTQ+
Original Language: English
Release Date (Theaters): Mar 7, 1986, Original
Release Date (Streaming): Jan 17, 2017
Runtime: 1h 37m
Sound Mix: Mono

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