Michael Fassbender stars as the titular character in the 2014 comedy ‘Frank.’
Netflix
A frontman who never takes off his giant papier-mâché head sounds like a gag—but Frank isn’t a gag. This quirky premise, which suspiciously sounds like a typical early-2010s festival-friendly indie flick, is actually a tender story about artistry, ambition and mental health. Critics loved the film when it premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2014, where it received overwhelming praise and a 92% score on Rotten Tomatoes. And while Frank has built something of a cult audience over the years and has remained in high regard for many movie lovers, it’s still a relatively underseen flick that never reached a wide release and didn’t even earn $2 million at the box office. And now this diamond in the rough is about to leave Netflix—on Sept. 29, 2025, to be exact. And I’m here to say you shouldn’t miss it.
Frank centers on the struggling English songwriter Jon (Domhnall Gleeson), who encounters a bizarre, experimental band named Soronprfbs one night at a bar. This band stands out for many reasons, but above all else for its frontman, Frank (Michael Fassbender), who dons an enormous papier-mâché head while singing. But he doesn’t just wear the head onstage—he wears it all the time, even when he eats and sleeps. Fascinated by their dynamic (and particularly by Frank), Jon grows close to the members and eventually joins as their new keyboardist after someone else leaves the band.
Eventually, Jon agrees to stay with the band in an Irish cabin for an entire year, where he becomes intimate with Soronprfbs’ bizarre recording process. He secretly posts the band’s material online, slowly amassing a cult following and eventually earning an invitation to the South by Southwest festival. But as the band’s notoriety and reach grow and as Jon pushes for a more mainstream sound, he gets pushback—especially from Frank, whose attachment to the band’s original avant-garde purity is unwavering. As Frank’s mental health slowly unravels while the band gains popularity, the mask becomes more than just a quirk—it’s revealed to be a shield from a world he doesn’t quite understand or fit into.
With a runtime of 95 minutes and an R rating, Frank is a breezy, deeply insightful film about the artistic process and mental health that many movie-loving adults will find value in. It was by far the biggest film to date from director Lenny Abrahamson, who would go on to direct the Oscar-winning Room and several episodes of the beloved television series Normal People.
Abrahamson brings his human-first touch to the story, celebrating the powers of creativity and the plight of the “tortured artist” within the film’s offbeat structure, faux-documentary feel, diegetic music and chaotic soundscape. Ultimately, Frank critiques the commodification of creativity: Jon’s desire to go viral directly collides with Soronprfbs’ authenticity, destabilizing Frank’s fragile sense of self in the process.
Such a delicate story requires great performances, and Frank is chock-full of them. Starting with Fassbender (he was a bona fide movie star by 2014, with projects like Hunger, Inglourious Basterds, X-Men: First Class and Prometheusalready under his belt), who delivers a remarkable physical performance from beneath the mask, conveying Frank’s love of artistry and his full emotional turmoil through posture, gesture and tone of voice. Then there’s Gleeson, who plays Jon as the eager, insecure audience surrogate who must understand the true power of art by movie’s end. And finally there’s Maggie Gyllenhaal, who plays Clara, the band’s synthesizer and theremin player. Gyllenhaal plays her with icy intensity and emotional volatility, functioning as a gatekeeper to Frank’s inner world.
Critics responded to such a unique approach with resounding praise, and the film holds a 92% approval rating from 164 reviews on Rotten Tomatoes. The audience score is a bit lower at 72%, meaning there’s a classic “critic’s darling that many viewers still haven’t fully embraced” dynamic. The film’s $1.9 million box-office return signals a general lack of interest at the time of its release, but its domestic earnings are even more dire—just $645,000 from a limited theater run.
But if you’re interested in watching this underseen gem, then look no further than the words from some of the top critics, such as Peter Debruge from Variety, who called the film “weird and wonderful” musical comedy, or Peter Travers from Rolling Stone, who claims the film “emerges as a hymn to the healing power of art.” But the best and most revealing review comes from the great Amy Nicholson, who (writing for L.A. Weekly at the time) relishes the movie’s ode to musical genius. She particularly loves the character of Frank, noting: “He’s no gimmick — he just looks like one — and like Jon, we’re torn between wanting to share his gifts with the world and the looming fear that the world has become so cynical that it will write him off as a joke.”
Part of the movie’s pull is how the craft doubles as content. Fassbender acts almost entirely without his face, so posture, breath and voice carry the emotion; the cast performs Stephen Rennicks’ songs live (the Irish musician, who composed the songs for the film, was inspired by musicians he met while touring his own 1980s band, the Prunes), which gives the performances a fragile, handmade quality; and the SXSW stretch reframes all that intimate messiness under stage lights. If you watch nothing else, let the final song, “I Love You All,” play all the way through—it’s the kind of ending that quietly redefines what you’ve just seen.
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