Common Sense Media Review
By Charles Cassady Jr.
,
based on child development research. How do we rate?
Depp-led bio about eccentric director's famously bad films.
Parents Need to Know
Why Age 15+?
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Ed Wood
What's the Story?
ED WOOD is about a real director who becomes a folk hero for making exceptionally bad films. Ed Wood Jr. (1924-1978) directed consistently inept creature-feature and crime flicks. In the 1950s, Wood (Johnny Depp) is an aspiring director-writer-actor-playwright making one low-budget project after another with a small entourage of people on the fringe of the Hollywood in-crowd, most prominently once-great actor Bela Lugosi (Martin Landau, in an Oscar-winning performance). Wood gets to do Glen or Glenda, a short feature on the hot topic of sex-change operations, by making connections to his own interest in wearing women's clothing as a form of self-expression. And not even Lugosi's death stops Wood from including the old man in another project, the alien-zombie-invasion thriller Plan 9 from Outer Space. Drawing his crew of regulars together, raising money unethically, resurrecting Lugosi via stock footage and body doubles, and emboldened by a chance meeting with Orson Welles (Vincent D'Onofrio), Wood completes what is destined to be treasured as The Worst Movie Ever.
Is It Any Good?
If you happen to be an Ed Wood fan or a horror-trivia fanatic, this film will please you. Ed Wood is less a straight biography than glorified highlights and loving, nostalgic re-creations of the director and his black-and-white era, with some bits (meeting Welles, a gala premiere of Plan 9) that are history not as it was, but as Wood wished it had been.
If you're not a fan, the film's appeal may be rather limited, though there's contagious joy in how Depp and others put across the giddy thrill of the filmmaking process. Touching moments come from the mutually supportive relationship between Wood and the bottomed-out Lugosi, though young viewers more accustomed to effects-filled spectacles from Depp/Tim Burton collaborations might want more fantasy and action.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about the filmmaker in Ed Wood. How is he portrayed? Do you consider Wood to be a role model?
Talk about horror movies and their appeal. How are Wood's horror movies different from those in theaters today?
What makes a movie "good" or "bad"? Can something be terribly made and still wildly entertaining?
Movie Details
- In theaters : September 28, 1994
- On DVD or streaming : October 19, 2004
- Cast : Johnny Depp , Martin Landau , Patricia Arquette , Sarah Jessica Parker
- Director : Tim Burton
- Inclusion Information : Female Movie Actor(s)
- Studio : Touchstone Pictures
- Genre : Comedy
- Topics : History ( Biopic )
- Run time : 127 minutes
- MPAA rating :
- MPAA explanation : some strong language
- Awards : Academy Award - Other Category Winner , Academy Award - Other Category Nominee , BAFTA - BAFTA Nominee , Golden Globe - Golden Globe Award Winner , Golden Globe - Golden Globe Award Nominee
- Last updated : May 12, 2026
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