An award-winning biopic that scores 100% on Rotten Tomatoes is now available to watch on Amazon Prime. Temple Grandin is a 2010 American biographical drama TV film directed by Mick Jackson.
Claire Danes stars as Temple Grandin, an autistic woman whose innovations revolutionised practices for the humane handling of livestock on cattle ranches and slaughterhouses. The film, also starring Catherine O’Hara, is based on Grandin’s memoirs, Emergence and Thinking in Pictures. Premiering on HBO in 2010, the film earned widespread acclaim for its heartfelt and authentic portrayal. Critics praised its ability to make Grandin’s autism relatable and her perspective on livestock psychology deeply compelling. Danes’ performance received particular acclaim for its depth and precision, avoiding sentimentality while portraying Grandin’s growth with nuance.
For her role, Claire Danes won the Golden Globe, SAG Award, and Emmy for Best Actress in a TV Film. The film as a whole won six other Emmys.
Temple Grandin received a Metacritic score of 84% based on reviews from 19 critics. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a 100% approval rating based on 30 reviews, with an average rating of 8.7/10.
The website’s critics consensus reads, “A heartfelt glimpse into Temple Grandin’s mind, this engrossing biopic reaches its full potential thanks to Claire Danes’ unsentimental performance.
Entertainment Weekly’s Jennifer Armstrong wrote: “The beauty of [the film] is that it makes the title character’s autism—and the unique insight it gave her into livestock psychology—relatable to anyone with a heart, and fascinating to anyone with a brain. The fact that it does so with such a singular story only makes the movie that much greater.”
Alessandra Stanley of The New York Times called it “A made-for-television biopic that avoids the mawkish clichés of the genre without draining the narrative of colour and feeling. Ms. Danes is completely at ease in her subject’s lumbering gait and unmodulated voice.
“She makes Temple’s anxiety as immediate and contagious as her rarer bursts of merriment… And as the character ages and learns more social graces, Ms. Danes seamlessly captures Temple’s progress.”
NPR’s David Bianculli unambiguously named the film “The best tele-movie of the past several years… I can’t praise this movie highly enough. It’s not maudlin or sentimental, but it is excitingly inspirational.
“It scores big emotional points with very small touches, the sound of a heartbeat, a tentative touch, a victorious smile. The acting, writing, directing, production values, every sight and every sound in HBO’s Temple Grandin is perfect.”