WISE Score
Avg. Tomatometer
Ryan Gosling screams like a girl, Russell Crowe breaks arms, and a 13-year-old girl is the only adult in 1970s Los Angeles.
7.491%
70
The Nice Guys is a cult classic that deserves way more love than it got at the box office. It's a hilarious, gritty, and surprisingly smart noir that works because Gosling and Crowe have the kind of chemistry you can't fake.
If you have a 16-year-old who thinks they're too cool for 'kid movies,' this is the one you put on to prove you still have taste. Just be ready for the sleaze factor—it's baked into the 1970s setting and the plot itself.
This is strictly for older teens (16+) and adults. While the mystery is fun and the daughter-dad dynamic is great, the nudity and constant violence make it a non-starter for younger kids.
The core of the movie is actually a sweet, if messy, father-daughter bond, but it's wrapped in a layer of 1970s sleaze, heavy drinking, and professional cynicism.
Shane Black's script is a masterclass in subverting the buddy-cop genre with incredible comedic timing and a vivid, smog-choked recreation of 70s LA.
It's a hard R. You've got nudity (it's about the porn industry), graphic violence, and enough F-bombs to fill a stadium. Not for the faint of heart or the middle-school set.
Beyond the laughs, it's a sharp look at corporate corruption and environmental neglect, plus it features one of the most competent teen characters in modern cinema.
Most buddy-cop movies feel like they were written by an algorithm trying to replicate Lethal Weapon. The Nice Guys feels like it was written by the guy who actually wrote Lethal Weapon (Shane Black) while he was having the time of his life. It’s a neo-noir that knows all the rules and breaks them for a laugh.
Ryan Gosling plays Holland March, a private eye who is objectively terrible at his job. He’s clumsy, he’s a bit of a drunk, and he’s constantly being outsmarted by his daughter, Holly. Russell Crowe is Jackson Healy, a hired enforcer who beats people up for a living but secretly wants to be useful. When they team up to find a missing girl named Amelia, the movie turns into a chaotic scramble through the underbelly of 1977 Los Angeles.
Usually, kids in R-rated movies are just there to be rescued or to provide a 'heart' that feels forced. Holly March (played by Angourie Rice) is different. She's the one driving the car (literally), finding the clues, and reminding her dad to be a decent human being. It’s a subversion of the 'dead wife/troubled kid' trope that gives the movie a soul without ever getting sappy.
Make no mistake: this is a movie about the porn industry. While it’s not pornographic in its execution, there is nudity, and the plot revolves around a film called How Do You Like My Car, Big Boy? It’s played for satire and mystery, but it’s there. If you’re watching with a teen, it’s going to lead to some '70s history' conversations about the adult film industry and the automotive lobby. If you're okay with that, you're in for one of the funniest scripts of the last decade.
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