I Saw the TV Glow | Rotten Tomatoes (2024)

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When at least 60% of reviews for a movie or TV show are positive, a red tomato is displayed to indicate its Fresh status. When less than 60% of reviews for a movie or TV show are positive, a green splat is displayed to indicate its Rotten status.

Go with her, Owen,” and in asking you to make that choice, TV Glow is simulating the act of self-accepting a trans identity. See, the grimmer read of the film's ending truly is a nihilistic one. It leaves no hope, no potential for growth, no exit. Yet you must actively choose to read that ending as nihilistic.

A classmate introduces teenage Owen to a mysterious late-night TV show -- a vision of a supernatural world beneath their own. In the pale glow of the television, Owen's view of reality begins to crack.

I Saw the TV Glow / Film synopsis

I Saw the TV Glow, a science fiction movie starring Justice Smith, Brigette Lundy-Paine, and Ian Foreman is available to stream now. Watch it on Prime Video, Fandango at Home or Apple TV on your Roku device.

To date, Leave No Trace holds the site's record, with a rating of 100% and 252 positive reviews.

I Saw the TV Glow isn't so much a transgender allegory as it is a pure expression of transness in early youth, unfolding at a time and place where words fail, and stories become a medium for not just entertainment but projection, reflection and self-identification.

Owen's story can be considered a metaphor for “eggs,” a term for trans people who don't yet realize that they are trans. (Tons more to read about “eggs” from trans people, like here and here.) His identification with The Pink Opaque is an outlet for feelings he hasn't been able—or perhaps is unwilling—to express.

The movie ends with Owen, presumably still trapped underground as Isabel, haggardly stumbling out of the fun center and mumbling apologies to customers.

But even if Durst was cast in the film because his music career made him the perfect prop for a '90s fever dream, he rises above the novelty casting and gives a foreboding performance that helps imbue Owen's secret TV binges with life-and-death stakes.

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Critics Reviews

With its shapeshifting disquiet, I Saw the TV Glow is too languidly weird, too unmoored from genre conventions to be neatly categorised. But there's not a frame in Jane Schoenbrun's suffocating second feature that isn't drenched in dread and unease. Content collapsed.

I Saw the TV Glow, which just premiered at Sundance, will be released by A24 and is a much sleeker production with familiar actors, cameos from Phoebe Bridgers and Buffy's Amber Benson, and a lush suburban-gothic aesthetic that periodically gives way to a pitch-perfect lower-resolution recreation of a '90s television ...

Principal photography took place in New Jersey from July to August 2022. Shooting took place at Verona High School, Cedar Grove High School, and Keansburg Amusem*nt Park. Other locations were the music venue The Saint and Camp Lewis.

I Saw The TV Glow will be available to watch via streaming on HBO Max. This is because A24 recently inked a multi-year Pay 1 output deal with HBO and HBO Max, which would see the former's latest film titles arrive on the streamer following their theatrical exclusivity.

As the reviews of a given film accumulate, the Rotten Tomatoes score measures the percentage that are more positive than negative, and assigns an overall fresh or rotten rating to the movie. Scores of over 60 percent are considered fresh, and scores of 59 percent and under are rotten.

The website keeps track of all the reviews counted for each film and calculates the percentage of positive reviews. If the positive reviews make up 60% or more, the film is considered "fresh". If the positive reviews are less than 60%, the film is considered "rotten".

Any additional Rotten reviews could toss the movie from the 99% Club and into the gutter that is a 98% score, to associate with the likes of Wizard of Oz and The Godfather. You'll notice most in the 99% Club are from this century. Movies may or may not be getting better, but they are getting reviewed more.

Rotten Tomatoes awards the Certified Fresh™ accolade to films and TV programs that have a steady Tomatometer® of 75% or higher after a set amount of reviews (80 for films in wide release, 40 for films in limited release, 20 for TV shows), including 5 reviews from Top Critics.