20th Anniversary of The 40 Year-Old Virgin

20th Anniversary of The 40 Year-Old Virgin

In person: Judd Apatow and Steve Carell

In person: Judd Apatow and Steve Carell

For director, writer, producer, and comedian Judd Apatow, what started as a childhood obsession with Saturday Night Live and a fervent idolatry of Steve Martin blossomed into a massive career in Hollywood. He has been responsible for dozens of films known as much for their heart as for their raunchy sense of humor. Following two decades of producing, directing, and writing for television programs like The Larry Sanders Show and Freaks and Geeks, his 2005 collaboration with Steve Carell, The 40 Year-Old Virgin, finally found him in the director’s chair for his first feature. The film follows Andy Stitzer (Carell), an electronics store salesman who has lived his four decades without having sex. Emboldened to help their hapless friend, his colleagues—played by comic greats Jane Lynch, Romany Malco, Seth Rogan, and Paul Rudd—set about making sure Andy finds the right person to break his lifelong dry spell. Ushering in an era of R-rated comedies for a new millennium, the film was a major success at the box office and has lost none of its heart or wit twenty years later.

Programmed and note by K.J. Relth-Miller.

DIRECTED BY: Judd Apatow. WRITTEN BY: Judd Apatow, Steve Carell. WITH: Steve Carell, Catherine Keener, Paul Rudd, Romany Malco. 2005. 116 min. USA. Color. English. Rated R. DCP.

Academy Museum film programming generously funded by the Richard Roth Foundation. 

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