The Nice Guys · reception & legacy

2016 · Shane Black

How The Nice Guys has been received, argued over, and remembered.

The arc

Critics liked it in 2016, but it flopped hard — infamously losing its opening weekend to The Angry Birds Movie — and Shane Black's hoped-for franchise died on the vine. In the decade since it's become the textbook streaming-era vindication story: a beloved cult comedy everyone now claims they saw in theaters.

What's debated

The eternal Nice Guys discourse isn't whether it's good — it's whose fault it is that there's no sequel, with 'we chose Angry Birds over this' deployed as film Twitter's favorite indictment of the moviegoing public.

Its footprint

Ryan Gosling's high-pitched scream and his slapstick reaction gifs from this movie are permanent internet currency, and the film turned 'Ryan Gosling is secretly a great comedian' from a hot take into received wisdom. 'You know who else was just following orders?' still gets quoted in the replies.

Where it stands

A certified Letterboxd darling and the canonical 'underrated modern classic' pick — the safest crowd-pleaser answer to 'name a movie that deserved better.'

★ Did you know? Shane Black co-wrote The Nice Guys back in the early 2000s, and after years of failing to get it made as a movie, it was briefly reworked as a TV series pitch before Joel Silver helped revive it as the 2016 film.

Named by the director

Influences Shane Black has publicly named — the director's own word, distinct from the inferred lines of influence.

The Long Goodbye (1973) — Black repeatedly cited Altman's shaggy LA noir as the touchstone for his private-eye comedies, including in press for The Nice Guys.