By John Serba

Lorne (now streaming on VOD platforms like Amazon Prime Video), the biographical documentary of Lorne Michaels, feels, you know, late. I mean, they aren’t making SNL 51, right? The creator of Saturday Night Live is kind of a living legend, a deserving subject of a film like this, and stalwart documentarian Morgan Neville (Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain and Oscar winner 20 Feet From Stardom) seems like an inspired choice to direct it. Not that it would be easy to make for any filmmaker, for reasons we’re about to get into here.

LORNE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT? 

The Gist: “I don’t know myself,” Lorne Michaels says matter-of-factly to Neville in the opening moments of Lorne, a warning to our filmmaker that his subject is notoriously private and hard to pin down. Is that the director’s challenge, or his thesis statement? “If you really want to understand me, understand the show,” Michaels adds, essentially clarifying what’s to come, which is short on intimate details and tough questions, but fairly rich with behind-the-scenes footage at SNL and commentary by star/superstar funnypeople. Shall I list some names? Sure: Tina Fey, Mike Myers, Chris Rock, Colin Jost, Adam Sandler, Seth Meyers, Conan O’Brien, Paul Simon, Alec Baldwin, Dana Carvey, Kristen Wiig, Bowen Yang, Michael Che, Sarah Sherman, John Mulaney, Bill Hader, a single sentence from Chevy Chase (in a clip that seems lifted from I’m Chevy Chase and You’re Not) and we eavesdrop on Michaels as he has dinner with Steve Martin. There are more, but we needn’t be overly indulgent, do we?

Notably, Lily Tomlin is one of few recognizables who can comment on Michaels’ pre-SNL existence. We learn that he was born and grew up in a Toronto suburb, not in a kibbutz in British-held Palestine, a “fact” that was fabricated and perpetuated decades ago. He worked for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, moved to Hollywood to write for Laugh-In, moved back to Canada to co-host a variety show with Hart Pomerantz and eventually became a producer for Tomlin’s headliner TV specials. That led him to NBC, where he successfully pitched Saturday Night to fill a slot usually held by Johnny Carson reruns – and some of this here summary feels a touch boring, covered in so many other retrospectives and whatnot, so that’s why Neville chops it up into bits and sprinkles it among all the talking heads and footage of Michaels munching on omnipresent popcorn (apparently his favorite snack, although he’s never asked about it), milling around the SNL offices and studio or hanging out at his blueberry farm in Maine, which is here depicted by a nice dock on a small lake and a barnful of goats, and absolutely not any interiors or exteriors of his house or, god forbid, his family, pictures of whom have the faces blurred out.

The juicier stuff that SNL diehards will love is framed as reflections on Michaels’ character: Writers and staffers revealing that their notoriously grueling schedule of all-nighters mirrors Michaels’ stay-up-til-4 a.m./sleep-til-noon lifestyle. Table reads in which Michaels indecipherably mumbles stage directions, sits next to guest hosts like Ayo Edibiri, Timothee Chalamet or Ryan Gosling, and winnows dozens of sketches down to the handful that make the show. Staffers mimicking their boss, especially the distinct exhalation he makes when the comedy isn’t working, frustrated while parked beneath the studio bleachers watching a dress rehearsal. And there’s some fun animated bits of Michaels by Robert Smigel, who created the TV Funhouse cartoons for SNL. So are we distinctly exhaling Michaels-style at the documentary that’s ostensibly about him but doesn’t dig particularly deep? Maybe a little. 

What Movies Will It Remind You Of? Again, it’s a bit weird that Lorne arrives well after all the SNL 50 docs and assorted related programming that debuted a year-ish ago. It was also preceded by I’m Chevy Chase and You’re Not, Steve! (Martin) A Documentary in 2 Pieces and, if you want to be kind of a j-hole about Alec Baldwin, Last Take: Rust and the Story of Halyna. 

Performance Worth Watching: Mulaney shares some of the best anecdotes and commentary. Oh, and here’s a reminder that former SNL writer and very funny lady Paula Pell is an unheralded comedy gem.

Sex And Skin: None.

Our Take: Lorne feels overblown, a theatrical and PVOD release that implies more than it is, and probably should’ve been packaged with all the celebratory SNL content on Peacock in 2025. The tone of the doc is somewhat serious, despite its wiseass subtitles identifying talking heads, and one is inspired to speculate that Neville had grander expectations for an in-depth bio that didn’t get met, so he pieced together what he had and ended up with a borderline puff piece. At least he warns us early on, as interviewees and narrator Chris Parnell identify Michaels as an “elusive” and “undocumentable” “enigma” who “inadvertently agreed” to participate in the film.

Then again, perhaps limited parameters were set early, because Neville chooses to glide along with a mostly listen-and-nod style, not getting into the thorny stuff (one commentator essentially sums up the infamous Donald Trump-hosted show as “Lorne likes controversy” before the film flits to another topic) or digging deeper into the state of comedy in the cancel-culture era (we get a brief bit on Shane Steichen, famously fired from the show for comments he made on a podcast pre-SNL, but who returned to guest host because Michaels wanted to have “the biggest comic” on the show). Interviewees sum him up as loyal, protective and parental, someone who spent his life fighting to keep SNL relevant. It’s increasingly clear that Neville was either stonewalled or didn’t bother to ask questions that might’ve made Lorne more intently journalistic.

Despite its slightly frustrating shallowness, the doc is admittedly quite entertaining, studded with juicy footage that should tickle fans interested in the nuts-and-bolts inner workings of SNL. We’re privy to fly-on-the-wall footage of meetings and brainstorming sessions, one of Michaels’ pre-show pep talks, an angle on him beneath the bleachers (he’s very concerned about the state of Gosling’s increasingly raspy voice during rehearsal) and a seat at the table as he determines the structure of a show, moving around note cards with words like FUGLIANA or TEACHER’S HUSBAND on a bulletin board. Such material contributes at least a bit of insight into the man and the way he thinks and works, and functions as a rather enjoyable distraction from Lorne’s lack of much substantive biography. 

Our Call: Lorne does not (colon) blow, even though its subject is more Happy Fun Ball than Schmitt’s Gay Beer. STREAM IT, but you’re better off waiting for its Peacock debut than paying a rental fee.

John Serba is a freelance film critic from Grand Rapids, Michigan. Werner Herzog hugged him once.