Michael

Released April 24, 2026 and directed by Antoine Fuqua, Michael is the authorized biographical drama of Michael Jackson's life, and it has generated one of the most polarizing critical-audience splits of any film in recent memory. The film stars Jaafar Jackson — Michael Jackson's real-life nephew — in the title role, with Colman Domingo as Joseph Jackson and Nia Long as Katherine Jackson. Fuqua brings his characteristic visual confidence and physical intensity to the material, staging musical sequences with genuine spectacle and extracting from Jaafar Jackson a performance that many viewers have found remarkably convincing. The numbers define the conversation. Michael sits at 38% from Rotten Tomatoes critics — critics who found the film hagiographic, narratively thin, and systematically evasive on the most difficult chapters of Jackson's life and legacy. The 39 on Metacritic confirms this is a near-consensus critical disappointment among professional reviewers. And then the audience: 97% on Rotten Tomatoes audience score — an all-time record for the music biopic genre — and roughly $960 million worldwide as of late June 2026, now established as the highest-grossing music biopic in cinema history. Both data points are real and must be held simultaneously. For the audience that came to Michael, the film delivered what they came for: Michael Jackson's music performed at full spectacle scale, his life portrayed with devotion, and Jaafar Jackson's striking physical presence in the role. For critics, the film's unwillingness to grapple honestly with the complexities of its subject — the allegations that have followed Jackson's legacy — rendered it something closer to an expensive tribute concert than biography. What you believe Michael is — triumph or evasion — depends on what you think cinema owes its subjects. The $960 million worldwide gross suggests most audiences have decided.