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The Automat

Play trailer 2:10 Poster for The Automat Now Playing 1h 59m Documentary Play Trailer Watchlist
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98% Tomatometer 56 Reviews 86% Popcornmeter Fewer than 50 Verified Ratings
Before fast food we had something better. Our grandparents told us stories of gathering around communal tables, sharing their lives, their struggles, and their dreams with strangers at The Automat. In the long awaited Horn & Hardart documentary relive the phenomena of America's original and most beloved restaurant chain. The one hundred year Automat saga serves up never before-seen archival footage and photographs and a cast including celebrity customers, company executives, historians, and members of the Horn & Hardart families.
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The Automat

The Automat

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Critics Consensus

A wistful ode to a bygone era, The Automat will make viewers nostalgic for America's past -- and hungry for a meal at the titular diner.

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Critics Reviews

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Ty Burr Ty Burr's Watch List (Substack) 05/13/2022
3/4
Short and sweet, “The Automat” is a fond remembrance of a vanished era – the past seen through a tiny glass window. Go to Full Review Mark Feeney Boston Globe 05/12/2022
3/4
Hurwitz takes a terrific subject and treats it with undisguised, and justified, affection. What’s most impressive about “The Automat” is how much ground it covers. Go to Full Review Sarah Jane Austin Chronicle 05/12/2022
The Automat is rather like a nickel slice of pie or bowl of mac & cheese you’d get from one of their restaurants. It’s not fancy, but it’s good. Go to Full Review Jeffrey M. Anderson Combustible Celluloid 12/11/2022
3.5/4
Director Lisa Hurwitz has made an absolute delight of a documentary telling a seemingly non-essential and yet totally essential piece of forgotten history. Go to Full Review Tom O'Brien Next Best Picture 12/05/2022
7/10
And memories are where the meat of “The Automat” lies, as Hurwitz has collected a wide array of testimonials — some from celebrities, others everyday folks — to fondly share what the automat meant to them. Go to Full Review Raquel Stecher Out of the Past 11/21/2022
What The Automat documentary excels at is offering viewers a contextual history of how this business was born, how it thrived and how it became part of the social fabric of New York City and Philadelphia. Go to Full Review Read all reviews

Audience Reviews

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Lester G 05/18/2022 Enjoyed the nostalgia. See more Nancy 04/24/2022 Charming and interesting! See more Lisa J 04/09/2022 The screening was canceled and Fandango never emailed me so I didn’t find out until I got to the theater. See more Gary H 04/07/2022 Wonderful look back on the life and times of a New York and Philadelphia institution. See more dave b 03/23/2024 I went to an Automat once as a child. I loved this movie. We need more documentaries similar to this. See more The Med City Movie Guy R 03/04/2024 For most of the 20th century the automat, a diner-setting fitted only with food vending windows, was a fixture both in large cities like New York and Philadelphia as well as in pop culture. The Automat director Lisa Hurwitz introduces (or re-introduces) these ubiquitous eateries with the help of the likes of Mel Brooks, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Colin Powell recounting their own visceral and gastric connections to these cafeterias who at their peak fed nearly 800,000 people per day. One of the more interesting and enjoyable documentaries of the last decade and precisely what a good documentary should be: the presentation and preservation of a unique facet of our shared culture. See more Read all reviews
The Automat

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Cast & Crew

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Lisa Hurwitz

Director

Mel Brooks

Self

Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Self

Colin Powell

Self

Carl Reiner

Self

Elliott Gould

Self

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The Automat

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The Automat

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Movie Info

Synopsis Before fast food we had something better. Our grandparents told us stories of gathering around communal tables, sharing their lives, their struggles, and their dreams with strangers at The Automat. In the long awaited Horn & Hardart documentary relive the phenomena of America's original and most beloved restaurant chain. The one hundred year Automat saga serves up never before-seen archival footage and photographs and a cast including celebrity customers, company executives, historians, and members of the Horn & Hardart families.
Director
Lisa Hurwitz
Producer
Lisa Hurwitz, Alec Shuldiner, Russell Greene
Screenwriter
Michael Levine
Distributor
A Slice of Pie Productions
Production Co
A Slice of Pie Productions
Genre
Documentary
Original Language
English
Release Date (Theaters)
Feb 18, 2022, Limited
Box Office (Gross USA)
$257.4K
Runtime
1h 59m
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