Everything Everywhere All at Once

Everything Everywhere All at Once is a 2022 American science-fiction film written and directed by Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, jointly credited as Daniels, and released by A24 in the United States. It centers on Evelyn Quan Wang, a weary Chinese American laundromat owner, who is audited by the Internal Revenue Service while confronting strained relationships with her husband Waymond, her daughter Joy, and her demanding father Gong Gong. Michelle Yeoh plays Evelyn, and Ke Huy Quan portrays Waymond in his first feature-film role since 1996, after years working chiefly as a stunt coordinator and assistant director. When Evelyn discovers that alternate versions of herself exist across a multiverse, she gains their skills by performing improbable acts that create new paths in life; the threat comes from Jobu Tupaki, Joy's multiversal alter ego, who seeks to end everything. Stephanie Hsu plays both Joy and Jobu Tupaki, while Jamie Lee Curtis appears as IRS inspector Deirdre Beaubeirdre, and James Hong plays Evelyn's father, the family patriarch whose approval remains important to her throughout the story. The film moves among universes including a world where people have hot-dog fingers, one inhabited by pinatas, and a silent setting in which Evelyn and Joy appear as rocks overlooking a canyon. At the 95th Academy Awards, it won seven, including Best Picture, Best Director for the Daniels, Best Actress for Yeoh, Best Supporting Actor for Quan, Best Supporting Actress for Curtis, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Film Editing. Yeoh's victory made her the first Asian woman to win the Academy Award for Best Actress, while Quan became the first Vietnam-born actor to win an Oscar and Curtis received her first Academy Award after a long screen career. The cast also includes Tallie Medel as the Wang family's customer Becky, Harry Shum Jr. as Alpha Waymond, and Jenny Slate in a supporting role; the soundtrack was composed by Son Lux, the experimental band of Ryan Lott, Ian Chang, and Rafiq Bhatia. Made for a reported production budget of about $25 million, the film became A24's highest-grossing release worldwide and earned more than $140 million globally during its theatrical run. Its title reflects the film's expanding scale, but its central conflict remains Evelyn's choice to meet Joy's despair with attention rather than detachment, a resolution expressed through Waymond's repeated plea for kindness amid confusion and conflict. The film's final scenes return to the family's tax audit, now fundamentally altered.