the tourist film synopsis

The Tourist (2010)

Directed by florian henckel von donnersmarck.

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The Tourist is a 2010 American romantic thriller film co-written and directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck and starring Johnny Depp, Angelina Jolie, Paul Bettany, and Timothy Dalton. It is a remake of the 2005 French film Anthony Zimmer. GK Films financed and produced the film, with Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions releasing it in most countries through Columbia Pictures. The $100 million budget film went on to gross $278.3 million at the worldwide box office.

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• French-language films
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The Tourist

The Tourist is a 2010 American romantic comedy thriller film co-written and directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck and starring Angelina Jolie, Johnny Depp, Paul Bettany, and Timothy Dalton. It is based on the screenplay for Anthony Zimmer. GK Films financed and produced the film, with Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions releasing it in most countries through Columbia Pictures. The $100 million budget film went on to gross $278 million at the worldwide box office.

Despite negative reception from the critics, the film was nominated for three Golden Globes, with a debate arising over the question as to whether it was a comedy or a drama. Henckel von Donnersmarck repeatedly stated it was neither genre, calling it "a travel romance with thriller elements," but that if he had to choose between the two, he would choose comedy.

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Synopsys [ ]

Elise (Angelina Jolie) sits next to an American tourist, Frank (Johnny Depp), on a train going to Venice. She has chosen him as a decoy, making believe that he is her lover who is wanted by police. Not only will they need to evade the police, but also the mobster whose money her lover stole.

A woman named Elise (Angelina Jolie) is being trailed in Paris by French police working with Scotland Yard. At a cafe, she receives a letter from Alexander Pearce, a former lover, with explicit directions to board a train to Venice, Italy, pick out a man who resembles him, and make the police believe that this man is Alexander Pearce. A mysterious stranger, not involved with the police, also seems to be watching Elise. Elise burns the letter and boards a train.

She takes a seat across from Frank (Johnny Depp), an American tourist reading a spy novel. Frank is instantly attracted to her. The train arrives in Venice, and she invites him to go with her on a boat to the Hotel Danieli. At dinner, much to Frank's dismay, Elise admits to having feelings for another man, presumably Alexander Pearce. Later, on her room's balcony they share a kiss, witnessed by the men following her.

The next day, Frank awakens to find Elise gone. Men suddenly try to break into the hotel room. Frank barely escapes by running over several roofs in his pajamas, but is caught by the Italian police. A sympathetic detective listens to Frank's story that he does not know why these men are after him. He takes Frank from the jail and tells him that his story checks out and that the men after him were Belarusians, who have placed a price on his head and believe Frank to be someone else. The detective, however, then delivers Frank into the clutches of these same men, in order to collect the money they promised.

Elise suddenly appears with a boat to rescue Frank, and they flee together. Elise finally tells Frank that all this is happening because she kissed him and made the police believe that he was Alexander Pearce. Frank learns that Pearce stole two billion dollars from a gangster named Shaw (Steven Berkoff) and is also wanted by the British Government for tax evasion. Stunned by the news, Frank says he still does not regret kissing Elise.

Elise apologizes for getting him involved at all and tricks Frank off the boat. Frank says he loves her. Elise goes to a government building. She turns out to be a British secret agent. She sees her fellow British agent Acheson (Paul Bettany), who was among those following her in Paris. Elise was supposed to work undercover against Pearce but fell in love with him and had disappeared from her job until now. She tells Acheson that she is ready to help him find Pearce now because she wants to prevent anybody else from getting hurt.

Elise goes to a ball Pearce has invited her to attend, wearing a wire. She is handed a letter by the same mysterious stranger from Paris. The letter is from Pearce, saying where to meet him. As Elise turns to leave, Frank appears and prevents her exit. They dance. Elise leaves to find Pearce, and agent Acheson's men apprehend Frank. They both watch on surveillance equipment as Elise walks into a trap set by the gangster Shaw. The gangster threatens to kill her unless she reveals the location of the safe holding the money Pearce stole from him. Agent Acheson doesn't intervene for his colleague Elise, confident that Pearce will show up to rescue her.

Elise reveals the safe's location but does not know its code. Frank watches in horror as Elise is threatened yet again. Seeing that Acheson won't help Elise, Frank picks the lock to his handcuffs and escapes to help her. Frank pretends to be Pearce. Elise begs him to stop or he will be killed. Frank, acting as Pearce, tells Shaw that he will get his money, but only if Elise is first released and safe. As Frank pretends that he is about to open the safe, Elise mouths "I love you."

All of a sudden, Chief Inspector Jones (Timothy Dalton) gives the order for the police snipers to shoot Shaw and his men. Frank and Elise are unharmed. As the police survey the scene, agent Acheson can't believe that Pearce did not save Elise, and Jones is furious with him for exposing her to danger. Jones then informs Elise that she has been terminated from the force. A police report informs them that Pearce has just been caught. As the room clears, Elise and Frank embrace. He asks her if she loves both him and Alexander Pearce. Elise answers yes. To spare her from this dilemma, Frank demonstrates that he is the real Alexander Pearce by entering the correct code for the safe. Pearce had gotten plastic surgery, so he could have a new life.

Meanwhile, the arrested man believed to be Pearce explains to police that he was paid to pose as him but that he is really just a tourist. Elise and Frank/Pearce leave on a boat with the money, finally being able to be together. In the open safe, police find a bankers check for the 744 million pounds in back taxes Pearce owed the British government.

• Angelina Jolie as Elise Clifton-Ward
• Johnny Depp as Frank Tupelo/Alexander Pearce
• Paul Bettany as Insp. John Acheson
• Timothy Dalton as Chief Insp. Jones
• Steven Berkoff as Reginald Shaw
• Rufus Sewell as Lawrence
• Christian De Sica as Col. Lombardi
• Alessio Boni as Sgt. Cerato
• Daniele Pecci as Lt. Narduzzi
• Giovanni Guidelli as Lt. Tommassini
• Raoul Bova as Count Filippo Gaggia
• Igor Jijikine as Virginsky
• Bruno Wolkowitch as Capt. Courson
• Mhamed Arezki as Achmed Tchebali
• Marc Ruchmann as Brigadier Kaiser
• Julien Baumgartner as Brigadier Ricuort
• François Vincentelli as Brigadier Marion
• Nino Frassica as Brigadier Mele
• Neri Marcorè as Alessio, the hotel concierge
• Renato Scarpa as Arturo, a tailor
• Maurizio Casagrande as Antonio, a waiter

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Posters [ ].

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The Tourist

• Credits 
• Trailers  [1]
• Image gallery  [18]

All images are copyrighted by their respective copyright holders and/or producers/distributors.

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• "This zero-chemistry pairing of Angelina Jolie and Depp stands as an object lesson in the perils of succumbing to the siren call of big-time Hollywood filmmaking (...) Surely Donnersmarck did not set out to remake Death in Venice, but artistically, that is what has been achieved"  Todd McCarthy : The Hollywood Reporter
• "There are all kinds of bad movies in the world, but it's really only stardom that can create the exact variety of cinematic abortion we find in 'The Tourist.'"  Mick LaSalle : SFGATE
• "In a year of craptaculars, The Tourist deserves burial at the bottom of the 2010 dung heap (...) it fails on every conceivable level"  Peter Travers : Rolling Stone
• "'The Tourist' is like going for a ride in a sinking gondola"  Colin Covert : Minneapolis Star Tribune

All copyrighted material (movie posters, DVD covers, stills, trailers) and trademarks belong to their respective producers and/or distributors.

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The tourist.

Directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck

It all started when he met a woman.

American tourist Frank meets mysterious British woman Elise on the train to Venice. Romance seems to bud, but there's more to her than meets the eye.

Johnny Depp Angelina Jolie Paul Bettany Timothy Dalton Steven Berkoff Rufus Sewell Christian De Sica Alessio Boni Daniele Pecci Giovanni Guidelli Raoul Bova Bruno Wolkowitch Julien Baumgartner François Vincentelli Clément Sibony Jean-Claude Adelin Jean-Marie Lamour Nicolas Guillot Mhamed Arezki Igor Jijikine Vladimir Orlov Vladimir Tevlovski Alec Utgoff Mark Zak Neri Marcorè Gabriele Gallinari Riccardo De Torrebruna Maurizio Casagrande Nino Frassica Show All… Gwilym Lee Steven Robertson Iddo Goldberg Renato Scarpa Giancarlo Previati Giovanni Esposito Marino Narduzzi Tino Giada Bruno Bilotta Ralf Moeller Marc Ruchmann Massimiliano Belsito Francesca Nerozzi Romina Carancini Jennifer Iacono Claudia Mancinelli Anoushka Rava

Director Director

Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck

Producers Producers

Gary Barber Roger Birnbaum Jonathan Glickman Tim Headington Graham King Jeffrey Nachmanoff Denis O'Sullivan Adam Rosenberg

Writers Writers

Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck Julian Fellowes Christopher McQuarrie

Original Writer Original Writer

Jérôme Salle

Casting Casting

Susie Figgis Stéphane Foenkinos Béatrice Kruger

Editors Editors

Joe Hutshing Patricia Rommel

Cinematography Cinematography

Executive producers exec. producers.

Olivier Courson Ron Halpern Bahman Naraghi Lloyd Phillips

Lighting Lighting

Elvis Pasqual Stefano Marino Jean-François Drigeard Morris Flam

Camera Operators Camera Operators

Emiliano Leurini Marco Sacerdoti Daniele Massaccesi

Production Design Production Design

Art direction art direction.

Susanna Codognato Marco Trentini

Set Decoration Set Decoration

Anna Pinnock Antonio Tarolla

Visual Effects Visual Effects

David Sanger Thomas F. Ford IV Matthew Gratzner Ted Rae

Title Design Title Design

Ahmet Ahmet

Choreography Choreography

Luca Tommassini

Composer Composer

James Newton Howard

Sound Sound

Katherine Rose Dror Mohar Craig S. Jaeger Charlie Campagna Harry Cohen Hector C. Gika Scott Millan David Parker Wylie Stateman Renée Tondelli

Costume Design Costume Design

Colleen Atwood

Makeup Makeup

Maurizio Silvi Françoise Quilichini Novella Borghi Joel Harlow Toni G

Hairstyling Hairstyling

Giorgio Gregorini Peter Nicastro Veronica McAleer Karen Asano-Myers Colin Jamison Fulvio Pozzobon Frédérique Arguello

Spyglass Entertainment Peninsula Films StudioCanal GK Films Cineroma SRL

France Italy UK USA

Primary Language

Spoken languages.

English French Italian Russian Spanish

Releases by Date

08 dec 2010, 09 dec 2010, 10 dec 2010, 15 dec 2010, 16 dec 2010, 17 dec 2010, 26 dec 2010, 29 dec 2010, 30 dec 2010, 31 dec 2010, 04 jan 2011, 05 jan 2011, 06 jan 2011, 07 jan 2011, 08 jan 2011, 13 jan 2011, 14 jan 2011, 20 jan 2011, 21 jan 2011, 27 jan 2011, 28 jan 2011, 10 feb 2011, 05 mar 2011, 01 jan 2013, 01 oct 2018, 30 dec 2020, 01 apr 2021, 19 apr 2011, 25 may 2011, 03 jan 2013, releases by country.

• Theatrical M

Netherlands

• Physical 12 DVD, Blu ray
• TV 12 RTL 4

New Zealand

• Theatrical 12 Age Limit: 11

Philippines

• Theatrical 16
• Theatrical M/12
• Theatrical 15
• Theatrical 16+

South Korea

• Theatrical 7

Switzerland

Trinidad and tobago.

• Theatrical 14+

United Arab Emirates

103 mins   More at IMDb TMDb Report this page

Popular reviews

Review by brooklyn ★★★ 28

YOU GUYS PLEASE LOOK AT A PHOTO OF THIS DIRECTOR IT JUST MATCHES HIS NAME SO PERFECTLY IM CRYING OVER THIS

Review by Jake Cole ★½

What a gorgeously photographed slide show of the cast's all-expenses trip to Venice.

Review by DirkH ★ 9

Jolie + Depp = utter piece of crap.

Who'd have thought?

The director obviously didn't.

He has a funny name.

It is more entertaining than the film.

That's a bit sad.

But also kinda funny in an ironic way.

Review by rubbybells ★½

There was more chemistry between Paul Bettany and some burnt pieces of paper than between the 2 leads

Review by max ★★

one star for angelina and one for venice.

Review by nabeel ★

never letting my mom pick movies again

Review by gabi ★★★★

i can’t judge frank because i too would risk my life for angelina jolie

Review by C4rlo5 ★★★★ 2

“I’m having dinner, if you’d care to join me.” Shit I love this one, I don’t know why is it the average rating that low (2,6 ⭐️). I really wanted it to fool me, I was just wishing it… just let it flow, you probably know what’s next, but you really want it to be that way… haven’t you ever had that feeling??

I highly encourage you to check this movie out and let me know if it deserves such a low average rating , and if it does you can call me an average beginner of cinema… I mean it has its flaws but it has its charming too .

List of movies I watched from Amazon Prime Spain 🇪🇸

Review by Michael James ★★

You got some beautiful locations and a leading duo in Johnny Depp - Angelina Jolie trying to outdo it with their charm, but unfortunately neither the storyline nor narrative has anything to offer you that is interesting enough and ends up as one tiresome watch. Such a wasted opportunity.

Review by Dawson Joyce ★★ 4

It's well-acted, well-shot, and has occasional moments of intrigue, but The Tourist unfortunately suffers from a painfully obvious plot twist, a muddled and nonsensical script, dull pacing, and little to no chemistry between leads Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie.

Review by Logan Kenny ★★

Review by LetMeExplain ★ 3

Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie haven’t even seen this movie.

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The Tourist » Film

The film opens with Elise (Jolie), a beautiful Londoner in Paris, taking in her breakfast at her usual bistro while a van filled with policemen observe her. There she receives a mysterious letter telling her to take a specific train and introduce herself to a random man of the same height and build as one Alexander Pearce. Though the police, led by the extremely driven Inspector John Acheson ( Paul Bettany ) attempt to follow, she loses them en route to the Gare de Lyon and boards her intended train. There she meets math teacher Frank Tupelo (Depp), a tourist from Wisconsin who is fond of spy novels and nervous around his new acquaintance. He thinks he's met the girl of his dreams, and what turns into light flirtation on the train holds the potential for so much more as Elise invites him back to her hotel in Venice.

Just when Frank begins to think his luck couldn't get any better, a slew of foreign thugs descend upon him. Suddenly, he finds himself hunted by mobsters, crooked cops, and Scotland Yard's finance division as everyone seems eager to track down criminal mastermind Alexander Pearce. Unfortunately for Frank, their current suspect is him.

This film provides examples of:

• Action Survivor : Frank, is not one of these because he planned the whole thing.
• Artistic License : There's a shot where we see one of the police snipers. He is clearly silhouetted against the lit wall behind him, and is obviously a sniper. He could've turned off the light switch for whatever's behind him, but he doesn't care about being seen.
• Becoming the Mask : Elise was a cop at one point and she was assigned to go undercover to nab Alexander Pearce. Unfortunately, she fell in love with him. In the words of Inspector Acheson, she could never decide whether she was with Pearce or the cops.
• Big Bad : The gangster boss, Reginald Shaw.
• Big Brother Is Watching : Much of the early scenes are shown from the point of view of cops watching Elise through hidden cameras and such: zooming in her ass, speculating whether or not she's wearing panties. This early scene gets retroactively creepier later in the movie, as it turns out she's one of their coworkers.
• Cassandra Truth : When Frank confesses to being Alexander Pearce. Zig-zagged in that he expected only some of his listeners to believe him.
• Da Chief : Chief Inspector Jones, played by Timothy Dalton of all people
• Did Not See That Coming : Pearce’s plan hinged on Elise choosing a random man of his height and build to act as a patsy for the cops and criminals so he could act unimpeded. Elise unwittingly choosing his newly disguised self as the decoy cripples his distraction scheme, and he spends the rest of the film scrambling to salvage the situation.
• Dirty Cop : Colonnello Lombardi, the Italian cop Frank first goes to when he realizes there are men out to kill him.
• Foreign Remake : Of the French film Anthony Zimmer.
• Gambit Pileup : Everyone's conspiring against each other, and poor Frank is caught in the middle of it. Except that he's the one who got everyone else caught in this mess: Frank IS Alexander, and being mistaken for himself was his plan all along.
• Gambit Roulette : Alexander's plan. He told his wife to get on a particular train and pick out someone of his height and build at random. His entire plan depends on her picking one guy in particular who, it turns out, is actually him. If that first guy she had locked eyes with hadn't been with someone, the scheme would have come apart. The point of it all is to provide a decoy that will keep the police and the crooks from catching Alexander. If the decoy is Alexander all along, how does that work?
• Inspector Javert : Inspector Acheson. He wants to continue pursuing Alexander Pearce, even after Pearce leaves a check to cover the 'seven hundred and forty four million' he owed in back taxes, but Chief Inspector Jones declares the operation closed. "What is it (Pearce) really did? He stole money from a gangster. A dead gangster... I can't say I don't wish him well."
• First of all the designation of the train Elise boards in Gare de Lyon is Ter, which stands for Transport express régional in French and is thus a regional, not an international train.
• There's no direct line between Paris and Venice.
• "ten minutes" outside of Venice finds us looking at lush green hills. This is Venice , a city built in a swamp and surrounded by industrial wasteland...
• Knight Templar : Partially subverted with Inspector Acheson since he never explicitly says his actions are for the greater good (and it becomes clear he's motivated by greed, jealousy, or something else personal).
• London Gangster : In his introductory scene Shaw is presented as Russian , but he's actually an English gangster who prefers to employ Russians.
• Mistaken Identity : The main plot revolves around Frank being mistaken for Alexander Pearce.
• Mob-Boss Suit Fitting : Reginald Shaw has a Mob Boss Suit Fitting, even insisting that the tailor remain when his mooks arrive. He takes a report from his cronies, and uses the tailor's measuring tape to strangle one of them when he makes a mistake. Only at the end of the scene does he comment to the tailor, mentioning that the suit fits him very nicely.
• Ms. Fanservice : The movie makes the most of Jolie's beauty.
• The Perfect Crime : By the end, Pearce gets the girl, his enemies are dead (killed by cops, no less), he cuts the feds a check for his back taxes to get them off his back and he still has several billion dollars for his efforts .
• Polyamory : Torn between her love for Alexander and her love for Frank, Elise finally decide that she loves both of them. She quickly find out that choosing one of them over the other would have sucked a lot for BOTH Alexander and Frank, since they are the same person.
• Precision F-Strike : Frank turns around to see Elise in her evening gown. Frank : "Fuck!"
• Reasonable Authority Figure : Inspector Jones, as a foil to Inspector Acheson.
• Running Gag : Frank keeps speaking Spanish when he means to use Italian. It's lampshaded at one point.
• Scenery Porn : The cinematographer(s) took full advantage of the Venice setting. (Several of the interiors are gorgeous too.)
• Shout-Out : Paul Bettany mentioning Lichtenstein can't be a coincidence.
• Undercover Cop Reveal : Elise is a cop tracking down Alexander.
• With My Hands Tied : Frank escapes from handcuffs twice, albeit once with assistance from Elise.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness : Shaw does this to one of his mooks. By strangling him with a measuring tape, in the middle of being fitted for a new suit. Oddly enough, they all agree that his suit looks very good on him after that.
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The Tourist

HBO Max continues stealth drops of some of the best drama mini-series on television. Last year highlights included “The Head” and “ Station Eleven ,” and they start 2022 strongly with the fantastic “The Tourist,” a twisty tale that plays like an Aussie version of “ Fargo .” With sharp dialogue, clever plotting, and career-best work from Jamie Dornan and Danielle Macdonald , this is a great little thriller, a show that constantly keeps you guessing and entertained in equal measure.

The “ Belfast ” and “ Fifty Shades of Grey ” star plays an unnamed man (at least for a while) who is driving through the very remote Australian outback. He stops at a station to use the bathroom, banters with the guy behind the counter, and hits the road again. Looking in the rearview mirror, he sees a truck gaining on him with remarkable speed. The Man twists off the road to avoid it and the trucker follows, revealing through a POV from his cab that this is very intentional—he’s trying to kill this tourist. They race through the desert until The Man’s car crashes. He wakes up in a hospital with no memory of who he is or how he got there.

Enter a small-town officer named Helen Chambers (Macdonald), engaged to an awful man named Ethan ( Greg Larsen ) and thrust into a mystery about who this handsome Irishman is in a hospital bed. When The Man finds a note with a time and a location in his pocket, he heads to a small town called Burnt Ridge, where he meets a woman named Luci ( Shalom Brune-Franklin ) who might know about his past, ends up crossing paths with a sociopath ( Ólafur Darri Ólafsson ) who clearly wants him dead, and gets a phone call from a man who’s been buried underground. And then things get even weirder.

Created by the people behind the excellent “ The Missing ” (which aired stateside on Starz), the writing on “The Tourist” is a metronomic back and forth between reveals and how those reveals propel the narrative in a new direction. Pushing their way through all the chaos are Dornan and Macdonald, both phenomenal. Dornan finds a quirky, unsettled way to play a man who doesn’t know who he is without resorting to the cliché of the lost soul. If anything, he leans into more of a blank slate interpretation of amnesia, playing a guy who’s more open to what comes next because he can’t remember what came before. And Macdonald is charming and so incredibly likable that she becomes the heart of a show that can be cold at times.

Echoes of “ Memento ” and “Fargo” aside, “The Tourist” also has its own quirky personality. Some of those quirks get a bit extreme in late-season episodes in ways I can’t spoil, but the show is never boring. It’s a reminder that the Dornan who was so great in “ The Fall ” is still out there, and I hope it leads him to more bizarre, challenging roles like this one. There’s an argument to be made that there’s an even-better 100-minute movie in this six-episode mini-series, but that’s not the world we’re in right now. A story like this has a better chance to be told in the TV system than the mid-budget film one, and the writers don’t drag their feet or spin their wheels like so many streaming thrillers. They’re constantly moving our hero forward, keeping us uncertain about his past and even his moral center.

Some will argue that “The Tourist” gets too convoluted and I’ll admit that I enjoyed the playful uncertainty of the first half of the season more than the intensity of the second half. Although the show does get deeper in how it unpacks lies we tell ourselves and those we listen to from other people. It turns out that everyone on “The Tourist” has a secret or two, and almost all of them could use a car accident to reset the hole they’ve dug for themselves. 

I’m not sure how intentional it is but the show never stopped reminding me of some of my favorite early Coen films—the noir danger of “ Blood Simple ,” the open roads of “ Raising Arizona ” (and a bearded hunter who seems unkillable), Macdonald’s very Marge Gunderson character—and yet these nods to greats are embedded in a breakneck plot that never slows down enough to distract from its own inspired storytelling. Take the trip.

Whole series screened for review . It premieres on HBO Max on March 3 rd .

Brian Tallerico

Brian Tallerico is the Managing Editor of RogerEbert.com, and also covers television, film, Blu-ray, and video games. He is also a writer for Vulture, The Playlist, The New York Times, and GQ, and the President of the Chicago Film Critics Association.

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• Danielle Macdonald as Helen Chambers
• Shalom Brune-Franklin as Luci
• Damon Herriman as D.I. Lachlan Rogers
• Alex Dimitriades as Kostas
• Ólafur Darri Ólafsson as Billy
• Greg Larsen as Ethan Krum
• Chris Sweeney
• Daniel Nettheim

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Season 1 – The Tourist

Where to watch, the tourist — season 1.

Watch The Tourist — Season 1 with a subscription on Netflix.

What to Know

Jamie Dornan makes for a compelling guide through The Tourist , a beguiling drama that deepens its mystery with solid shocks and welcome moments of levity.

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Audience reviews, cast & crew.

Jamie Dornan

Danielle Macdonald

Helen Chambers

Shalom Brune-Franklin

Luci Miller

Ólafur Darri Ólafsson

Billy Nixon

Geneviève Lemon

Danny Adcock

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• Entertainment
• Why <i>The Tourist</i> Should Be Your Next Netflix Binge–And What to Know Before Watching

Why The Tourist Should Be Your Next Netflix Binge–And What to Know Before Watching

T ake a break from endlessly scrolling through Netflix searching for something new to watch and just press play on The Tourist, the BBC series which stars Jamie Dornan as a mysterious Irishman who wakes up in an Australian hospital with amnesia.

The wry thriller isn’t necessarily new—it premiered on the BBC in 2022 and quickly became one of the U.K.’s most-watched dramas of that year—but it is a recent addition to Netflix, which acquired the exclusive rights to the series last year and started streaming it in February. (Season 1 of The Tourist was previously available to stream in the U.S. on Max.) 

At just six episodes, The Tourist is a low-risk, high-reward viewing experience full of twists and turns that are sure to keep you on your toes. Think Memento if directed by the Coen Brothers . Even better, if you like what you see, you can launch right into season 2, which is now streaming.

Here is what you need to know about your next great Netflix binge . 

What is The Tourist about?

The Tourist begins with an Irish guy (played by Dornan) making a pit stop at a gas station in the middle of nowhere, Australia. Nothing seems too out of the ordinary; he fills up his car, questions the gas station attendant’s bathroom key policy, visits the absolutely filthy restroom, and is on his way. But things get weird once he gets back on the road. He finds himself being harassed by a tractor trailer that seems hellbent on mowing him down. Just when it appears that he’s in the clear, he’s T-boned by the truck and left for dead on the side of the dirt road. 

When he wakes up, he’s in the hospital and has no memory of the accident or who he is. He doesn’t have a wallet or ID or phone on him to help jog his memory. This nameless man is now a tourist in his own life, struggling to understand who he was and why someone wanted him dead so badly. With help from a few kind, but not necessarily trustworthy strangers including Probationary Constable Helen Chambers (Danielle Macdonald), local waitress Luci (Shalom Brune-Franklin), and Detective Inspector Lachlan Rogers (Damon Herriman), he embarks on a journey of self-discovery that leaves him with more questions than answers about his dark past. 

Why it’s worth your time

Let’s start with Jamie Dornan. He played the leading man in the Fifty Shades trilogy and the Academy Award-nominated 2021 drama Belfast , but The Tourist feels like the first time he’s been able to truly show his range as an actor. It’s hard to resist that Irish brogue, but it’s even harder to resist his “ get you a man that can do both ” charm. Fans of the superbly silly Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar already know how funny he can be—not to mention, what a great singer he is. But The Tourist lets him show off his dry, dark wit, while also letting him show off his romantic side. By the end of the series, you’ll be left wondering why he hasn’t yet been cast in a good rom-com. (Sorry, not sorry Wild Mountain Thyme .) In the show’s most gripping action sequences, he manages to channel another amnesiac with killer instincts, Jason Bourne. But thanks to his hangdog expression, Dornan is also able to pull off the existential dread his character feels after realizing he’s not the person he hoped he would be.

Obviously, it’s hard to take your eyes off Dornan, but the scenery in The Tourist isn’t too bad to look at either. The show, set in the Australian outback—like way, way out back—was filmed on location in South Australia around Adelaide, a city known for its coastline. (Adelaide's North Haven Beach serves as the show’s stand-in for Bali’s Kuta Beach.) It was also shot in the Flinders Ranges , the largest mountain ranges in South Australia, and in Peterborough, a small town in an area near Adelaide known as wheat country, which stood in for the sandy outback scenes. (Season 2 takes place in Ireland, so prepare yourself for greenery as far as the eye can see.) Despite all the drama onscreen, The Tourist makes Australia look like a nice place to visit.

What to remember before watching The Tourist season 2

Whether you’ve already finished the first season and need a bit of a refresher or you’re planning to skip straight to Season 2, this is what you need to know before watching the second season. 

Warning: major spoilers for The Tourist Season 1 ahead.

The Irish guy with amnesia is actually Elliot Stanley, and he’s done some really bad things in his life. 

While in the hospital, Elliot finds a note in his pants pocket with an address for a diner in a tiny town called Burnt Ridge. It’s there he meets Luci (Brune-Franklin), a waitress who is actually his ex-girlfriend. She only chooses to tell him his name and their relationship to one another after they discover a man’s dead body stashed in an oil drum that had been buried. The man was Marko (Damien Strouthos), who, like Elliot, worked for Kostas (Alex Dimitriades), an international drug lord and Luci’s fiancé.

Luci isn’t exactly who she claims to be. She’s a scammer who stole a rather sentimental bag of money from Kostas in order to run off with Elliot. Now the Greek gangster is back to collect. But Kostas isn’t all that interested in the cash; a million dollars is chump change to a guy like him. This is about ego. Kostas, a maniac who spikes his water with LSD to be able to speak with his dead brother, wants to punish Elliot for successfully stealing his girl.

Kostas decides to kidnap the wife of Detective Inspector Lachlan Rogers (Herriman) in hopes that it will scare the decorated officer into doing his bidding. It does; Lachlan apprehends Elliot and kills a young sergeant in the process, becoming one of the bad guys. But is Elliot also a bad guy? Probationary Constable Helen Chambers (Macdonald), the ambitious cop-in-training assigned to his case, doesn’t think so. She believes the fact that he was willing to save her from being shot by Kostas’ henchman means there is good in there somewhere, even if he has done bad things. But Elliot isn’t convinced that someone can really change. 

After drinking from Kostas’ LSD-laced water bottle, he has visions that offer some insight into who he may have been. He sees his first meeting with Kostas, where he’s hired as his accountant. He is able to relive his meet-cute with Luci and sees how toxic their relationship was. He discovers where he buried the bag of money and dreams of laying in bed with Helen. He also speaks to a Russian woman named Lena Pascal, who he’s seen before in his dreams. She tells him she’s in Adelaide and claims that she can help him “fill in the colors” of his past. 

Elliot worries that what he has seen aren’t memories, but hallucinations. When he finds the bag of money in the same spot he had envisioned it though, he believes that Lena may be real, too. Unfortunately, he can’t go looking for her just yet. After Kostas and Luci are killed in a shootout over the million dollars, Lachlan lies to the police in hopes of saving himself. He claims that Elliot and Helen kidnapped him and went on a shooting rampage à la Bonnie and Clyde, killing the young sergeant. Luckily, Helen is able to access the CCTV footage that shows Lachlan transporting Elliot in handcuffs, catching him in his lie. It saves both her and Elliott from going to jail and allows Elliot a chance to speak with Lena, who was not a figment of his imagination—though after their chat he wishes she was.

When Lena comes to meet him at the jail, she reveals that he wasn’t just Kostas’ accountant as he had dreamt, but helped train the drug mules, mostly young immigrant women who swallowed bags of heroin to transport across the globe. Lena tells a story of two girls who died instantly after the bags Elliot gave them exploded in their stomachs. Lena lived, but not without literal scars. She shows him the long gash across her stomach where she was cut open to retrieve the drugs. She claims Elliot was the one who ordered her to be butchered, worried the heroin would go to waste. He apologizes for his cruelty, but she doesn’t absolve him of his guilt. “You have to live with yourself,” she tells him as she leaves.

Elliot doesn’t think he can and attempts to have himself arrested, but Lena won’t press charges. He then attempts to lose his memory again by getting into another car crash. He flips his car over, but unfortunately, it doesn’t work. He can’t forget what Lena told him and neither can Helen, who after learning the evil that Elliot was capable of decides she can no longer see him. But she can’t stop thinking about him and wondering whether he or anyone should be defined by their worst mistakes. 

Elliot wonders the same, but the guilt is just too much. He decides that he can no longer live with himself and attempts to take his life with vodka and pills. Laid out on his bed, waiting to die, he gets a text: a burrito emoji from Helen.

The burrito references a scene earlier in the show, when Elliot and Helen were eating together in a Mexican restaurant. Helen is his hostage, but the night plays out like a first date. Elliot can’t remember what kind of food he likes so she suggests they order everything on the menu so he can figure out his taste now. She encourages him to stop thinking about who he was and start becoming the person he is meant to be. He later tells her that he equates burritos with happiness and her text becomes a lifeline. He might not be able to forget what he’s done, but she believes he has the capacity to change. The joy on his face when he sees her message makes it seem as if Elliot finally believes he can change too. But fans will have to wait until Season 2 to see if he’s able to become a better person.

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'The Tourist' doesn't know who he is — just that someone wants him dead

John Powers

In The Tourist, "The Man" (Jamie Dornan) wakes up in a small town hospital in the Australian outback with no idea who he is or how he got there. HBO hide caption

In The Tourist, "The Man" (Jamie Dornan) wakes up in a small town hospital in the Australian outback with no idea who he is or how he got there.

Ever since the birth of mass communications, our culture has been haunted by the idea of amnesia. In high-class books by the likes of George Orwell or Milan Kundera , forgetting becomes a political metaphor for the erasure of truth. Things are less ambitious in pop entertainments like Memento or the Jason Bourne series . There, memory-loss is less a metaphor than a motor — a gimmick to drive the story forward.

This motor purrs like a Ferrari in The Tourist , a hit BBC series playing on HBO Max. Written by the Williams brothers, Harry and Jack — best known here for The Missing and Baptiste — this funny, suspenseful six-part thriller doesn't merely keep us guessing. It keeps its amnesiac hero guessing, too. He knows even less about his own story than we do.

A bearded, muscled-up Jamie Dornan stars as a T-shirt clad Irishman who gets in a car accident and winds up in a small town hospital in the Australian outback. Known simply as "The Man," he doesn't know who he is or how he got there. But soon after he leaves the hospital, he knows one thing for sure: Somebody wants to kill him.

As he seeks to find out who's after him and why, he's helped by two very different women. Luci (Shalom Brune-Franklin) is a waitress who we aren't quite sure what to make of. In contrast, it's easy to trust probationary constable Helen Chambers, played by Danielle Macdonald. Helen's a newbie cop who struggles with her weight and with a fiancé who speaks of her appearance with such passive-aggressive meanness that I kept hoping he'd become one of the show's murder victims.

While The Man's search for his identity is grippingly plotted, the show lets the action breathe. It takes time to enjoy his encounters with a wide range of oddball types, be it a goofy chess-playing pilot, a Greek mobster, the affably nutty woman who offers him lodging, or the enormous, cowboy-hatted hitman who has the self-satisfied theatricality of an escapee from a Tarantino movie. That said, The Man knows he must keep moving to stay alive.

For all The Tourist 's inventiveness — Episode 5 is a trip — it reminds us that even good pop culture is often derivative. The show's opening car crash sequence mimics the Steven Spielberg movie Duel . More importantly, the Williams brothers are pretty clearly doing a Down Under riff on Fargo . Their series offers the same blend of violence and barbed humor, the same mythologizing of bleak, underpopulated places, and the same cavalcade of viciousness and folly that brings out the heroism in an ordinary person.

The show's moral center is Helen, who, in Macdonald's sensational performance, has our sympathy from the get-go. Her work is so scene-stealingly good that I would call this a career-making performance if I hadn't already said this about Macdonald's electric work as an aspiring New Jersey rapper in the indie film Patti Cake$ .

Helen's transparent goodness makes her the perfect counterpoint to The Man, a handsome hunk who's a mystery, even to himself. It's a great role for Dornan, who, earlier in his career, had a slightly synthetic prettiness that made him ideal for creepy characters like the S&M billionaire in Fifty Shades of Grey . Here, he's a bit older, thicker, and rougher. And just as Brad Pitt often seems liberated when his good looks are masked a bit, Dornan gives his best performance as a man who isn't sure whether or not he's the hero of his own life.

Over the course of the six episodes, The Man struggles to learn whether, back before his accident, he was a good guy or a bad guy. And if he had been a villain, does he have to stay one, even after he starts remembering his past? I won't reveal what he discovers, though I feel obligated to say that you won't get a definitive answer this season. You'll have to watch Season 2 of The Tourist , not yet made, which I bet you will be more than happy to do.

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The tourist ending explained by jamie dornan.

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Ted Lasso Season 4 Reports & Keeley Return Potential Addressed By Juno Temple

Ghosts season 4 confirmed to introduce 2 long-awaited characters, ncis season 22 report hints at mcgee’s possible show-changing new job.

Warning: This article contains SPOILERS for The Tourist .

Jamie Dornan opens up about the shocking ending of The Tourist . Created by Harry and Jack Williams, The Tourist centers on The Man (played by Dornan) who wakes up in a hospital with zero memory of who he is and how he got there. Spending the first of six episodes in a state of utter uncertainty, Dornan’s protagonist is helped along by Helen Chamber (Danielle Macdonald) , and the traffic cop helps The Man uncover the details behind the horrific car crash that led to his amnesia.

By the finale of the Australian-set series, it’s revealed that The Man is a drug smuggler named Elliot. Confronted by Lena Pascal (Victoria Haralabidou), a woman Elliot consistently has visions of, it becomes clear that Elliot’s actions in smuggling heroin inside people’s bodies led to the painful death of two women. It also led to Lena’s disfigurement, all of which she details in a searing monologue that makes plain how awful Elliot was before the crash and why someone would want him dead. This leads Elliot to the same conclusion, too, as he attempts to take his own life.

Related: HBO Max: Every Movie & TV Show Coming In March 2022

Speaking with EW to promote The Tourist , which is currently streaming on HBO Max , Dornan opened up about how difficult it was to film that reveal. The actor admits that it broke him, detailing how uncomfortable and uneasy it made him feel. Dornan’s quote is included below.

“It was crazy, that. So much of this character and this performance for me is, like any performance, you’re trying to stay present, but never more so than when everything is information that you’ve never heard before, particularly if it’s awful information, like that scene. I felt very raw in that moment, I felt very exposed, and vulnerable and kind of awful and terrible about myself. She was doing such beautiful work in front of me and it was having the impact that I felt that it should have. Sometimes you get yourself in a place where you feel so broken that you can’t actually stop crying. [Laughs] I felt a bit like that that day in a good way, I guess. I felt very exposed, very vulnerable. You know, it’s hard stuff to hear, the hardest stuff to hear, so a lot of that luckily was on the page for me in terms of the writing. But, yeah, not an easy day, that.”

Dornan, who goes on to mention that there have been conversations about a possible second season, previously spoke about how The Tourist was his most difficult role because he didn’t know anything about The Man. To go from there, only to learn of the banal evil of this protagonist had to have been as much a punch in the gut for Dornan as it was for the audience. For most of the HBO Max drama, Elliot is positioned as a good guy. Gruff, sure, and certainly flawed, but ultimately the hero of the story alongside Helen. It’s a difficult last-minute switch that Dornan sells perfectly.

Still, even though the reveal leads the audience down a dark path, it ends with hope. It’s heavily implied that Elliot survives his suicide attempt and begins a relationship with Helen. Perhaps, it suggests, in the long-run, that the memory loss provides Elliot with a chance to be a new person. It also opens the door for The Tourist season 2. And maybe, given that many viewers and critics enjoyed the lighter and more experimental aspects of the series, a second outing won’t have quite as bleak a twist.

More: Jamie Dornan Interview: The Tourist

• The Tourist (2024)

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The Tourist

When a man wakes up in the Australian outback with no memory, he must use the few clues he has to discover his identity before his past catches up with him. When a man wakes up in the Australian outback with no memory, he must use the few clues he has to discover his identity before his past catches up with him. When a man wakes up in the Australian outback with no memory, he must use the few clues he has to discover his identity before his past catches up with him.

• Harry Williams
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• 362 User reviews
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• 4 wins & 14 nominations total

Episodes 12

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• Helen Chambers

• Lena Pascal

• Niamh Cassidy

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• Trivia The reason season 2 is set in Ireland was because Jamie Dorman didn't want to spend several month away in Australia again. The decision was made to relocate so Jamie could be close to his family
• Connections Featured in Jeremy Vine: Episode #5.5 (2022)

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Kathleen turner talks 'the accidental tourist,' 'body heat,' in a 1987 interview | kcra entertainment archives.

Kathleen Turner discussed her role in "The Accidental Tourist" and reminisced about filming "Body Heat."

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Kathleen Turner discussed her latest film "The Accidental Tourist" in a 1987 interview.

Turner also reminisced about the challenges of shooting "Body Heat" in cold weather, revealing that they had to spray sweat on the actors.

When asked about her future projects, she mentioned that another sequel to "Romancing the Stone" and "Jewel of the Nile" was possible but not confirmed.

WATCH the full interview in the video above.

During his legendary, decades-long career with KCRA, Harry Martin directed and hosted the children’s show “Captain Sacto.” Martin went on to host “Martin at the Movies” and “ShowBiz,” where he was able to tell the stories of countless actors, singers, politicians, and athletes.