Tribeca 2025 Review: Andy Kaufman Is Me

On the heels of Alex Braverman’s Thank You Very Much, the 2023 documentary about the enigmatic comedian/provocateur Andy Kaufman, comes Clay Tweel’s documentary which is more insightful in every way: Andy Kaufman Is Me. The movies do, however, dovetail by focusing on different life events and interviews that actually compliment each other. The difference is that after Thank You Very Much, you will feel like you are closer to knowing Andy Kaufman’s work. After Andy Kaufman Is Me, you will finally feel like you know Andy Kaufman.

Where Andy Kaufman Is Me shines is during key life sequences starting as a child performer at children’s birthday parties, his time and friends in community college, and an extended discussion on his drug use and decision to stop using hallucinogens. Andy Kaufman Is Me pays short shrift to the overplayed scenes from Kaufman’s life. There is very little of Mighty Mouse. Not much Elvis Presley. Little wrestling, too, though David Letterman has some interesting insight into the Lawler incident and tells the story of how the next morning’s New York Times believed Kaufman had genuinely been accosted. Carol Kane gives new insight into Kaufman’s time on Taxi and his memorial service.

The best part of Andy Kaufman Is Me are Kaufman’s audio diaries starting as a child and continuing late into his life (Kaufman died in 1984 at the age of 35 from lung cancer). Kaufman apparently taped everything: conversations, phone calls, notes for a novel he worked on his entire life, and more. There are taped moments working on gags with long-time collaborator Bob Zmuda, arguments with girlfriends, and long sections where Kaufman just speaks sort of soothingly to himself about all sorts of topics. 

A particularly wonderful moment from the tapes occurs when Kaufman receives a letter from a young woman who hates that Kaufman has been wrestling women. The woman has left her phone number on the letter and Kaufman calls her and tapes the entire conversation. He wants her to feel better about the bit. It is all just a joke, he tells the woman on the phone. She gives the response you can expect Kaufman most wanted to hear: “At first I thought you were joking,” she says, “but then I wasn’t sure.”

There are interviews with Kaufman’s brother and sister. Audio interviews with his father and with biographer Bill Zehme. Taped conversations with his grandmother in which he attempts to convince her he has just a little cough and not stage-four cancer. Those who feel they were influenced by him: Eric Andre, Tim Heidecker, and Kristin Schaal. And those who worked with him: David Letterman, Carol Kane, and Roddy Piper. What you will not find here, thankfully, are those overplayed discussions with the likes of Danny DeVito and Marilu Henner. Andy Kaufman Is Me feels exactly like it felt when we first witnessed Kaufman on our TVs in the ‘70s: It is something new. It is something different. Highly recommended.

Andy Kaufman Is Me screens Thu. June 12 at Village East by Angelika as part of the 2025 Tribeca Festival.