Mountainhead (2025) | REVIEW

Directed by Jesse Armstrong — Screenplay by Jesse Armstrong.

How do you follow up the wild success of audience and critic-favorite Succession, which earned its creator, Jesse Armstrong, four Emmys (one for each season) for writing? Jesse Armstrong opted for an HBO film, Mountainhead, that, although not explicitly connected to the universe of Succession, feels somewhat related to the corporate, capitalist, and inheritance satire that put him on the map globally. However, though it occasionally does capture the right feeling of that show, Mountainhead doesn’t quite manage to say anything new.

Jesse Armstrong’s Mountainhead follows four extremely wealthy men who meet up for a weekend retreat to play poker, but during their stay, the outside world goes into a panic due to AI-generated disinformation created and spread on a social media app owned and controlled by one of the men at the retreat. That man is Ven (played by Cory Michael Smith), the richest man in the world and owner of the social media app known as Traam. Purely for his and his app’s gain (and not the betterment of the world), Ven is desperate to acquire a company known as Bilter, which can easily fact-check the disinformation.

Bilter is owned by Jeff (played by Ramy Youssef), who is also at this retreat, but who doesn’t want to see his company being associated with Ven, given recent comments made by Ven about Jeff and Bilter. The older billionaire, Randall (played by Steve Carell), is a mentor to the guys, but a recent cancer diagnosis has made him desperate for a digital post-human solution that can keep him living, which he believes can happen with Ven’s help. Hosting the event is their fellow friend (and only non-billionaire of the group), known as ‘Soups’ (played by Jason Schwartzman), secretly wants to pitch them a lifestyle app.

Those people who miss Succession for its capitalist satire and cracking dialogue and who are hoping for more of the same with Mountainhead will be happy to know that, yes, there are indeed moments when this film’s cast of characters speaks in lines that evoke moments or characters from Armstrong’s hit series, such as the line “nothing means anything and everything is funny.” To add to that, just as it is relatively easy to figure out, more or less, which real people Ven, Jeff, Randall, and Soups are based on, you do sometimes see Shiv or ‘cousin Greg’, etc., in the way characters speak here.

That said, the film never quite reaches the level of the series, perhaps partially because, as Mountainhead has a longer runtime than an episode of the series, the feature-length film plays the same key or note for too long, given just how unlikable these self-centered characters are. It also just feels like it is lacking the charm of the show, and without it, this feels borderline insufferable at times. Though the characters in Succession were also inspired by real people, the characters and their unlikability in Mountainhead feel a little bit too real, and the people they were inspired by are a little bit too influential, in 2025, to have fun with them. For example, it’s pretty obviouss who Ven is supposed to be given the fact that he 1) is the richest person in the world, 2) owns a major social media app, 3) takes great pleasure in writing swear words on said social media, and 4) has a direct line to the President of the United States (I could go on, it’s that obvious).

Without that satirical charm, but with relatively insufferable characters, the film has several issues to overcome. Although it often feels like it’s playing the same note over and over again, the film mostly overcomes this for a good while due to Armstrong’s crisp writing and some genuinely entertaining performances. Cory Michael Smith taps into his character’s quirks very well and turns in a well-tuned performance. Steve Carell, too, has his moments of genuine comedy, and both Youssef and Schwartzman deliver decent performances.

Eventually, the film does play a different note, but not before teasing a far more interesting direction in which to go. It is eventually somewhat funny to watch these über-rich, not-very-serious people turn to considering murder or buying countries, but I have to say it’s tough not to think back to a moment in the film when they can’t get the water to go through their faucets and, for a moment, you think actual consequences will be seen. Instead, the film opts for something that, though occasionally funny, ends up in a place that makes the entire film somewhat inconsequential. As such, though I liked it in moments, I can’t fully recommend Mountainhead.

6 out of 10

– Review written by Jeffrey Rex Bertelsen.