The Luckiest Man in America

Nobody at CBS saw Michael Larson coming. In 1984 this man from Ohio walked onto the game show 'Press Your Luck' and left with $110,237 in cash and prizes, a sum nobody had won on TV before. Colombian director Samir Oliveros, who wrote the script with Maggie Briggs, tells his story in 'The Luckiest Man in America' with plenty of creative licence, and Pablo Larraín is among the executive producers.

Larson drives an ice cream truck and his marriage is falling apart when he slips into an audition and lands a spot on the next day's taping. Waiting for him in the studio are a minister who's the returning champion, a dental assistant and the host, Peter Tomarken. He starts badly, but once it's his turn on the board he can't stop winning, dodging the Whammies, the little cartoon devils that wipe a player's score.

Backstage, producer Bill Carruthers and his crew can't make sense of it. The odds say Larson should've hit a Whammy long ago, and while one of them goes looking for proof he's cheating, the rest start working out what all this is going to cost the network. Is he really the luckiest man in the country, or someone who's studied the game better than the people who made it?

Paul Walter Hauser, star of 'Richard Jewell', plays Larson and also serves as an executive producer. Walton Goggins is Tomarken, David Strathairn plays Carruthers and Shamier Anderson is Chuck, the contestant coordinator, with Haley Bennett as Larson's wife, Patricia. Maisie Williams, Brian Geraghty, Patti Harrison and Johnny Knoxville round out the cast.

It was shot in Colombia, mostly on soundstages in Bogotá, and premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2024 before IFC Films released it in US cinemas in April 2025. Reviews were mostly positive and agreed that Hauser carries the film, though some felt it didn't make the most of such a good true story. RogerEbert.com's Matt Zoller Seitz suggested watching it after 'Quiz Show'. Stay for the credits, which include the real footage of Larson on the show.

• Drama
• History
• Comedy