The Official Mike White Streaming Guide

Some of the words used to describe Mike White’s work are often terms like scathing, witty, and dark. But his work is also uniquely tender—or at least it attempts to draw out a degree of sympathy for those who can sometimes be the most unsympathetic characters (see: Jennifer Coolidge’s Tanya on The White Lotus), and whether he’s playing the wimpy Ned Schneebly in School of Rock (which he also wrote) or the shy loner Tyler in Enlightened (which he wrote and co-created), it is abundantly clear that White has long understood the plight of the loser, the little guy, the underdog.

For years, the sharpest of critics have appreciated the freshness of White’s perspective in an industry awash with simple, syrupy dreck. Now, thanks to the massive success of his HBO series The White Lotus, he’s got some new fans in addition to the old ones who have been singing his praises for over two decades. He has also been applauded for his mainstay of frequent collaborators: Miguel Arteta, Laura Dern, Molly Shannon, Jack Black, and Mark Mothersbaugh, to name a few. The Mike White renaissance is here, but what are you going to do when you inevitably enter a conversation with someone who prides themselves on having seen the auteur’s entire oeuvre before everyone else hopped on the bandwagon this year? Well, we’ve got you covered with a streaming syllabus of his greatest hits, divvied up into projects he wrote, projects he directed, and the ones in which he just simply appears.

Directed by Mike White

Year of the Dog

White’s directorial debut Year of the Dog stars Molly Shannon, as a lonely, single secretary named Peggy who searches for new meaning of life after her beloved dog Pencil dies. More Mike White regulars, including Laura Dern, Regina King, Tom McCarthy, Peter Saarsgard, and John C. Reilly, join the cast.

Where to stream: Paramount+

Brad’s Status

Brad’s Status is the second film White directed (he also wrote it). It stars Ben Stiller as the titular Brad, who travels to Boston with his son (played by Austin Abrams) to visit colleges, and starts rethinking the choices he made to live a simple suburban California existence while the rest of his friends live more glamorous lives. (Fans of the podcast POOG will already know the place that Brad’s Status occupies in culture before watching it.)

Where to stream: Amazon Prime

Enlightened

This short-lived series about an executive (played by Dern) refreshing her perspective on life and work has been sitting on HBO’s streaming platform for years now. Get into it. Before Enlightened, White wrote and served as a producer on shows like Dawson’s Creek and Freaks and Geeks, but this is the one that really solidified his god-tier status for his superfans.

Where to stream: HBO Max

Written by Mike White

Chuck & Buck

Directed by Miguel Arteta (one of White’s frequent indie film collaborators), Chuck & Buck is a film that fits squarely in the bisexual canon. Part thriller, part comedy, it stars White as the immature Buck, whose once close (as in, “sexually experimented with each other in adolescence” close) friend Chuck comes back into his life. The problem is, Chuck has a fiancée, whom he strives to keep away from any knowledge of his secret past with Buck.

Where to stream: available to rent on Amazon

Orange County

White wrote the screenplay for Orange County (directed by Jake Kasdan), which stars Colin Hanks as an obnoxious smart ass from the O.C. whose guidance counselor flubs sending the right high school transcript to Stanford, sending him on a journey to prove he is actually smart enough to get into the school. Fans of Schitt’s Creek should check it out just to see Catherine O’Hara in another great mother role.

Where to stream: HBO Max

School of Rock

Another collaboration starring Jack Black, White wrote the screenplay for this Richard Linklater-directed flick about a pudgy slacker (Black) who poses as his roommate (White) and takes his substitute teaching gig.

Where to stream: available to rent on Amazon and Apple TV+

The Good Girl

White collaborated with Arteta again for The Good Girl, which stars Jennifer Aniston near the end of her Friends run and young Jake Gyllenhaal and Zooey Deschanel. Aniston shows her dramatic range as she plays Justine, who is not connecting with her husband Phil (John C. Reilly), and works at a big box store with a cast of characters including Deschanel’s Cheryl, a religious security guard named Corny (White), when she sees a cashier named Holden (Gyllenhaal) and starts to fantasize.

Where to stream: unavailable for streaming at the moment, but you can purchase it on Amazon

Beatriz at Dinner

Beatriz at Dinner is yet another Arteta-directed project written by White. Salma Hayek strs as Beatriz, a massage therapist who attends a dinner party hosted by her rich client (played by Connie Britton), and bears witness to the horror that is wealthy people talking openly about how much money they plan to make at the dinner table. John Lithgow, Jay Duplass, Amy Landecker, Chloë Sevigny and David Warshofsky round out the cast (and beloved comedian John Early has a minor role in it, too).

Where to stream: Amazon Prime

The Emoji Movie

Listen, sometimes you need to get absolutely zooted and turn your brain off so you can watch some talking emoji graphics on a big screen, and sometimes, when you’re an indie director trying to make a classic like Brad’s Status, you have to take a paycheck where you can with a box office bomb like The Emoji Movie (which also secured White a few Razzies—a different kind of honor than an Oscar, but it has its place in our culture, especially if you can appreciate camp).

Where to stream: available to rent on Amazon and Apple TV+

Starring Mike White

The Amazing Race

White has acted in many of the projects he created, wrote or directed, like Chuck & Buck, Orange County, Enlightened, School of Rock, The Good Girl, and Brad’s Status. But he’s also an avid reality television fan, and he appeared as a contestant on two seasons of The Amazing Race. Seasons 14 and 18 saw White and his dad as a father-son team that came in sixth and 10th place, respectively.

Where to stream: Amazon Prime, Hulu, Paramount+

Survivor

Fans of White may already know this, but the multihyphenate auteur also appeared on Survivor in the “David vs. Goliath” season (the 37th installment of the franchise, which took place in Fiji).

Where to stream: Hulu, Paramount+