# Same Time, Next Year (film)
**Same Time, Next Year** is a 1978 American romantic comedy directed by Robert Mulligan, adapted by playwright Bernard Slade from his own Broadway hit, and starring [Ellen Burstyn](https://www.edgepedia.org/ellen-burstyn) as Doris and [Alan Alda](https://www.edgepedia.org/alan-alda) as George, two married people who meet by chance at a [Northern California](https://www.edgepedia.org/northern-california) inn in 1951 and then reunite there on the same weekend every year for the next quarter century.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/56991-SAME-TIME-NEXT-YEAR?cxt=filmography) The film received four Academy Award nominations, including Best Actress for Burstyn, and was a substantial commercial success, though critics were divided over how well the two-character stage material survived the transfer to film.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/56991-SAME-TIME-NEXT-YEAR?cxt=filmography) • [2](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/same_time_next_year)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Release | 22 November 1978 (Los Angeles and New York openings); 119 minutes; MPAA rating PG[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/56991-SAME-TIME-NEXT-YEAR?cxt=filmography) |
| Director and writer | Robert Mulligan; screenplay by Bernard Slade, based on his 1975 play[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/56991-SAME-TIME-NEXT-YEAR?cxt=filmography) |
| Leads | Ellen Burstyn as Doris; Alan Alda as George Peters[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/56991-SAME-TIME-NEXT-YEAR?cxt=filmography) |
| Source play | Broadway run of 1,453 performances, March 13, 1975 to September 3, 1978[3](https://www.ibdb.com/broadway-production/same-time-next-year-3735) |
| Academy Awards | Four nominations: Best Actress (Burstyn), Best Cinematography (Robert Surtees), Best Music-Original Song (Marvin Hamlisch with Alan and Marilyn Bergman), Best Screenplay based on material from another medium (Slade)[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/56991-SAME-TIME-NEXT-YEAR?cxt=filmography) |
| Domestic box office | $23,000,000 per The Numbers; $19,703,082 per Box Office Mojo[4](https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Same-Time-Next-Year) • [5](https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt0078199/credits/) |
| Critical scores | 40% Tomatometer from 5 reviews; 86% Popcornmeter from 2,500+ audience ratings[2](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/same_time_next_year) |
## Spoilers
### Plot and structure
In 1951, Doris, a young housewife from Oakland, and George, an accountant from New Jersey, arrive separately at the Sea Shadows Inn on the Northern California coast.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/56991-SAME-TIME-NEXT-YEAR?cxt=filmography) • [6](https://auth-web.moviesanywhere.com/movie/same-time-next-year-1978) After dining alone in the hotel restaurant, they notice each other, George brings a pot of coffee to Doris's table, and each, married to someone else, ends up in bed with the other.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/56991-SAME-TIME-NEXT-YEAR?cxt=filmography) Talking it over, they discover why both were there: George does bookkeeping each year for a friend in the wine business who was his first client, while Doris attends a Catholic retreat while her husband takes the children to Bakersfield to visit his mother for her birthday.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/56991-SAME-TIME-NEXT-YEAR?cxt=filmography)
Rather than writing the night off as a one-time mistake, they agree to meet at the inn on the same weekend every year.[2](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/same_time_next_year) The film then checks in on them roughly every five years, in 1951, 1956, 1961, 1965, 1970, and 1975, the same six dates the stage play used.[3](https://www.ibdb.com/broadway-production/same-time-next-year-3735) Each passage of time is set off with a montage of black-and-white photographs of the era's public events and personalities, from [Douglas MacArthur](https://www.edgepedia.org/douglas-macarthur) and the Army-McCarthy hearings to the Kennedy-Nixon debates, the civil rights demonstration of August 28, 1963, and, in the later montages, the gas crisis, Nixon's resignation, and *Star Wars*.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/56991-SAME-TIME-NEXT-YEAR?cxt=filmography) As the decades pass, Doris and George change in appearance, dress, and outlook, and each brings personal crises to the annual weekends that the other helps carry.[7](https://charlespaolino.com/2013/10/14/netflix-update-no-83-same-time-next-year/)
## From stage to screen
Slade's play opened at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre on March 13, 1975, with Ellen Burstyn and [Charles Grodin](https://www.edgepedia.org/charles-grodin) as Doris and George, directed by [Gene Saks](https://www.edgepedia.org/gene-saks).[3](https://www.ibdb.com/broadway-production/same-time-next-year-3735) • [8](https://playbill.com/production/same-time-next-year-brooks-atkinson-theatre-vault-0000008033) It caught on immediately and ran three and a half years, moving to the Ambassador Theatre in May 1978 and closing on September 3, 1978 after 1,453 performances; the theater historian Steven Leiter called it the most successful straight play of the decade.[3](https://www.ibdb.com/broadway-production/same-time-next-year-3735) • [9](https://slleiter.blogspot.com/2021/01/447-same-time-next-year-from-my.html) Burstyn won the 1975 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play and the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actress in a Play, and she and Grodin shared the Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Ensemble Performance; the play itself won the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding New Play.[8](https://playbill.com/production/same-time-next-year-brooks-atkinson-theatre-vault-0000008033)
Film rights went to Universal early in the run: an article in the August 20, 1975 issue of *Variety* reported the sale for $1 million plus a ten percent cut of the gross.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/56991-SAME-TIME-NEXT-YEAR?cxt=filmography) The film was produced by Walter Mirisch and Morton Gottlieb, shot in color with [Panavision](https://www.edgepedia.org/panavision) equipment between February 1 and April 17, 1978, and released by Universal on November 22, 1978.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/56991-SAME-TIME-NEXT-YEAR?cxt=filmography) Burstyn, who had created the role on stage, resumed it for the film, with Alda taking over the George part from Grodin.[9](https://slleiter.blogspot.com/2021/01/447-same-time-next-year-from-my.html)
## Reception
**Critical response was split along a stage-versus-film line.** Time Out's review acknowledged that the film wears its Broadway origins prominently, with only two lead actors and a single location, but praised it as a welcome throwback with sparklingly literate dialogue, two superbly versatile performances from Burstyn and Alda, and undemonstratively old-fashioned direction from Mulligan.[10](https://www.timeout.com/movies/same-time-next-year) Other reviewers were harsher. Writing in *New York* in December 1978, David Denby called the film "graceless and trivial," and *Newsweek*'s David Ansen observed that the "snap" of the stage play was missing from the film.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/56991-SAME-TIME-NEXT-YEAR?cxt=filmography) *TIME* dismissed it as a one-joke, one-set, two-character piece pockmarked by photomontages, finding the only dignity in the film in Burstyn's skillful recreation of her stage role.[11](https://time.com/archive/6850245/cinema-two-timers/) On Rotten Tomatoes the film stands at 40% on the Tomatometer from five critic reviews, against 86% on the audience Popcornmeter from more than 2,500 ratings.[2](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/same_time_next_year)
**Awards and box office.** At the 51st Academy Awards, honoring films of 1978, Burstyn was nominated for Best Actress in a Leading Role, losing to [Jane Fonda](https://www.edgepedia.org/jane-fonda) in *Coming Home*, and Robert Surtees was nominated for Best Cinematography for his work on the film.[12](https://www.oscars.org/oscars/ceremonies/1979) The film's other nominations were for [Marvin Hamlisch](https://www.edgepedia.org/marvin-hamlisch) and [Alan and Marilyn Bergman](https://www.edgepedia.org/alan-and-marilyn-bergman)'s original song and for Slade's adapted screenplay.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/56991-SAME-TIME-NEXT-YEAR?cxt=filmography) Burstyn did win the 1979 Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Motion Picture, Comedy or Musical.[13](https://cinegraph.org/movies/same-time-next-year-1978) Commercially, the film earned $23,000,000 domestically according to The Numbers, while Box Office Mojo records $19,703,082; the two sources disagree, and neither reports an international figure.[4](https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Same-Time-Next-Year) • [5](https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt0078199/credits/) Universal released the film on home video on January 20, 1993.[4](https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Same-Time-Next-Year)
## Later history
The play has remained in circulation through regional and amateur productions, with stage rights long controlled by Samuel French.[9](https://slleiter.blogspot.com/2021/01/447-same-time-next-year-from-my.html) • [14](https://shop.concordtheatricals.com/api/v1/product/document/101194) A film remake was reported in 2011, with Universal, the Broadway producer [Scott Rudin](https://www.edgepedia.org/scott-rudin), and Walter Mirisch attached and Mark and [Jay Duplass](https://www.edgepedia.org/jay-duplass) in negotiations to write the script; no such remake has been released.[15](https://playbill.com/article/scott-rudin-attached-to-same-time-next-year-remake-mark-and-jay-duplass-in-negotiations-to-pen-script-com-194597) Slade also wrote a sequel play, *A Sequel to "Same Time, Next Year"*, listed by his licensing agent Concord Theatricals.[16](https://shop.concordtheatricals.com/api/v1/product/document/103112)
## References
1. [Same Time, Next Year (1978), AFI Catalog of Feature Films](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/56991-SAME-TIME-NEXT-YEAR?cxt=filmography)
2. [Same Time, Next Year, Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/same_time_next_year)
3. [Same Time, Next Year, Broadway production, IBDB](https://www.ibdb.com/broadway-production/same-time-next-year-3735)
4. [Same Time, Next Year (1978), The Numbers](https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Same-Time-Next-Year)
5. [Same Time, Next Year (1978), Box Office Mojo](https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt0078199/credits/)
6. [Same Time, Next Year, Movies Anywhere](https://auth-web.moviesanywhere.com/movie/same-time-next-year-1978)
7. [Netflix Update No. 83: Same Time, Next Year, Charles Paolino's Blog](https://charlespaolino.com/2013/10/14/netflix-update-no-83-same-time-next-year/)
8. [Same Time, Next Year, Broadway, Brooks Atkinson Theatre, 1975, Playbill Vault](https://playbill.com/production/same-time-next-year-brooks-atkinson-theatre-vault-0000008033)
9. [Same Time, Next Year, from the Encyclopedia of the New York Stage 1970-1975, Steven Leiter](https://slleiter.blogspot.com/2021/01/447-same-time-next-year-from-my.html)
10. [Same Time, Next Year, Time Out film review](https://www.timeout.com/movies/same-time-next-year)
11. [Cinema: Two-Timers, TIME, November 27, 1978](https://time.com/archive/6850245/cinema-two-timers/)
12. [The 51st Academy Awards, 1979, Oscars.org](https://www.oscars.org/oscars/ceremonies/1979)
13. [Same Time, Next Year, Cinegraph](https://cinegraph.org/movies/same-time-next-year-1978)
14. [Same Time Next Year: A Comedy in Two Acts, licensing text, Concord Theatricals](https://shop.concordtheatricals.com/api/v1/product/document/101194)
15. [Scott Rudin Attached to Same Time, Next Year Remake, Playbill, 2011](https://playbill.com/article/scott-rudin-attached-to-same-time-next-year-remake-mark-and-jay-duplass-in-negotiations-to-pen-script-com-194597)
16. [A Sequel to Same Time, Next Year, Concord Theatricals](https://shop.concordtheatricals.com/api/v1/product/document/103112)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Comedy and romantic films (individual works) › Comedies of the 1970s › Released 1977 to 1979*
*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*
License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license