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Jan 13, 2026 Web Exclusive By Austin Trunick

Oh, no–somebody stole Pee-wee Herman’s nifty art deco bicycle!

It feels impossible to grasp just how off-the-wall Pee-wee’s Big Adventure (1985) must have seemed to those unfamiliar with Paul Reubens’ character back when the movie was first released. By the time the film hit theaters, sure, he’d made numerous TV appearances, and his cult, Groundlings-packed (and comparatively risque) stage show had been turned into an HBO special, but he wasn’t yet the children’s television star he’d briefly become once Pee-wee’s Playhouse landed on CBS the following year. It’s easy to imagine the confusion felt by those who weren’t in on the joke. Was the Pee-wee character meant for children or adults? Was Pee-wee himself a child or an adult? (The answer to both questions lies somewhere in between.)

It’s likely that the movie surrounding the Pee-wee character seemed just as unusual. Nowadays, Tim Burton is one of only a few “brand name” directors whose visual style might be recognized even by the most casual moviegoers–the ones who don’t typically bother learning filmmaker’s names. Burton’s given us 40 years’ worth of movies, ranging from stone cold classics to absolute duds, most of them flaunting his distinctive, madcap aesthetic. (Gothic whimsy?) At the time he made Pee-wee, however, he had primarily been an animator, so it’s no surprise that his first live-action feature wound up having many of the same sensibilities as a Looney Tunes short. Pee-wee’s Big Adventure grabs at tropes from a gamut of genres–most explicitly and giddily in the studio lot chase scene, but also throughout–going so far as to mix in fever-pitched nightmare vignettes and one notorious jump scare among all of the impish humor. He’d arrive fully-formed as the capital T-, capital B- Tim Burton we’re now familiar with by his next film, Beetlejuice (1988), but you could argue that Pee-wee’s Big Adventure might be the director at his most playful.

A compulsively quotable cult classic, Pee-wee’s Big Adventure has long since found its audience, which grew along with the character’s continued ascent and over the following decades. The Criterion Collection’s 4K UHD release of the film is a must-grab for fans for its new transfer alone; the Dolby Vision grading does wonders with the movie’s nutty color palette, and the increased resolution presents new opportunities to appreciate the film’s Midcentury kitsch production design. Two options are available for sound: a pre-existing 5.1 mix and a more true-to-release stereo version; with both, dialogue is clear and Danny Elfman’s familiar score sounds great. Bonus features include a nice mix of new and old materials, a pair of archival commentary tracks (one from the late Paul Reubens) and a bunch of deleted scenes, plus a brand new interview with Burton conducted by Richard Ayoade, and nearly two hours’ worth of various collaborators reflecting on the making of the film. Big Pee-wee fans probably ordered the release long before reading this review; those on the fence should be encouraged to take the plunge, as this edition blows the previous Blu-ray (not to mention the snapcase DVD release) out of the water.

(www.criterion.com/films/34870-pee-wee-s-big-adventure)