--- description: TNT, Aug. 5, 8 p.m. E.T. title: James Dean image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- * [U.S.](/section/us/) # James Dean by [James Poniewozik](/author/james-poniewozik/) Aug 6, 2001 4:00 AM CUT by [James Poniewozik](/author/james-poniewozik/) Aug 6, 2001 4:00 AM CUT Sick of movie-star biopics? Then there’s little to change your mind in this one, written by Israel Horovitz and directed by Mark Rydell: celeb struggles to overcome childhood demons, audience struggles to find the remote. It’s worth seeing, though, because James Franco uncannily channels the sulky, sexy, short-lived heartthrob. Franco recalls not just Dean’s recklessness and (cue E! True Hollywood Story music) his icy relationship with his father (Michael Moriarty), but also the acting craft of a phenom who lived hard and left a good-looking memory. –By James Poniewozik James Dean ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/archive/6664514/james-dean/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/archive/6664514/james-dean/"},"headline":"James Dean","datePublished":"2001-08-06T04:00:00.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-27T06:56:27.931Z","description":"TNT, Aug. 5, 8 p.m. E.T.","url":"https://time.com/archive/6664514/james-dean/","keywords":[],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"James Poniewozik","url":"https://time.com/author/james-poniewozik/"}],"articleSection":"U.S.","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/us/","name":"U.S."}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/archive/6664514/james-dean/","name":"James Dean"}}]}] ```