Plot
A young Greek woman falls in love with a non-Greek and struggles to get her family to accept him while she comes to terms with her heritage and cultural identity.
Release Year: 2002
Rating: 6.5/10 (58,897 voted)
Critic's Score: 62/100
Director:
Joel Zwick
Stars: Nia Vardalos, John Corbett, Michael Constantine
Storyline Toula Portokalos is 30, Greek, and works in her family's restaurant, Dancing Zorba's, in Chicago. All her father Gus wants is for her to get married to a nice Greek boy. But Toula is looking for more in life. Her mother convinces Gus to let her take some computer classes at college (making him think it's his idea). With those classes under her belt, she then takes over her aunt's travel agency (again making her father think it's his idea). She meets Ian Miller, a high school English teacher, WASP, and dreamboat she had made a fool of herself over at the restaurant; they date secretly for a while before her family finds out. Her father is livid over her dating a non-Greek. He has to learn to accept Ian; Ian has to learn to accept Toula's huge family, and Toula has to learn to accept herself.
Cast: Nia Vardalos
-
Toula Portokalos
Michael Constantine
-
Gus Portokalos
Christina Eleusiniotis
-
Toula Portokalos - Age 6
Kaylee Vieira
-
Schoolgirl
John Kalangis
-
Greek Teacher
Lainie Kazan
-
Maria Portokalos
Marita Zouravlioff
-
Toula Portokalos - Age 12
Sarah Osman
-
Athena Portokalos - Age 15
Petra Wildgoose
-
Car Pool Friend
Melissa Todd
-
Car Pool Friend
Bess Meisler
-
Yiayia
Andrea Martin
-
Aunt Voula
Louis Mandylor
-
Nick Portokalos
Gerry Mendicino
-
Uncle Taki
Stavroula Logothettis
-
Athena
Taglines:
Love is here to stay... so is her family.
Release Date: 2 August 2002
Filming Locations: Chicago, Illinois, USA
Box Office Details
Budget: $5,000,000
(estimated)
Opening Weekend: $597,362
(USA)
(21 April 2002)
(108 Screens)
Gross: $368,744,044
(Worldwide)
Technical Specs
Runtime:
Did You Know?
Trivia:
In the fall of 2002 the film surpassed
Dances with Wolves as the highest grossing movie never to have hit number one at the weekend box office. By the weekend of October 4-6, it surpassed
The Blair Witch Project as the highest-grossing independent film of all time, until March 2004, when it was surpassed by
The Passion of the Christ. Theatres continued to run the film after its initial video release.
Goofs:
Factual errors:
In the English subtitle of one of the Greek verbal exchanges, "writing" is misspelled as "writting".
Quotes:
[first lines]
Gus Portokalos:
[to Toula]
You better get married soon. You're starting to look... old!
User Review
It's my life!!!! Hilarious, but so true!!!!!
Rating:
My Fiancé is Greek and I am not. This move hit the nail on the head!
The whole time I was watching this movie I was thinking this is my life
Oh my God this is my life. I think people who gave this move bad
reviews just didn't get it, because, they are not around or live inside
the world of a Greek family. There are so many similarities to my
Fiancés family it's almost creepy. For a crasher course to our wedding
I told my whole family to watch this movie before they came. After the
wedding was all said and done I had so many people from my side of the
family came up to me and tell me your RIGHT! It was just like my Big
Fat Greek Wedding!!! Especially since we had almost 700 people at our
wedding and all we did all night long is dance in circles!!! It was a
lot of fun!
This was the best movie in a long time and no one knows how true this
movie really is until they live through it.
0