Pee-wee as Himself: A Posthumous Portrait of Genius and Defiance

Paul Reubens might have died in 2023, but holy hell, did he leave us with one final gift that's as confrontational, messy, and brilliant as the man himself. Pee-wee as Himself isn't just a documentary – it's a 200-minute wrestling match between subject and filmmaker, a posthumous coming out party, and a middle finger to anyone who thought they knew Paul Reubens.

Director Matt Wolf thought he was making one film. Reubens thought he was making another. What we get is the glorious tension of that creative battle playing out in real-time, with Reubens trying to control the narrative even as cancer was secretly killing him. The result? One of the most fascinating celebrity documentaries ever made, precisely because it refuses to be the sanitized victory lap Reubens initially wanted.

The two-part HBO doc excavates everything – from Reubens' Factory-obsessed youth to his groundbreaking success with Pee-wee Herman, from his devastating 1991 arrest to the witch hunt over his gay erotica collection. But it's Reubens' first and only public discussion of his homosexuality that anchors this sprawling portrait. Here's a man who spent decades in and out of the closet, finally unburdening himself while knowing death was imminent.

Wolf doesn't just celebrate Pee-wee's anarchic genius (though there's plenty of that, with treasure troves of archival footage showing just how subversive children's television could be). He captures the tragedy of an artist who sacrificed himself so completely for his creation that when the mask slipped, America couldn't handle it. The adult had emerged, and suddenly we couldn't reconcile Paul with Pee-wee.

What makes this essential viewing is how it reframes Reubens not as a cautionary tale but as a visionary who was simply ahead of his time. His queerness, his collecting, his refusal to separate high and low art – these weren't scandals but badges of honor that only now, in 2025, can be properly appreciated.