The Death and Life of John F. Donovan

In December 2014, it was announced that Kit Harington and Jessica Chastain would star in the film, with Xavier Dolan directing the film from a screenplay he wrote with Jacob Tierney. Harington would portray the titular character while Chastain would portray a journalist. That same month, it was announced Susan Sarandon and Kathy Bates had joined the cast of the film. Sarandon would portray the role of Donovan's mother, while Bates would portray the role of his manager. In November 2015, it was announced that Adele was in talks to appear in a cameo role.

On Rotten Tomatoes it has an approval rating of 19% based on 32 reviews, with an average rating of 3.7/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "The Death and Life of John F. Donovan finds writer-director Xavier Dolan flailing at profundity with a technically assured drama that never makes sense of its own ideas." On Metacritic, the film holds a score of 28 out of 100 based on reviews from 12 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". IndieWire dubbed the film the "worst" of Dolan's career; they also called the screenplay "soapy" and "clumsy".