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# Movie Review: My Penguin Friend (2024)
- URL: https://www.bensmovieguide.com/my-penguin-friend-2024/
- Published: 2026-09-27T04:38:07.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-01T22:34:58.000Z
- Description: Jean Reno stars as a Brazilian fisherman who rescues an injured penguin and forms an unlikely friendship in this warm movie inspired by a true story.
- Author: Ben
- Tags: #title-only, #movie, Movie: My Penguin Friend (2024), drama, family, 2020s, Rating: PG, #Runtime: 97, #Verdict: Rent, #Watch: Major Platforms, #Eyebrow: Based on a true story, #movies, Year: 2024, true-story

I guess 2024 was apparently the year of the penguin.

Two movies about people forming unlikely friendships with penguins came along at almost the same time, and somehow both of them were good.

My favorite was *My Penguin Friend* with Jean Reno, and this one comes with an added advantage: the basic story actually happened.

## What It’s About

Jean Reno plays João, a Brazilian fisherman who finds a penguin washed ashore, covered in oil and barely alive. He brings the bird home, cleans him up and nurses him back to health before eventually releasing him back into the ocean.

That should be the end of it.

Instead, the penguin finds his way back to João, beginning a friendship that sounds like it was invented specifically for a family movie. But *My Penguin Friend* is inspired by the real story of a Brazilian fisherman and a penguin that repeatedly returned to visit him after being released into the wild.

That true-story angle helps because the movie itself is pretty simple. It’s a warm story about grief, loneliness and an animal that unexpectedly gives someone a reason to reconnect with the world around him.

Jean Reno is a good fit for it because he plays João quietly. The movie doesn’t try too hard to make the relationship cute or turn the penguin into a comedy act, and that restraint keeps the whole thing from becoming overly sentimental.

## Who It’s For

If you like true stories, animal movies or simply want something warm and easy to watch, *My Penguin Friend* should be a good fit.

It’s not complicated, and it’s not trying to be. The movie knows exactly what it has: Jean Reno, a beautiful coastal setting and a genuinely unusual friendship between a man and a penguin.

If you liked *The Penguin Lessons*, this is an obvious companion movie. They’re very different stories, but 2024 somehow gave us two good penguin movies.

That was more than I expected.

💡

Jean Reno, a penguin and one of those true stories that sounds too good to be true.

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