Universal City, Calif., March 27, 2026 – Universal Pictures is proud to announce the 15 anniversary nationwide theatrical re-release of Bridesmaids, the Academy Award-nominated comedy directed by acclaimed DGA Award winner and Emmy nominated filmmaker Paul Feig and starring, co-written and co-produced by Academy Award nominee and comedy icon Kristen Wiig.
To mark the anniversary, the film—produced by three-time Emmy winner Judd Apatow—returns to theaters across the country beginning April 17 for a very special limited engagement.
Advance ticket sales are available now and can be purchased here.
Co-written by Wiig and her gifted longtime collaborator, actress and screenwriter Annie Mumolo, Bridesmaids stars Wiig as Milwaukee pastry chef Annie. After losing her bakery business, Cake Baby, to the economic downturn, she has taken an unsatisfying retail job selling jewelry, while living with a pair of oddball roommates (Rebel Wilson and Matt Lucas). At the same time, she’s stuck in an unsatisfying romantic relationship with vacuous hookup Ted (Emmy winner Jon Hamm). But it’s only when Annie’s best friend Lillian (six-time Emmy winner Maya Rudolph) announces that she is marrying Doug (Tim Heidecker) and asks Annie to serve as her Maid of Honor that Annie’s life really starts to unravel.
Reluctantly committing to her role in the nuptials, Annie is introduced to her fellow attendants—a group that includes Lillian’s unhappily married cousin Rita (Wendi McLendon-Covey), her relationship-obsessed co-worker Becca (Emmy nominee Ellie Kemper), Doug’s unbelievably brash sister Megan (Academy Award nominee Melissa McCarthy) and the wealthy and beautiful Helen (Academy Award nominee Rose Byrne). Married to Doug’s boss, the glamorous Helen seems determined to usurp both Annie’s position in the wedding and as Lillian’s closest friend.
As the two rivals face off, Annie becomes caught up in Helen’s increasingly passive-aggressive machinations, leading to a chain of wildly unpredictable events—from a couture wedding dress fitting gone seriously wrong to a bachelorette trip to Vegas derailed by an extreme case of in-flight inebriation. As situations hilariously spiral out of control, Annie worries that she’s on the verge of losing the one person who means the most to her, Lillian.
Released May 13, 2011, the R-rated comedy, produced by Apatow, Barry Mendel and Clayton Townsend and executive produced by Feig, was an immediate sensation, cementing Wiig, then best known for her Emmy-nominated work on Saturday Night Live, as a bonafide movie star. The film opened to $26.2 million at the North American box office and went on to earn nearly $300 million worldwide, ranking as the 12 highest domestic release of the year.
Bridesmaids’ success was driven both by word-of-mouth and stellar reviews. Along with standout starring performances and memorable supporting turns from Jill Clayburgh as Annie’s mother, Chris O’Dowd as the cop who falls for her and McCarthy’s real-life husband Ben Falcone as an air marshal who is hot for Megan, the film was praised by critics for its surprisingly successful marriage of gross-out humor and physical comedy with heartfelt, insightful depictions of the complexity and precarity of female friendships.
In her NPR review, Ella Taylor raved, “I love how the women of Bridesmaids—direct descendants of the neurotics in the black comedies of Nicole Holofcener (Please Give) and Tamara Jenkins (The Savages)—take ownership of female aggression and competition, of our radical insecurities and the predicaments of being female in a post-feminist world. I love how the movie walks its crazy line between satire and realist drama. Most of all, I love seeing a bunch of talented female performers come together to do physical comedy their way.”
Bridesmaids received two Academy Award nominations: McCarthy was nominated in the Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role for her go-for-broke turn as Megan, while Wiig and Mumolo earned a nomination in the Best Writing, Original Screenplay category for their witty, incisive and very funny script. The film was also nominated for Best Motion Picture–Comedy or Musical at the Golden Globes, with Wiig receiving a nomination for Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture–Comedy or Musical.
Bridesmaids was crowned Movie of the Year by the American Film Institute (AFI), Best Comedy Movie of the Year by the Critics’ Choice Awards and Favorite Comedy Movie of the Year by the People’s Choice Awards. The New York Times named Bridesmaids one of the Best Films of the 21 Century and Rolling Stone ranked Bridesmaids as one of top three Greatest Comedies of the Century.
Among many other accolades, the Bridesmaids cast was nominated for the top prize at the Screen Actors Guild’s Actor Awards, where McCarthy also earned a nomination for her supporting role. Mumolo and Wiig’s screenplay received a nomination from the Writer’s Guild of America. In addition, the film was nominated for screenplay and supporting actress by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts and won two honors at the MTV Movie + TV Awards, along with multiple nominations and awards from critics’ groups nationwide.
Tickets for the theatrical re-release of Bridesmaids can be purchased here.
