Kieran Culkin is now a Golden Globe winner – and it's all thanks to his ex-girlfriend, The Succession star won on Sunday January 5 for his work in A Real Pain, a loosely autobiographical story from Jesse Eisenberg.

Here's what the bittersweet ending of A Real Pain starring Jesse Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin really means. Jesse Eisenberg, best known for The Social Network, made his directorial debut with When You Finish Saving the World.

A Real Pain sees Jesse Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin play cousins who go to Poland to retrace their family's history. Eisenberg says being both actor and filmmaker made him nervous because he sees actors giving notes as the "biggest taboo".

The film, dubbed an heir of Woody Allen, follows Jewish American cousins who travel to Poland in memory of their late grandmother

The buddy comedy is back with Succession breakout Kieran Culkin and The Social Network star Jesse Eisenberg in their familial road comedy A Real Pain. The film, written and directed by Eisenberg, is sitting pretty with a 98% Rotten Tomatoes score and nestled in the top spot on Hulu's Top 10.

A Real Pain follows the cousins as they embark on a Holocaust tour of Poland in memory of their grandmother, a Holocaust survivor who recently passed away. While the pair, who were very close as children,

Kieran Culkin won the 2025 Golden Globe award for best supporting actor for his performance as Benji in this cousins-on-a-Holocaust tour drama

Jesse Eisenberg's A Real Pain explores intergenerational trauma and survivor's guilt in a darkly comic, weighty meditation on grief.

A Real Pain, which is out in cinemas, is mostly a two-hander between Eisenberg and Culkin. None of the other characters, notably Will Sharpe’s overly solicitous British tour guide, registers, especially before Culkin’s Benji, who most vividly expresses the generational trauma and resilience of the Jewish people.

Jesse Eisenberg wrote, directed, produced, and starred in the film opposite Culkin, who also won a Golden Globe for his work on the film. It was among the 12 films nominated in the Best Motion Picture categories at the Globes, too, and Eisenberg picked up nods for his lead performance in the film and the screenplay.

Jennifer Grey admits getting to star alongside Kieran Culkin is what initially drew her to 'A Real Pain'. The 'Dirty Dancing' star, 64, has huge admiration for 42-year-old Culkin's acting in HBO's 'Succession' and didn't care what the script for the 2024 buddy road comedy-drama film - which was written and directed by Jessie Eisenberg,

Culkin bagged the award for Best Supporting Actor in a Feature Film, and his Oscar chances are looking better than ever.