Name: Wicked: For Good
Director: Jon M. Chu
Genre: Musical, Fantasy, Drama, Romance
Released: 2025-11-21
Duration: 2 h 30 min
Rating: 7.9
Cast: Cynthia Erivo, Ariana Grande, Jonathan Bailey, Jeff Goldblum

Synopsis & Review

Wicked: For Good picks up directly from the moment Wicked: Part One left its audience — Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) in flight, Glinda (Ariana Grande) watching her go, both of them changed forever by choices they cannot undo. The second film must accomplish what the first only promised: it must earn the title. For Good — the ballad that closes the stage musical and gives this film its name — is one of the most beloved songs in the Broadway canon, a declaration of two women's permanent influence on each other. The film's entire dramatic architecture builds toward the moment those words are sung, and Jon M. Chu's most important achievement is ensuring that the audience arrives at that moment having been properly prepared for it — not merely reminded of its existence from the cast recording, but understanding, fully and emotionally, why it is true. Elphaba, now publicly condemned as the Wicked Witch of the West, continues her increasingly desperate resistance against the Wizard's regime — protecting the animals of Oz while being hunted by everyone who once admired her. Glinda, positioned as the Good Witch and celebrated as Oz's beloved protector, finds the moral cost of her complicity rising with every day she chooses silence over truth. Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey) moves between them, torn between the safety of his choices and the demands of his conscience. And in the Emerald City, the Wizard (Jeff Goldblum) and Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh) consolidate their hold on a population that has been taught to fear what it does not understand.

Jon M. Chu has always been the right director for this material — his work on In the Heights demonstrated a specific gift for letting musical sequences breathe as emotional events rather than interruptions to narrative, and For Good represents the fullest expression of that gift. The film is darker than its predecessor, necessarily — the price of Elphaba's choices is paid in full, and Chu does not soften it — but it is also funnier, more generous, and more emotionally honest. Ariana Grande's Glinda is the film's most significant achievement: where Part One introduced her as a comic creation of magnificent superficiality, For Good asks her to let the superficiality collapse, and the performance underneath it is a revelation. Grande's singing has always been beyond question, but her dramatic work in the film's second and third acts demonstrates a depth that neither her previous professional profile nor the first film fully anticipated. Erivo, meanwhile, builds on her extraordinary Part One performance to deliver something even more harrowing: an Elphaba who has accepted that she will not be redeemed in the world's eyes, and who has decided that this does not make her wrong. The film's final act is among the most emotionally overwhelming sequences in the history of the screen musical. Bring tissues.

Why Watch This Movie?

Ariana Grande's Dramatic Revelation

The most discussed aspect of For Good among critics and audiences alike is what Ariana Grande does in the film's second half — when Glinda is stripped of her social armour and required to confront her own moral failures directly. The comedy that made her so irresistible in Part One is still present, but it becomes increasingly painful to watch as the film reveals it for what it is: a defence mechanism for a woman who is deeply afraid of being wrong. When that defence finally breaks, Grande plays the aftermath with a rawness that has genuinely surprised audiences who assumed they knew what she was capable of. The "For Good" duet, in context, is devastating in a way the cast recording cannot fully prepare you for.

The Musical Numbers Are Career-Best Filmmaking

Chu stages the new musical sequences — including the extended "No Good Deed" reprise and the newly arranged "For Good" — with a spatial and emotional ambition that surpasses anything in Part One. The decision to film certain sequences in extended single-camera takes, following the performers through space with a fluidity that feels spontaneous rather than choreographed, gives the numbers a quality of urgency that recorded stage performances cannot achieve. The integration of Stephen Schwartz's score with the new orchestrations by David Cullen is the finest musical filmmaking since La La Land.

It Justifies the Decision to Split the Story

The announcement that the Wicked adaptation would be split into two films was met with widespread scepticism — a perception that the decision was commercially rather than artistically motivated. For Good retroactively justifies the choice completely. The depth of emotional preparation that Part One provided — the time spent with Elphaba and Glinda before their story becomes tragic — makes the second film's consequences land with a weight that a single film could not have achieved. The two films together constitute one of the great screen musicals. Separately, neither is quite complete. Together, they are something genuinely magnificent.

Cast & Crew

Director

Jon M. Chu

Screenplay

Winnie Holzman & Dana Fox

Studio

Universal Pictures

Elphaba

Cynthia Erivo

Glinda

Ariana Grande

Fiyero

Jonathan Bailey

The Wizard

Jeff Goldblum

Madame Morrible

Michelle Yeoh

Music & Lyrics

Stephen Schwartz

Official Trailer

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need to watch Wicked: Part One before For Good?

Yes — absolutely and without exception. For Good begins at the exact moment Part One ends, with no recap, no reintroduction of characters, and no re-establishment of context. It assumes complete familiarity with every character, relationship, and dramatic development of the first film. Watching Part Two without Part One would be like reading the second half of a novel without the first — the emotional architecture that makes For Good's conclusion so devastating is built entirely on foundations laid in Part One. Both films are available to stream on Peacock in the US and on Prime Video and streaming services internationally.

Does For Good follow the stage musical closely?

The film adapts the second half of the stage musical's book with considerable fidelity to the major dramatic beats and musical numbers, while expanding certain sequences and making adjustments that take advantage of the cinematic medium. All of the major songs from the second act are present — "No Good Deed," "March of the Witch Hunters," "For Good," and "Finale" — along with new orchestral material and one newly composed song. The most significant departures from the stage version involve Fiyero's storyline and the film's treatment of the Wizard's moral reckoning, both of which are given more space and complexity than the musical's compressed second act allows. Fans of the stage show will find the film both familiar and meaningfully different.

Is Wicked: For Good appropriate for children?

The film is rated PG and is broadly appropriate for older children and family audiences. It is, however, considerably darker and more emotionally intense than Part One — the themes of persecution, propaganda, political cowardice, and the cost of nonconformity are handled with a seriousness that younger children may find confusing or distressing. The film deals with loss, injustice, and the collapse of friendship in ways that have moved adult audiences to tears. Children who are old enough to understand and engage with these themes — generally ten and older — will find it a deeply enriching experience. For younger children, parental guidance is recommended, particularly for the film's more intense sequences in its third act.

How does the film handle the ending differently from the stage musical?

Without spoiling the specifics, the film's ending honours the spirit and emotional logic of the stage musical's conclusion while expanding several key scenes to give them greater dramatic space and visual realisation. The "For Good" duet between Elphaba and Glinda is staged on a grander physical scale than any theatre can accommodate, and the intercutting between the two women's parallel fates in the film's final minutes is a piece of cinematic craft that the stage version, by necessity, handles more symbolically. The very final image of the film — which departs slightly from the stage version's conclusion — has been the subject of extensive discussion among fans and critics, and is generally regarded as a more emotionally satisfying endpoint for the cinematic version of the story.

Wicked:For Good