The Love Guru is a 2008 American comedy film, directed by Marco Schnabel and starring Mike Myers. Jessica Alba and Justin Timberlake co-star. In addition to starring in the film, Myers wrote The Love Guru with Graham Gordy and produced it with Gary Barber. The film was released by Paramount Pictures on June 20, 2008 and was rated PG-13. In the UK it will be released on the 1st of August and has been rated 12A.

Darren Roanoke (Romany Malco), the star player of the Toronto Maple Leafs, is suffering from stress because his wife, Prudence Roanoke (Meagan Good), has left him for Jacques "Le Coq" Grande (Justin Timberlake). The stress causes his hand to shake, which affects his hockey performance. Jane Bullard (Jessica Alba) enlists the support of Guru Maurice Pitka (Mike Myers) to help Darren with his stress so that the team can hopefully break their losing streak.

Filming took place in Toronto, Ontario for two months.

Myers said the film is a reflection of the spiritual journey he went on after his father died in 1991. Development of the film began in 2001, during the last day of filming on Austin Powers in Goldmember: Myers heard George Harrison had died. He then received a letter from Harrison, and Myers thought, "'OK, universe, I think I get it. This is the movie you want me to make.'"

Mike Myers appeared in the seventh season finale of American Idol as his character Pitka, the "spiritual director" of that show.

A "Fan Resource Page" at Fox Entertainment's beliefnet.com website was "created as part of a collaboration between Beliefnet and Paramount Pictures."

In its opening weekend, The Love Guru grossed $13.9 million in 3,012 theaters in the United States and Canada, ranking #4 at the box office. The opening week numbers fell short of the $20 million range forecast by Hollywood pundits. As of June 29, 2008, the film has grossed $25.2 million in the United States and Canada.

The Love Guru received mostly negative reviews from critics. As of June 21, 2008, the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 15% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 49 reviews—with the consensus that the film "features far too many gross-out gags, and too few earned laughs, ranking as one of Mike Myers' poorest outings." Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 24 out of 100, based on 33 reviews.

Jay Stone of the National Post gave the film one star and said the film "is shockingly crass, sloppy, repetitive and thin." Stone said "Chopra is used almost as a product placement, taking a proud spot alongside a circus, a brand of cinnamon buns, the Leafs and, of course, Mike Myers." Stone also wrote, "the sitar-based versions of pop songs like 9 to 5 are oddly watchable - but mostly the film is 88 minutes of ridiculous sight gags and obscene puns."

A. O. Scott of The New York Times wrote "The word 'unfunny' surely applies to Mr. Myers’s obnoxious attempts to find mirth in physical and cultural differences but does not quite capture the strenuous unpleasantness of his performance. No, The Love Guru is downright antifunny, an experience that makes you wonder if you will ever laugh again."

Before the film's release, some Hindus expressed unhappiness about how Hindus are portrayed, the disrespect of their culture and the bad impression that it would make for those not well exposed to Hinduism, while some gave a cautious welcome, asking other Hindus to look at it as satire and not the truth. Rajan Zed, a Hindu leader from Nevada, demanded that Paramount Pictures screen the film for members of the Hindu community before it was released in June. Based on the movie's trailer and MySpace page, Zed says The Love Guru "appears to be lampooning Hinduism and Hindus" and uses sacred terms frivolously. Zed told The Associated Press, "People are not very well-versed in Hinduism, so this might be their only exposure...They will have an image in their minds of stereotypes. They will think most of us are like that."

Amidst protests, some Hindu leaders, as well as some other religious leaders, advised a boycott on all Paramount products if Paramount released the film. However, the North American chapter of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness communication officer issued the following statement:
Satire is a genre that typically replaces reality with contradictions and exaggerations. If however, some mistake satire for truth, then rather than be angered, we could take the opportunity to clarify misrepresentations and educate others about our authentic traditions. If approached in a constructive and proactive way, the film may even lead to increased tolerance, dialogue, and understanding between Hindus and non-Hindus
– Anuttama Dasa, ISKCON Minister of Communications

The Hindu American Foundation was granted a pre-screening of the film prior to its release. According to a press statement by HAF Director of public policy Ishani Chowdhury, Paramount Pictures requested the Foundation to view the film just hours before its release on May 20, 2008. More than two dozen members of the local Hindu community gathered at a movie theater in Minneapolis, Minnesota, along with Foundation leaders to take in a screening of the film and then met to fill out a special survey and offer comments and criticisms. HAF agreed to view the film to be able to inform the Hindu American community in light of concerned inquiries that have been pouring into its national headquarters. The reviewers conclude that the film is vulgar and crude but not necessarily anti-Hindu, since the film is portrayed as a satirical spoof of self-help coaches, referring to Deepak Chopra several times, but the film's main character is clearly inspired by Hindu spiritual leaders from India gleaned from the attire and mannerisms of Myers' character. According to Aseem Shukla, member of the HAF board of directors

The film was vulgar, crude and, in the opinion of many of our attendees, too often tasteless in its puerile choice of humor," said Aseem Shukla, member of the Foundation's Board of Directors. "Very few of the Hindus viewing the film, however, found it overtly anti-Hindu or mean-spirited, indeed no Hindu or Sanskrit terms beyond 'guru' or 'ashram' are ever used in the film. But given the costumes and overall concept of the film, Paramount would have done well to issue a disclaimer in the opening sequence that the characters and events are not based on Hindu spiritual masters.

Still, many of the Foundation members expressed unease that since widespread understanding of Hinduism and its core teachings is so limited, this film does nothing to promote tolerance and pluralism, and may reinforce widely held negative and exotic stereotypes of Hindus and their spiritual leaders.

In a scene where Guru Pitka and Roanoke are driving to his mother's, the Guru flips through radio stations. At one point, he flips to a station playing the section of "Bohemian Rhapsody" used in the headbanging scene in Wayne's World (also released by Paramount Pictures), in which Myers starred. As soon as the Queen song comes on, the Guru looks into the camera and then quickly changes the station.

The original score for the film was composed by George S. Clinton, who recorded it with an 80-piece ensemble of the Hollywood Studio Symphony at Warner Brothers.

The song "Dhadak Dhadak" from the 2005 Bollywood film Bunty Aur Babli was used in the trailer.

The Songs 9 to 5, More Than Words, and The Joker are all in the movie (performed by Mike Myers, and with sitar accompaniment) and on the soundtrack.