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8 Women
Focus Features / USA Films


4.6

based on 30 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 9 votes
Read user comments
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FILM:

MPAA RATING: R for some sexual content

Starring Danielle Darrieux, Catherine Deneuve, Isabelle Huppert, Emmanuelle Béart, Fanny Ardant, Virginie Ledoyen, Ludivine Sagnier, and Firmine Richard and Dominique Lamure

When a wealthy French family gathers for Christmas, their country estate is thrown into an uproar when the father of the family is murdered. The only possible suspects are the eight women in the house, each of whom has secrets and a motive to kill him.

GENRE(S):	Mystery
WRITTEN BY:	François Ozon Marina de Van Robert Thomas (play 8 femmes)
DIRECTED BY:	François Ozon
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: February 11, 2003 Theatrical: September 20, 2002
RUNNING TIME:	113 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	USA
LANGUAGE(S):	French (with English subtitles)

Original French title "8 femmes"; Winner, Silver Berlin Bear for Outstanding Artistic Achievement (awarded jointly to the 8 lead actresses), 2002 Berlin International Film Festival

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

San Francisco Chronicle Jonathan Curiel

So original, so funny, so alive with drama, intrigue, mystery and colors that you want to see it again and again.

100

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

The secret to enjoying 8 Women is to check your analytical mind at the popcorn counter and settle back for almost two hours of cinematic mischief.

Washington Post Michael O'Sullivan

Really, really good -- Yes, it's over the top, giddy and parodistic (God bless it). But it also takes a thoughtful, if surreptitious, look at what eight women might act like when men aren't around.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

One of the most uplifting and delightful films to have come along this year.

Portland Oregonian Kim Morgan

If you simply love Vogue magazine, you'll love 8 Women just as much as the cinematically educated. This breezy entertainment often feels like an exquisitely photographed fashion layout come to life.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Whatever you call this one-of-a-kind bonbon spiked with wit and malice, it's classic oo-la-la.

New Times (L.A.) Gregory Weinkauf

It's pretty safe to say that claustrophobic, gay-themed murder mysteries haven't been this much fun since "Deathtrap."

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

The dazzling star power of the French screen royalty Ozon has assembled and the film's sheer exuberance in its own artifice make this a delight from beginning to end.

The New Yorker Anthony Lane

In short, this film is not quite the frozen and brittle comedy that it appears to be, and, if you can stomach it the first time, you may experience a baffling wish to see it again -- to inspect this crystalline curiosity from another angle. [16 September 2002, p. 106]

Time Richard Corliss

Seduction is more important than deduction in this chic display of star quality to the eighth power.

Chicago Tribune Loren King

An ebullient toast to grande dames: part homage, part camp, all artifice and a thoroughly entertaining, if light, confection.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Paula Nechak

A frothy and deliriously enjoyable souffle.

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

Even if some of the references are inscrutable, a lot of 8 Women is a riot. Here and there Ozon finds the key to a level of farce that would have amused Bunuel himself.

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

May not plumb the depths of the female psyche, but it's stylish and frivolous in the most profound ways.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

The result is weightless entertainment that's both camp and true, a warped adoration of star-quality actresses as amazing creatures who can project the lives of fictional characters as well as the essence of their own fabulous selves.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

The movie doesn't remind me so much of the movies of Minnelli or Sirk as it does a lavish parody of "Upstairs, Downstairs," with musical interludes (the divas sing, whether they can or not) that are often as painful to watch as they are audaciously performed.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Movies like 8 Women are essentially made for movie-lovers. You have to have seen overdecorated studio musicals, and you have to know who Darrieux and Deneuve and Beart and Huppert and Ardant are, to get the full flavor. It also helps if you have seen Agatha Christie's "The Mousetrap."

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

Intoxicates and overwhelms at the same time, giving off so much pleasure in a small space that the effect can be suffocating.

Variety Lisa Nesselson

For all its careful plotting, some viewers may find the exercise ultimately hollow and nasty, but thesps make the experience completely worthwhile.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

The cast is the main attraction in Francois Ozon's witty, even touching 8 Women.

Washington Post Ann Hornaday

A gorgeous, if disjointed, spectacle, made endurable – if not entirely comprehensible – by its eye-popping cast.

The New York Times Dana Stevens

Indefensible, cynical, even grotesque; it is also pure -- that is to say innocent and uncorrupted -- fun.

Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten

Proves to be a pleasant romp. Girls just wanna have fun -- even onscreen.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

Imagine the John Waters remake of an Agatha Christie mystery directed by Douglas Sirk, and you'll get some idea of the tone of this retro musical melodrama, which features a cast whose combined wattage could eclipse a small solar system.

Los Angeles Times Manohla Dargis

Although it starts off vaguely amusing, 8 Women grows progressively sour, curdled by the filmmakers' bad faith and lack of compassion. It isn't just the tone that's off; it's the point.

LA Weekly Ella Taylor

Without its cast -- the cream of France's female acting elite -- François Ozon's ambivalent musical-comedy homage to the 1950s wouldn't be much.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

iIt sits on the screen in the flattest way imaginable, and the brightest colors in the world can't make up for all that's missing. 8 Women is perfumed kitsch, and it reeks.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

8 Women would probably be a looser, giddier salute to show-biz ideas of femininity if it were performed by eight drag queens.

New York Post Jonathan Foreman

The result is inept, tedious kitsch that even at its best feels like John Waters minus the joie de vivre.

Village Voice J. Hoberman

For all the tumultuous entrances and flouncing exits, the eight principals manage maybe three laughs among them.

The average user rating for this movie is 4.6 (out of 10) based on 9 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Horace S. gave it a1:
Boring and tedious. I fast-forwarded during the ludicrous musical numbers after enduring the first few. Deneuve looks like hell. What a relief when it was over.

Kalen J. gave it a2:
Quite atrocious really. Overacted, and not entertaining enough to make you want to suspend disbelief, which the characters and plot demand. Why do reviewers lower their standards so much, just because a movie has subtitles?

Thomas E. gave it a 10:
Really entertaining. The best actors to ever grace the screen together. only the ending is below brilliant.

Andrej P. gave it a 10:
Ozon's witty subversion of classic film conventions and genres, including the '50s Technicolor musical, soap operas and whodunit mysteries - which could have easliy turned out a gaudy mess, but instead is as carefully coordinated as the obviously Dior-inspired costumes - together with the eight women's perfectly pitched and balanced performances, renders this, in my opinion, one of the most original recent movies. It is full of irony and intrigue and has a constantly unfurling, twisting and sometimes shocking plot, with each character featured in an emotional and defining musical interlude. Each secret that is revealed adds another level of paradoxical lunacy and dysfunctionality to the '50s bourgeois artifice that provides the movie's theatrical backdrop. All in all, a lot of fun, one that I'm definitely getting on dvd to own!

Alexis S. gave it a 3:
Really, really bad! Could only tolerate 24 minutes--Hollywood Video wouldn't give me my money back and I'm really pissed about it. Boyfriend didn't like it either!

Kathy H. gave it a 4:
A film that makes you attracted with an enchanting title, mystery genre and such fabulous actresses! In contrast it will make you confronted with a total disappointment. The plot is good but the time to time singings is quite out of tune for the movie! I do not recommand it at all and I wonder how such great actoresses like Cathrine Deneuve have apeared in such a banal movie.

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8 Women Focus Features / USA Films

8 Women
Focus Features / USA Films