Movies
Weekend Box Office
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores
Wide Releases
Now In Theaters
76
(500) Days of Summer
60
9
17
All About Steve
37
Amelia
53
Astro Boy
66
Bandslam
45
Box, The
61
Capitalism: A Love Story
55
Christmas Carol, A
43
Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant
66
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
29
Collector, The
23
Couples Retreat
80
District 9
61
Extract
39
Fame
30
Final Destination, The
34
Fourth Kind, The
60
Funny People
32
G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra
27
Gamer
41
G-Force
39
Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard, The
46
Halloween II
73
Hangover, The
78
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
55
I Can Do Bad All By Myself
66
Informant!, The
69
Inglourious Basterds
58
Invention of Lying, The
47
Jennifer's Body
66
Julie & Julia
34
Law Abiding Citizen
33
Love Happens
54
Men Who Stare At Goats, The
67
Michael Jackson's This Is It
51
My Sister's Keeper
42
Orphan
28
Pandorum
63
Perfect Getaway, A
86
Ponyo![]()
35
Post Grad
48
Proposal, The
30
Saw VI
53
Shorts
24
Sorority Row
83
Star Trek![]()
33
Stepfather, The
45
Surrogates
55
Taking Woodstock
47
Time Traveler's Wife
96
Toy Story/Toy Story 2 3D![]()
35
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
28
Ugly Truth, The
88
Up![]()
71
Where the Wild Things Are
67
Whip It
28
Whiteout
73
Zombieland
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
Limited Releases
Now In Theaters
58
(Untitled)
96
35 Shots of Rum![]()
56
Adam
72
Adela
39
Adventures of Power
78
Afghan Star
61
After the Storm
66
Afterschool
xx
All the Best
58
American Casino
72
Amreeka
48
Antichrist
73
Araya
62
Art & Copy
55
As Seen Through These Eyes
76
Baader Meinhof Complex, The
86
Beaches of Agnes, The![]()
13
Beautiful Life, A
70
Beeswax
35
Beyond a Reasonable Doubt
71
Big Fan
66
Black Dynamite
51
Blind Date
xx
Blind Pig Who Wants to Fly
76
Bliss
35
Blue Tooth Virgin, The
26
Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day, The
57
Boys Are Back, The
45
Brief Interviews with Hideous Men
81
Bright Star![]()
70
Bronson
45
Burning Plain, The
xx
Carriers
55
Casi Divas
57
Chelsea on the Rocks
62
Cloud 9
65
Coco Before Chanel
69
Cold Souls
59
Collapse
44
Confessionsofa Ex-Doofus-ItchyFooted Mutha
82
Cove, The![]()
75
Crude
82
Damned United, The![]()
67
Departures
xx
Dil Bole Hadippa
71
Disgrace
xx
Do Knot Disturb
70
Earth Days
24
Eating Out 3: All You Can Eat
85
Education, An![]()
55
Endgame
xx
Eulogy for a Vampire
xx
Everyone Else
xx
Fatal Promises
56
Fifty Dead Men Walking
62
Five Minutes of Heaven
74
Flame & Citron
49
Food Beware: The French Organic Revolution
80
Food, Inc.
28
Free Style
xx
From Mexico with Love
50
Fuel
25
Gentlemen Broncos
50
Give Me Your Hand
58
Gogol Bordello Non-Stop
72
Good Hair
89
Goodbye Solo![]()
52
Grace
64
Harmony and Me
81
Headless Woman, The![]()
xx
Heretics, The
63
Horse Boy, The
73
House of the Devil, The
xx
How to Seduce Difficult Women
74
Humpday
94
Hurt Locker, The![]()
29
I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell
16
If One Thing Matters: A Film About Wolfgang Tillmans
75
In Search of Beethoven
83
In the Loop![]()
61
Intimate Enemies
42
Irene in Time
70
It Might Get Loud
46
Killing Kasztner
19
Labor Day
xx
Laila's Birthday
41
Little Ashes
41
Little Traitor, The
66
Liverpool
34
Looking for Palladin
80
Lorna's Silence
83
Maid, The![]()
xx
Ministers, The
59
More Than a Game
67
Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers, The
34
Motherhood
62
My One and Only
xx
Mystery Team
48
New York, I Love You
73
Night and Day
66
No Impact Man
47
Ong Bak 2: The Beginning
34
Other Man, The
xx
Painter Sam Francis, The
54
Paper Heart
xx
Paradise
68
Paranormal Activity
68
Paris
44
Peter and Vandy
35
Play the Game
77
Precious: Based on the Novel by Sapphire
xx
Pretty Ugly People
65
Providence Effect, The
76
Rembrandt's J'accuse
69
September Issue, The
79
Serious Man, A
40
Shrink
61
Skin
77
Skin Too Few: The Days of Nick Drake, A
xx
Skiptracers
46
Splinterheads
39
St. Trinian's
89
Still Walking![]()
50
Stoning of Soraya M., The
55
Storm
65
Tetro
70
That Evening Sun
72
Thirst
xx
Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas 3D (re-release)
61
Trucker
xx
Turning Green
83
U2 3D![]()
66
Unmade Beds
66
Unmistaken Child
70
Visual Acoustics
55
Walt & El Grupo
67
Way We Get By, The
69
We Live in Public
64
Wedding Song, The
64
Where is Where?
xx
White on Rice
74
Woman in Berlin, A
69
World's Greatest Dad
70
Yes Men Fix the World
69
Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg
xx
You, the Living
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
Across the Universe

Mixed or average reviews
Based on 29 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 167 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Drama | Musical | Romance
Written by:
Julie Taymor (story)
Dick Clement (& story)
Ian La Frenais (& story)
Directed by: Julie Taymor
Release Date:
Theatrical: September 14, 2007
DVD: February 5, 2008
Running Time: 131 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: PG-13 for some drug content, nudity, sexuality, violence and language
Starring Evan Rachel Wood, Jim Sturgess, Joe Anderson, Dana Fuchs, Eddie Izzard, Martin Luther, T.V. Carpio, and Bono
Across the Universe is a love story set against the backdrop of the 1960s amid the turbulent years of antiwar protest, mind exploration, and rock and roll. The film moves from the dockyards of Liverpool and the creative psychedelia of Greenwich Village to the riot-torn streets of Detroit and the killing fields of Vietnam. The star-crossed lovers, Jude and Lucy are swept up into the emerging antiwar-counterculture movements. They are also joined by a small group of friends and musicians, with "Dr. Robert" and "Mr. Kite" as their guides. Tumultuous forces outside their control ultimately tear the young lovers apart, forcing Jude and Lucy--against all odds--to find their own way back to each other. (Columbia Pictures)
Also On Metacritic
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database View The Trailer Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
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...
Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
Here is a bold, beautiful, visually enchanting musical where we walk INTO the theater humming the songs.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen
This much is inarguable: In the more than two flamboyant hours of Across the Universe, Julie Taymor doesn't cheat us for a single second.
Read Full Review >Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold
The film is a strange, nostalgic, suitably outrageous ode to a very real revolution in consciousness.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Stephen Holden
Somewhere around its midpoint, Across the Universe captured my heart, and I realized that falling in love with a movie is like falling in love with another person. Imperfections, however glaring, become endearing quirks once you’ve tumbled.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Peter Hartlaub
While the songs are recycled, Across the Universe stands out just by existing.
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez
Across the Universe can't achieve the transcendence and exhilaration musicals strive for, but it often generates a singular kind of magic you've never experienced before.
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy
It's a funny thing: On the one hand, you fault Taymor for going out of her way to create some of the more disposable sequences. On the other, you can forgive her: Who wouldn't get carried away given the opportunity she has been given here to play with one of the world's greatest song catalogs?
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Jessica Reaves
If you're a Beatles fan who's not offended by people taking serious liberties with the arrangements of your favorite songs, the unrepentantly exuberant and seriously tuneful Across the Universe is pretty much a sure thing.
Read Full Review >Variety Justin Chang
All you need is love -- for the Beatles, for psychedelic visuals, for ideas about being young in the ‘60s -- to fully enjoy Across the Universe.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Tasha Robinson
It's all very clever and thought-through, but all the allusions don't much bolster the bland central romance or the paper-thin treatment of '60s social issues.
Read Full Review >Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer
Taymor's flower-powery phantasmagoria is ambitious but ultimately tiresome.
Read Full Review >Rolling Stone Peter Travers
To call it trippy would be an understatement. Your head might explode. Just don't accuse Taymor of playing it safe.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Maitland McDonagh
And yes, that is Salma Hayek in the chorus line of sexily sinister nurses, perhaps repaying Taymor for lending her dramatic credibility with "Frida."
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Jack Mathews
Julie Taymor says the idea for her Across the Universe was "to create an original musical using only the songs of the Beatles." That's like saying you're going to create a new element using only gold.
Read Full Review >USA Today Claudia Puig
While style trumps substance, something in the way this '60s tribute moves attracts us.
Read Full Review >Film Threat Mark Bell
The film does not know what it is, tonally changing within and between structural acts.
Read Full Review >Village Voice Ella Taylor
Across the Universe, which filters the cultural revolt through a blizzard of early Beatles songs, ends up both reductive and smugly condescending to a presumptively know-nothing audience.
Read Full Review >ReelViews James Berardinelli
Elements of Across the Universe are shockingly awful and the film lasts at least 30 minutes past the bearable stage. But if you like the Beatles and the idea of hearing about 20 covers of their work fills you with a perverse joy, this may be the movie for you.
Read Full Review >The Hollywood Reporter Stephen Farber
Julie Taymor's visual gifts are very much in evidence in Across the Universe, an ambitious, only partly successful attempt to reinvigorate the musical genre.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
Goofy, pompous, annoyingly boomer-myopic Fab Four musical.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Ann Hornaday
A yawn and most unforgivably features some appalling arrangements of the Beatles' best-loved songs.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Ty Burr
Hobbled by its vaguely insulting comic-book version of the '60s and by a humorlessness that can only come from talented people convinced they're creating work for the ages.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader J.R. Jones
If a bullet hadn't killed John Lennon, this Beatles-scored musical might have.
Read Full Review >Premiere Glenn Kenny
Director Julie Taymor's gargantuan all-Beatles-songs musical is that rarest of animals, the perfect disaster that fulfills expectations by defying them.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten
Across the Universe will have ardent defenders, but in the long run, it will do nothing to infuse life into the current mini-revival of movie musicals and is as soft-headed as the wishful refrain “All You Need Is Love.” Maybe that works in real life but not in the movies, sister.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 7.4 (out of 10) based on 167 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Matt K. gave it a10:
A wonderful movie with some of the Beatles' best hits. It was all put together really well, with a dynamic storyline encompassing all of the seemingly random characters of the movie into one, moving plot. I loved this movie and even sang along to some of my favourite songs. Plus the cameos were pretty cool (Look out for Bono and Selma Hayek).
Morgan F gave it a9:
One of the most orginal, imaginative movies I've ever seen. The musical numbers were simply mindblowing. Sure to please Beatles fans, and perhaps make new ones. My only complaint was that sometimes you had to work hard to piece together the jigsaw puzzle of a plot. Overall, a very enjoyable, entertaining film that captured the spirit its subject.
Joseph M gave it a10:
I loved this movie! I thought I would completely hate it but I was wrong. I'm a huge Beatles fan and I love watching this movie over and over to catch all the tiny references to Beatles lyrics.
Sarah M. gave it a10:
I absolutely love this movie!!!
Lynn W gave it a10:
Pretty amazing. The most creative film I've ever seen, but never indulgently, never just for its own sake.
Shane M gave it a0:
A thoroughly appalling, wasteful mess. The movie consists of a series of poorly executed, horribly arranged music videos connected by a shoe string plot and a cast of caricatures. One of the biggest movie disappointments I could ever imagine seeing.
Ruby Ruby gave it a10:
One of the bests movies of the year!
