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.
Bend It Like Beckham
EMAILPRINTFox Searchlight Pictures

Generally favorable reviews
Based on 36 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 85 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Comedy
Written by:
Gurinder Chadha
Paul Mayeda Berges
Guljit Bindra
Directed by: Gurinder Chadha
Release Date:
Theatrical: March 12, 2003
DVD: September 30, 2003
Running Time: 112 minutes, Color
Origin: UK / Germany
Summary
RATING: PG-13 for language and sexual content
Starring Parminder K. Nagra, Keira Knightley, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, Anupam Kher, Archie Panjabi, Shaznay Lewis, Frank Harper, and Juliet Stevenson
A British film about a teenage girl named Jess (Nagra) living in London who must make a choice between following the traditions of her Indian family or pursuing her dream of becoming a soccer sensation. (Fox Searchlight)
Also On Metacritic
FILM: Bride & Prejudice What's Cooking?
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...
Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
The most exhilarating movie so far this year. It's made up of many familiar elements -- think ''Monsoon Wedding'' meets ''My Beautiful Laundrette'' meets ''Personal Best'' -- yet before long, you catch on to how buoyant and funny and original it is.
Read Full Review >Seattle Post-Intelligencer Paula Nechak
Terrifically fun entertainment; wonderfully shot and acted, instilled with spirit and life and able to woo us with its exhuberant freshness.
Read Full Review >USA Today Claudia Puig
The juxtaposition between the fast-paced plays on the soccer field and the color-drenched, music-infused wedding party is a highlight of this captivating film.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
I saw more important films at Sundance 2003, but none more purely enjoyable than Bend It Like Beckham, which is just about perfect as a teenage coming-of-age comedy.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan
Smart, lively and altogether warmhearted dramatic comedy.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Desson Thomson
There's a great sense of fun in the cultural collision between Indian and British lifestyles -- often within the same person.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Rita Kempley
You seldom leave a theater walking on air, much less float all through a movie. But the joyous Bend It Like Beckham never lets you down.
Read Full Review >Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
I'm still smiling as I recall Jess, the soccer star-to-be, standing behind her straitlaced mother in the kitchen and casually bouncing a head of lettuce on her knee.
The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey
Energetic, eager-to-please culture-clash comedy.
Read Full Review >Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman
The feel-good movie of a feel-blah movie year, with all the positive qualities and one negative trait that this description implies.
Read Full Review >ReelViews James Berardinelli
Enjoyable enough that the sprinkles of artificial sweetness in the mix don't do lasting or irreparable damage.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Ty Burr
The film's most natural appeal is to adolescent athletes -- in particular, cleat-wearing young ladies who will bask in its hard-won girl-power message. This is a movie with bruised shins and a huge heart.
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez
As the movie breathlessly cuts back and forth from a boisterous wedding celebration to a high-stakes soccer match, even the grumpy cynics will have been won over.
Read Full Review >Rolling Stone Peter Travers
Writer-director Gurinder Chadha juggles all the angles with flair and fairness. Like Nagra and Knightley, the movie is a sweetheart.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Nathan Rabin
Like the rest of the film, Beckham's climax is surprisingly satisfying, however, in large part because director Gurinder Chadha films the competing big game and big fat Indian wedding of Nagra's sister with equivalently bursting levels of color, panache, and verve.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader J.R. Jones
Fine character work by Juliet Stevenson, Archie Panjabi, and Bollywood regular Anupam Kher make this well worth seeing.
Read Full Review >New York Magazine Peter Rainer
Every generation has to discover the same clichés that were drummed into previous generations, and kids could do worse than to learn them from this film.
Read Full Review >Film Threat Rick Kisonak
The portrait of traditional Indian life Chadha provides manages to mine laughs from characters without resorting to making them laughable.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Mark Caro
Much of the value -- entertainment and otherwise -- of seeing a culture-specific movie is to connect with a larger world than your everyday life offers.
Read Full Review >New York Post Megan Lehmann
An energetic, feel-good blend of comedy, romance and benign drama -- with a side dish of social commentary -- that works despite its strict adherence to the culture clash/generation gap formula.
Read Full Review >Variety Derek Elley
Writer-helmer Gurinder Chadha assembles a gallery of broadly played stereotypes into a movie about social attitudes that's more rooted in small-screen sitcom than anything deeper.
Read Full Review >Slate David Edelstein
The movie isn't unwatchable. It's clumsily good-natured, the actors are appealing, and there are worse ways to spend two hours than looking at pretty young girls in shorts kicking balls. But the movie is way, way too pleased with itself.
Read Full Review >Film Threat Darrin Keene
While this film offers plenty of laughs and a cool soundtrack, it also tiptoes around complex subjects of social change and inter-racial relations.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov
There's nothing terribly bad about Bend It Like Beckham -- in fact it's a fine Friday-night-out film -- it's just that it strikes me as being an awful little piffle cloaked in the garb of something so much more.
Read Full Review >Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek
Bend It Like Beckham is supposedly a movie about youth; its biggest shortcoming is that it rarely feels young.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Jami Bernard
Director and co-writer Gurinder Chadha continues in the vein of her previous movies, "What's Cooking?" and "Bhaji on the Beach," exploring with humor and compassion how cultures adapt in foreign climes.
Read Full Review >Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt
Just a few years ago, the generally felt aspiration of ethnic groups was to blend in with the majority culture. Today it's to flourish in modern society while actively remembering old-country values...Bend It Like Beckham could cement the trend.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Dana Stevens
Its cheery inoffensiveness, though, is in some ways disappointing.
Read Full Review >Village Voice Jessica Winter
Only silent Becks himself rises unstained from this reheated ethno-niche stew.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 7.8 (out of 10) based on 85 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
[Anonymous] gave it a9:
Great movie with plenty of humor. And I'm Indian, so I know how dead on the movie is about revealing Indian culture in the Western World. But my parents don't mind when I date white girls. Other than that, it's really accurate.
Patricia C. gave it a10:
What a brilliant film i love jonathan rhys meyers he is so hot and it just shows that women can play football hope there is going to be a second film.
Vinton H. gave it an8:
A movie that transcends cultural limitations and offers the hope that our common humanity will rescue us from parochialism.
Kristina D. gave it a10:
An immensely enjoyable film with lots of energy and wonderfully acted!
B. F. gave it a10:
i loved this movie it was great i want 2 get it on dvd.
B. C gave it a10:
This was an awesome movie. I reckon that some of you guys that gave it 0 just can't deal with the fact that girls can be independent. There definately should be a Bend It Like Beckham 2.
sara b. gave it a10:
I also like joe the coach he is bloody sexy.
