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76
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60
9
17
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37
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53
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66
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45
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61
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43
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66
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29
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23
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80
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61
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39
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30
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34
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60
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32
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27
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41
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39
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46
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73
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78
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55
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66
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69
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58
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47
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66
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34
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33
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54
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67
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51
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42
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28
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63
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86
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35
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48
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30
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53
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24
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83
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33
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45
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55
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47
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96
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35
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
28
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88
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71
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67
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28
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73
Zombieland
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
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96
35 Shots of Rum![]()
56
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72
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39
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78
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61
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66
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xx
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58
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72
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48
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73
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62
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55
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76
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86
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13
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70
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35
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71
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66
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51
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xx
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76
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26
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57
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45
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81
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70
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45
Burning Plain, The
xx
Carriers
55
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62
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65
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69
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59
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82
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75
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82
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67
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xx
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71
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70
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24
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85
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Endgame
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xx
Everyone Else
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Fatal Promises
56
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62
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74
Flame & Citron
49
Food Beware: The French Organic Revolution
80
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28
Free Style
xx
From Mexico with Love
50
Fuel
25
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50
Give Me Your Hand
58
Gogol Bordello Non-Stop
72
Good Hair
89
Goodbye Solo![]()
52
Grace
64
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81
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xx
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63
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73
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xx
How to Seduce Difficult Women
74
Humpday
94
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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
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41
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41
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66
Liverpool
34
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80
Lorna's Silence
83
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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
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48
New York, I Love You
73
Night and Day
66
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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
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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.
Big Bad Love

Mixed or average reviews
Based on 24 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 4 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Drama
Written by:
Jim Howard
Arliss Howard
Larry Brown (stories)
Directed by: Arliss Howard
Release Date:
Theatrical: February 22, 2002
DVD: September 24, 2002
Running Time: 111 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: R for language and some sexuality
Starring Arliss Howard, Debra Winger, Paul Le Mat, Rosanna Arquette, Angie Dickinson, Michael Parks, Alex Van, and Zachary Moody
Based on the acclaimed short-story collection by celebrated Mississippi writer Larry Brown, Big Bad Love is a tale of Viet Nam veteran Barlow (Howard) struggling to make fiction from his past, his dreams, and the dim sound of the future bearing down on him. (IFC Films)
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...
Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas
Brave and admirable for the trust that it puts in a viewer's intuition and willingness in going along with it right through to its rewarding finish.
Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov
One glance at the cast should be enough of a recommendation for any film lover -- it's Winger's first time on the screen in seven years, and Howard deserves a nod or two if only for getting his wife back in front of the camera where she so clearly belongs.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea
Too long (and it sure ain't taut), but it brims with passion.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Staff (Not credited)
It's messy, but in the end satisfying, a film worth making, a journey worth taking.
Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington
There's a sass and bite to Winger's acting, a grinning intelligence, unabashed sexiness and total immersion that make her one of the movies' few hipster female stars.
Read Full Review >Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt
It's an impressive movie, pointing to Howard as a promising new director.
Read Full Review >Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek
It's made with an accurate and loving, but also wary and squinty-eyed, view of the South. If only the movie hung together better overall.
Read Full Review >New Times (L.A.) Bill Gallo
Constantly touching, surprisingly funny, semi-surrealist exploration of the creative act.
Read Full Review >Variety David Rooney
A flawed and overlong but ultimately affecting account of one man's struggle to regain control of his life.
Read Full Review >LA Weekly Manohla Dargis
Held together by the blues -- Brown's prose and Howard's performance, Big Bad Love is a mess, but it's a sincere mess, beautifully shot by Paul Ryan and faithfully adapted by screenwriter James Howard.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum
Howard luxuriates in writerly misery as Barlow, and the participation of the filmmaker's real-life wife, Debra Winger, as Barlow's ex gives the scenes between the two of them an unfakeable erotic charge.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Dana Stevens
Beneath its stylistic and structural quirks, Big Bad Love -- is a self-indulgent celebration of self-indulgence.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Carla Meyer
Brown, is a good enough actor and director to keep the film afloat for long stretches.
Read Full Review >New York Post Lou Lumenick
Has a secret weapon in Winger, whose part is small but crucial. Looking a bit older and with redder hair than previously, she brings an earthiness to a movie that could use a lot more of that quality.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Ken Fox
The film's few saving graces include Dickinson's sardonic southern belle; Winger's welcome return to the screen after a five-year absence; and Howard's voice-over readings of Brown's powerful prose, which ultimately saves the film from itself.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey
The cast is so oddly interesting you wish you could see them doing something less wasteful
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
It all comes down to whether you can tolerate Leon Barlow. I can't. Big Bad Love can, and is filled with characters who love and accept him, even though he is a full-time, gold-plated pain in the can.
Read Full Review >Slate David Edelstein
I don't know if Howard had fun directing, writing, and starring in this thing; but he had to have gotten more masochistic pleasure out of it than the audience does.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum
Howard lacks the sense of film rhythm --required to make such an exercise work. Just about the only clear triumph here is an underplayed performance by Angie Dickinson, though Winger and Rosanna Arquette also provide welcome relief from Howard and Le Mat's self-indulgent carousing.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps
The junk-shop surrealism ultimately gets the better of everyone's good intentions.
Read Full Review >Village Voice Michael Atkinson
Brown's saga, like many before his, makes for snappy prose but a stumblebum of a movie.
Read Full Review >New York Magazine Peter Rainer
The only reason to check out Big Bad Love is Debra Winger, last seen onscreen in 1995.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Jack Mathews
If the point of this umpteenth posttraumatic stress drama is that war is hell, even years after it's over and you're sitting in a movie theater, Big Bad Love makes it.
What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 8.5 (out of 10) based on 4 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Brad S. gave it a9:
This is a movie I can't stop coming back to. It's passionate and poetic - a gem that slipped through the cracks. Big Bad Love is a work of art as much as a movie whcih critics just didin't get.
Joe T. gave it an 8:
Whether or not you'll like this movie depends largely on how well you like the protagonist. For those of us with hopeless cause friends or family we can't give up on, Leon really rings true. If you identify with Leon you won't find the film long -- you'll be wishing it didn't end.
David P. gave it a 9:
I know writers, alcoholics mothers, women and the south; this movie is not a fantasy. It is largely based on Larry Brown's story "92 Days" (which I believe he dedicated to "Buk", Charles Bukowski, another alcoholic writer). And regardless of what the critics may say, I loved this movie and highly reciommend it!
