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.
Break-Up, The

Mixed or average reviews
Based on 37 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 94 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Comedy | Romance
Written by:
Jeremy Garelick (also story)
Jay Lavender (also story)
Vince Vaughn (story)
Directed by: Peyton Reed
Release Date:
Theatrical: June 2, 2006
DVD: October 17, 2006
Running Time: 105 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: PG-13 for sexual content, some nudity and language
Starring Jennifer Aniston, Vince Vaughn, Jon Favreau, Joey Lauren Adams, Ann-Margret, Cole Hauser, Judy Davis, and Vincent D'Onofrio
Vince Vaughn and Jennifer Aniston star in The Break-Up, which starts where most romantic comedies end: after boy and girl have met, fallen in love, moved in to start their happily-ever-after -- and right when they wind up driving each other crazy. (Universal Pictures)
Also On Metacritic
FILM: Bring It On Down With Love
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...
Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman
A movie that's smarter than its trailer - in fact, totally different in tone and content? That's news, and it's why The Break-Up is a pleasant surprise to the open-minded.
Read Full Review >Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach
It's easier to accept a breakup when it's clear that the two parties are mismatched, but a better, braver film would reveal what caused the initial attraction.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Jack Mathews
Newly minted celebrity couple Vince Vaughn and Jennifer Aniston don't have many opportunities to demonstrate their romantic chemistry in Peyton Reed's funny, heart-wrenching The Break-Up, but they still give what may be the best performances of their careers.
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian M. E. Russell
It's an ambitious idea that monkeys with your expectations: make a whole movie about the ugly, hurt-feelings part of the relationship that's usually disposed of in a romantic-comedy musical montage. Unfortunately, like a bad boyfriend, The Break-Up has a problem with consistency.
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Connie Ogle
Listening to people bicker for almost two hours wears thin, especially when the comedy is never quite so funny as you had hoped it would be.
Read Full Review >Rolling Stone Peter Travers
Vaughn and Favreau are so money, just like they were in "Swingers."
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Jessica Reaves
It's Aniston's return to the emotional authenticity that surfaced too briefly in "Friends With Money" and made "The Good Girl" such a revelation.
Read Full Review >Empire Tony Horkins
The Break-Up doesn't turn the rom-com on its head, but with its focus on the darker side of love manages to gently tip it on its side.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum
It's full of pain and quirky characters standing at oblique angles to one another, and while it doesn't add up it held me throughout.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
Since the scenes where they're together are so much less convincing than the ones where they fall apart, watching the movie is like being on a double-date from hell.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey
This one has some originality, even though it unfolds like Ingmar Bergman's divorce melodrama "Scenes From a Marriage" - without the marriage.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle
Imagine watching Bergman's "Scenes From a Marriage," except without good scenes, without a marriage (legal or spiritual) and without people worthy of anybody's attention, even each other's. Now imagine something even worse.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen
Although possessed of a laudable desire not to be yet another run-of-the-mill, wacky-impediment, I'm-nobody-and-you're-the-Prez's-daughter romance comedy, damned if the picture can figure out how to be an anti-romance comedy.
Read Full Review >Slate Michael Agger
With this genial bunch, and the occasional good line, there's no reason not to see The Break-Up, but there's also no reason, assuming the date is going well, not to skip it and order dessert.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Dana Stevens
The script (by Jeremy Garelick and Jay Lavender) strains hard after a few easy jokes, and the whole movie feels dull and trivial.
Read Full Review >Premiere Marie Iida
Peyton Reed's The Break-Up proves there is nothing particularly funny or charming about two people splitting up, even if the couple is played by Vince Vaughn and Jennifer Aniston.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Carina Chocano
I'd be happy to see it listed in an in-flight magazine, but "Annie Hall" it's not.
Read Full Review >USA Today Claudia Puig
The Break-Up is not comical or romantic, and it's certainly not a date movie. Sitting through it is almost as painful as going through the demise of a relationship.
Read Full Review >The Hollywood Reporter Michael Rechtshaffen
Audiences expecting a good time will instead be rewarded with wildly unsympathetic lead characters and uncomfortably long stretches without a laugh in sight.
Read Full Review >Variety Brian Lowry
Sporadic rays of sunshine emanate from the broad and gifted supporting cast, but the core story is almost relentlessly unpleasant, like sitting through a dinner party where the host couple does nothing but bicker.
Read Full Review >New York Magazine David Edelstein
A routine, stereotype-stuffed sitcom with pretensions.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
The best bits are incidental: Vaughn's chats with Jon Favreau as his bartender buddy, which are delightful interludes of jostling ego, and Judy Davis, looking like Anna Wintour redesigned by Tim Burton as an undead marionette, laying down the law as Aniston's boss.
Read Full Review >ReelViews James Berardinelli
The Break-Up is like Danny DeVito's "The War of the Roses," but without the wit, the acid, and the blacker-than-black humor.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marrit Ingman
Everybody’s sleepwalking here. Vincent D'Onofrio is fantastic with Vaughn in a small part as his brother, but it's as if he’s running in during a break from "Law & Order: Criminal Intent."
Read Full Review >Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold
The filmmakers have wildly miscalculated the chemistry these real-life lovers generate on film.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Desson Thomson
Nobody likes a fixed fight, except the backroom boys making the deal. Which is why The Break-Up may have its share of laughs, but isn't much fun.
Read Full Review >Dallas Observer Luke Y. Thompson
Is The Break-Up worth your time? Let's put it this way: Whenever Vaughn is onscreen, it is. When he's not, it ain't. The movie's a comedy, but it's also about a breakup, so it gets a bit maudlin toward the end.
Read Full Review >Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek
The Break-Up doesn't know whether it wants to be a facile, enjoyable date movie or an unnerving examination of the dark, pockmarked underbelly of everything we expect out of romantic relationships, and it settles for a deeply unsatisfying nowheresville.
Read Full Review >LA Weekly Joe Donnelly
Sadly, The Break-Up is simply an exercise in confusion. To call it erratic would be to imply there was a course it went off, but the film's intentions are impossible to fathom.
Read Full Review >Film Threat Pete Vonder Haar
While The Break-Up fancies itself the heir apparent to other vindictive failed relationship movies like "Modern Romance" and "War of the Roses," its lead actors lack the comparable appeal to hold our interest
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Ty Burr
The biggest unresolved question here is why we're paying $9.50, plus popcorn, for something we can presumably get at home for free.
Read Full Review >New York Post Lou Lumenick
There are precious few laughs in this poorly written and directed "unromantic comedy" - the sort of dire date movie you'd take somebody to if you wanted it to be a LAST date.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps
A lot of The Break-Up doesn't work. Actually, apart from some funny moments between old Swingers sparring partners Favreau and Vaughn, and a nice scene with Jason Bateman as the couple's realtor, virtually none of it works.
Read Full Review >Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer
If, as the ads would lead you to believe, you go to see The Break-Up expecting a romantic comedy, you will be severely disappointed. If you go to it expecting a good movie, you will also be severely disappointed.
Read Full Review >Village Voice Carla Blumenkranz
Faced with a long and miserable road on which they make each other sorry or crazy, both Brooke (Aniston) and Gary (Vaughn) dig in hard on the least appealing parts of their stock characters.
Read Full Review >Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
It's not a good sign when a movie is called The Break-Up and you can't wait for the couple to split so they'll get some relief from one another, and give the audience some relief from them.
What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 5.9 (out of 10) based on 94 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Redlight gave it a6:
Good film but it doesn't get the balance between comedy and drama right. Personally, I think it worked better as a drama. Plus, why is Brooke so desperate to get back with Gary when he is such an asshole? Anyway, great acting from Vaugh and Aniston (especially Aniston) and still a good film despite its flaws.
J MG gave it a7:
I think what backfired with this movie is that everyone going to see it expected a light, airly romantic comedy. Parts of it are funny but some of the scenes in it are a bit more blunt and realistic to what happens when couples break up. The games, the arguements....everything. They do a good job of showing the loneliness and various issues of these two people and how it effects their relationship. It's hard to watch not because it's bad (only mediocre) but because some of the situations are very real. Unnecessarily panned....not a great movie but still pretty good.
Nate H. gave it a3:
Despite its completely unconvincing nature, it was also quite unoriginal and painful to watch. The ending was some small relief, in that it did not resolve anything.
Brad M. gave it a10:
People do not understand this film. The art and beauty to it. Just looking at Jennifer Aniston's face alone should please audiances, but NO. People say things like Anniston and Vince had no chemistry. But that is the point, and that is what causes the humor. That is even why it is called The Break-Up. The movie is so smart, so delicate, so full of non-stop laughter and tear jerking emotions. It is so real, non-cliche, and brilliant. The ending flows through in perfect harmony with the film because it does not try and please the audience. It is the Best Romantic Comedy of 2006, and on my 10 list it is Number 6 for the entire year.
Kristina D gave it a1:
Vince Vaughn and Jennifer Aniston had absolutly no chemistry = hardly convincing...
P B gave it a2:
I typically love Vince's wit and command of the English language, but this movie was painfully dull. The outakes were funnier than the movie. The onlyredeeming factor, which allowed me to give this movie any points at all, was that it was shot in Chicago.
Erica gave it an8:
I would definitely give this movie a solid 8. Not the best, but definitely not among the worst. Vince Vaughan is absolutely hilarious, as always. And Jennifer Aniston is perfect. The jokes were good, but not over the top, and the plot was solid. Excellent script and lines, and Jon Favreau was a fabulous addition as a supporting character. The laughs were all genuine throughout the theater, and I can't wait for the sequel. Assuming Jen and Vince don't break up for real in the meantime and refuse to work together...
