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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
97
4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days
83
Alexandra
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Anamorph
35
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32
Backseat
80
Band's Visit, The
62
Battle for Haditha
47
Bella
63
Blind Mountain
71
Blindsight
47
Boarding Gate
60
Body of War
58
Bra Boys
70
Caramel
54
Cashback
44
Chaos Theory
32
Chapter 27
69
Chicago 10
82
Chop Shop
46
CJ7
78
Counterfeiters, The
30
Cover
49
Dark Matter
35
Deal
62
Dhamma Brothers, The
92
Diving Bell and the Butterfly, The
73
Duchess of Langeais, The
20
Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed
58
Fall, The
43
Favor, The
58
First Saturday in May, The
57
Flawless
87
Flight of the Red Balloon, The
xx
From Within
44
Frontier(s)
57
Fugitive Pieces
41
Funny Games
66
George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead
61
Girls Rock!
55
Glass: A Portrait of Philip in Twelve Parts
57
Grand, The
58
Hats Off
68
Honeydripper
xx
Jack and Jill vs. the World
67
Jellyfish
xx
Kiss the Bride
37
Life Before Her Eyes, The
72
Life of Reilly, The
50
Look
65
Married Life
35
Meet Bill
63
Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
55
Mister Lonely
52
My Blueberry Nights
71
My Brother Is an Only Child
55
Noise
62
OSS 117: Cairo - Nest of Spies
83
Paranoid Park
55
Pathology
48
Penelope
90
Persepolis
62
Planet B-Boy
xx
Plumm Summer, A
67
Praying with Lior
46
Previous Engagement, A
72
Priceless
17
Prom Night
69
Redbelt
79
Reprise
72
Roman de gare
48
Run, Fat Boy, Run
50
Sangre de mi sangre
85
Savages, The
24
Sex and Death 101
66
Shelter
75
Shotgun Stories
40
Sleepwalking
67
Snow Angels
67
Son of Rambow
71
Standard Operating Procedure
76
Stuff and Dough
64
Surfwise
xx
Tashan
82
Taxi to the Dark Side
57
Teeth
56
Then She Found Me
55
Tracey Fragments, The
57
Turn the River
72
Tuya's Marriage
83
U2 3D
59
Under the Same Moon
76
Unforeseen, The
66
Unsettled
90
Up the Yangtze
55
Vice
79
Visitor, The
64
Water Lilies
45
Where in the World Is Osama Bin Laden?
57
Without the King
75
Witnesses, The
63
XXY
67
Year My Parents Went on Vacation, The
75
Young@Heart
45
Zombie Strippers
97
4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days
92
Diving Bell and the Butterfly, The
90
Up the Yangtze
90
Persepolis
87
Flight of the Red Balloon, The
85
Savages, The
83
Paranoid Park
83
Alexandra
83
U2 3D
82
Chop Shop
82
Taxi to the Dark Side
80
Band's Visit, The
79
Reprise
79
Visitor, The
78
Counterfeiters, The
76
Unforeseen, The
76
Stuff and Dough
75
Young@Heart
75
Shotgun Stories
75
Witnesses, The
73
Duchess of Langeais, The
72
Priceless
72
Roman de gare
72
Tuya's Marriage
72
Life of Reilly, The
71
Standard Operating Procedure
71
My Brother Is an Only Child
71
Blindsight
70
Caramel
69
Redbelt
69
Chicago 10
68
Honeydripper
67
Snow Angels
67
Praying with Lior
67
Jellyfish
67
Year My Parents Went on Vacation, The
67
Son of Rambow
66
George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead
66
Unsettled
66
Shelter
65
Married Life
64
Surfwise
64
Water Lilies
63
XXY
63
Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
63
Blind Mountain
62
Planet B-Boy
62
Dhamma Brothers, The
62
Battle for Haditha
62
OSS 117: Cairo - Nest of Spies
61
Girls Rock!
60
Body of War
59
Under the Same Moon
58
First Saturday in May, The
58
Fall, The
58
Hats Off
58
Bra Boys
57
Flawless
57
Teeth
57
Fugitive Pieces
57
Without the King
57
Grand, The
57
Turn the River
56
Then She Found Me
55
Vice
55
Tracey Fragments, The
55
Mister Lonely
55
Noise
55
Pathology
55
Glass: A Portrait of Philip in Twelve Parts
54
Cashback
52
My Blueberry Nights
50
Sangre de mi sangre
50
Look
49
Dark Matter
48
Run, Fat Boy, Run
48
Penelope
47
Bella
47
Boarding Gate
46
CJ7
46
Previous Engagement, A
45
Where in the World Is Osama Bin Laden?
45
Zombie Strippers
44
Frontier(s)
44
Chaos Theory
43
Anamorph
43
Favor, The
41
Funny Games
40
Sleepwalking
37
Life Before Her Eyes, The
35
Meet Bill
35
Babysitters, The
35
Deal
32
Backseat
32
Chapter 27
30
Cover
24
Sex and Death 101
20
Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed
17
Prom Night
xx
Tashan
xx
Plumm Summer, A
xx
Kiss the Bride
xx
Jack and Jill vs. the World
xx
From Within
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
|
Brokeback Mountain
Focus Features
 |
|
FILM:
MPAA RATING: R for sexuality, nudity, language and some violence
Starring
Jake Gyllenhaal,
Heath Ledger,
Michelle Williams,
Anne Hathaway,
Randy Quaid,
Linda Cardellini,
Anna Faris,
and
Scott Michael Campbell
Set against the sweeping vistas of Wyoming and Texas, the film tells the story of two young men -- a ranch-hand and a rodeo cowboy -- who meet in the summer of 1963, and unexpectedly forge a lifelong connection, one whose complications, joys, and tragedies provide a testament to the endurance and power of love. (Focus Features)
| GENRE(S): |
Drama
|
Romance
|
| WRITTEN BY: |
Larry McMurtry
Diana Ossana
E. Annie Proulx (short story)
|
| DIRECTED BY: |
Ang Lee
|
| RELEASE DATE: |
DVD: April 4, 2006
Theatrical: December 9, 2005
|
| RUNNING TIME: |
134 minutes, Color |
| ORIGIN: |
USA |
Led all movies with eight Academy Award nominations for 2005, including Best Picture, Lead Actor (Ledger) and Director (Lee, who won the award). Received seven Golden Globe nominations, including Best Picture (Drama), for which it won. Named Best Picture of 2005 by the New York Film Critics Circle, Los Angeles Film Critics Association, Southeastern Film Critics Association, and Boston Society of Film Critics. Winner, Golden Lion, 2005 Venice 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
Entertainment Weekly
Owen Gleiberman
Brokeback Mountain is that rare thing, a big Hollywood weeper with a beautiful ache at its center. It's a modern-age Western that turns into a quietly revolutionary love story.
100
Rolling Stone
Peter Travers
Ang Lee's unmissable and unforgettable Brokeback Mountain hits you like a shot in the heart. It's a landmark film and a triumph for Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal.
100
The Hollywood Reporter
Ray Bennett
Anne Proulx's 1997 short story in the New Yorker has been masterfully expanded by screenwriters Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana to provide director Lee with his best movie since "Sense and Sensibility" in 1995.
100
Premiere
Glenn Kenny
Lee and company handle the particulars of the tale with the requisite meticulousness and exquisite taste that marks all the director's films.
100
San Francisco Chronicle
Mick LaSalle
Carries a lot of emotional power.
100
Christian Science Monitor
Peter Rainer
Brokeback Mountain is a tragedy because these men have found something that many people, of whatever sexual persuasion, never find - true love. And they can't do anything about it.
100
The New York Times
Stephen Holden
Mr. Ledger magically and mysteriously disappears beneath the skin of his lean, sinewy character. It is a great screen performance, as good as the best of Marlon Brando and Sean Penn.
100
Los Angeles Times
Kenneth Turan
Confidently directed by Ang Lee and featuring sensitive and powerful performances by Jake Gyllenhaal and a breathtaking Heath Ledger, this film is determined to involve us in the naturalness and even inevitability of its epic, complicated love story.
100
Wall Street Journal
Joe Morgenstern
Brokeback Mountain aspires to an epic sweep and achieves it, though with singular intimacy and grace.
100
USA Today
Mike Clark
It's a heart-wrenching portrayal of unfulfilled Wyoming love, but this time, we don't mean Alan Ladd and Jean Arthur in "Shane."
100
New York Daily News
Jami Bernard
Gently unfolds into an epic, heartbreaking love story that's far greater than the sum of its parts.
100
Newsweek
David Ansen
There's neither coyness nor self-importance in Brokeback Mountain--just close, compassionate observation, deeply committed performances, a bone-deep feeling for hardscrabble Western lives. Few films have captured so acutely the desolation of frustrated, repressed passion.
100
Empire
Staff (Not credited)
The real revelation here is Heath Ledger as the bruised and sometimes brutal Ennis. His tortured secret is the tragedy and the ecstasy of this powerful and moving film, a smart study of relationships that could but can't and never will be.
100
Chicago Sun-Times
Roger Ebert
Brokeback Mountain has been described as "a gay cowboy movie," which is a cruel simplification. It is the story of a time and place where two men are forced to deny the only great passion either one will ever feel. Their tragedy is universal.
100
Miami Herald
Rene Rodriguez
This poignant, wise and subtle picture -- which, yes, happens to be the best movie of the year -- should be approached with humble expectations. Lee's approach to this delicate material is suffused with melancholy, metaphors and small, telling touches that favor subtlety over exclamation points and rough-hewn simplicity over grandiloquence.
100
Charlotte Observer
Lawrence Toppman
An experience as tender and troubling as any you're likely to get - or not likely, if this subject puts you off.
100
The New Republic
Stanley Kauffmann
So in all the tumult about this film, the eruption of its subject into wide attention and the consequent revelations about cowboys' lives in the past, let us--without forgetting the American sources of the screenplay--acknowledge the anomaly that the director is Chinese.
91
Portland Oregonian
Shawn Levy
Beautiful, poetic, mournful, at once rich and spare, Brokeback Mountain takes a daring conceit and creates of it an overwhelming work of art that should speak to anyone capable of love.
91
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
William Arnold
It's by far the most uncompromising and unapologetic gay-themed drama ever made for a wide release by a major Hollywood studio with name stars.
90
LA Weekly
Ella Taylor
Brokeback Mountain is at once the gayest and the least gay Hollywood film I've seen, which is another way of saying that Lee has a knack for culling universality from the most specific identities.
90
Dallas Observer
Bill Gallo
If, in its groundbreaking assault on the mythology of the American West, Brokeback Mountain gets a lot of people into a furious lather, so be it.
90
New York Magazine
Ken Tucker
The remarkable thing director Ang Lee has done is to have made a film that remains firmly in the Western genre while never retreating from its portrayal of a tragic love story.
90
The New Yorker
Anthony Lane
This slow and stoic movie, hailed as a gay Western, feels neither gay nor especially Western: it is a study of love under siege.
89
Austin Chronicle
Marjorie Baumgarten
It's possible to point to some weak spots in Brokeback – its seeming multiple endings, the lack of clarity about certain images, some digressions – but there is no movie this year that has moved my heart more than Brokeback Mountain.
88
Boston Globe
Ty Burr
Brokeback may be too polished for some people, too elegantly dispassionate in its study of choked passion.
88
Chicago Tribune
Michael Phillips
A good and eloquent Wyoming-set love story with a great performance at its heart.
88
TV Guide
Ken Fox
While Gyllenhaal is a competent actor, Ledger - surprisingly enough - is becoming a great one, and the levels of intensity they bring to their roles render this romantically star-crossed relationship emotionally lopsided.
88
Philadelphia Inquirer
Carrie Rickey
While Gyllenhaal has playful puppy eyes and energy, his performance as Jack is a blur of mustaches, sideburns and spurs that never achieves the weight of Ledger's.
80
The Onion (A.V. Club)
Keith Phipps
It allows Lee to draw out a theme that's been present in his films from the start: the notion that repressed passion does no one any good. In Brokeback Mountain, it turns vibrant men ghostly.
80
Variety
Todd McCarthy
This ostensible gay Western is marked by a heightened degree of sensitivity and tact, as well as an outstanding performance from Heath Ledger.
75
New York Post
Kyle Smith
This is one of the best serious films about homosexuality ever made, but though it's sad and sobering it's still only a rough draft of a great movie.
75
ReelViews
James Berardinelli
Isn't for everyone, but for those who are not bothered by the homosexual relationship, it offers a study in yearning, love, and loss. It didn't affect me as deeply as either "The Bridges of Madison County" or "The Remains of the Day," but it evokes some of the same feelings.
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
Rick Groen
Ledger proves what we've suspected all along -- this is his picture, and he steals it brilliantly.
70
Chicago Reader
Jonathan Rosenbaum
This is the kind of tasteful tearjerker that's often overrated and smothered with prizes because it flatters our tolerance and sensitivity.
70
Washington Post
Ann Hornaday
Brokeback Mountain possesses handsome and sympathetic lead players, magnificent scenery, heartbreaking melodrama, righteousness and cultural import. But as a testament to the importance of following one's passion, it's devoid of one crucial thing: passion.
70
Village Voice
J. Hoberman
The most straightforward love story--and in some ways the straightest--to come out of Hollywood, at least since "Titanic."
70
Time
Richard Schickel
For all its brave beginnings and real achievements--its assault on western mythology, its discovery of a subversive sexual honesty in an unexpected locale--Brokeback Mountain finally fails to fully engage our emotions.
60
Slate
David Edelstein
Brokeback Mountain could use a little more of it--by which I mean more sweat and other bodily fluids. Ang Lee's formalism is so extreme that it's often laughable, and the sex is depicted as a holy union: Gay love has never been so sacred.
50
Salon.com
Stephanie Zacharek
Takes great pains to be a compassionate love story; but the filmmaking itself, self-consciously restrained and desiccated, is inert and inexpressive.
50
Baltimore Sun
Michael Sragow
Romanticism fights stoicism to a draw, and the movie grows ever more static, too. Down to the quasi-ambiguous hate-crime finish, Brokeback Mountain comes as close to being a still life as you can get with human characters.
40
Film Threat
Phil Hall
This much-ballyhooed gay cowboy melodrama is an inert disappointment.
 The average user rating for this movie is 8.2 (out of 10) based on 968 User Votes
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