Now Playing
Critics & Publications
Archives: A-Z Index
Advanced Search

Upcoming Release Calendar
Weekend Box Office
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores
How Metascores Are Calculated
Discuss Film In Our Forums

sort by name

sort by score

38 12 Rounds
48 17 Again
76 Adventureland
48 Angels & Demons
54 Battle for Terra
xx Bruno
80 Coraline
40 Dance Flick
83 Drag Me to Hell
72 Earth
45 Fast & Furious
61 Fighting
34 Ghosts of Girlfriends Past
72 Gran Torino
73 Hangover, The
47 Hannah Montana: The Movie
51 Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs
54 Imagine That
41 Knowing
32 Land of the Lost
56 Monsters vs. Aliens
34 My Life in Ruins
51 My Sister's Keeper
46 Next Day Air
42 Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian
54 Observe and Report
25 Obsessed
48 Proposal, The
70 Public Enemies
61 Soloist, The
83 Star Trek
64 State of Play
55 Taking of Pelham 1 2 3, The
52 Terminator Salvation
35 Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
77 Under the Sea 3D
88 Up
43 X-Men Origins: Wolverine
34 Year One

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

sort by name

sort by score

67 $9.99
75 24 City
66 Adoration
74 Afghan Star
48 Alien Trespass
56 American Violet
82 Anvil! The Story of Anvil
57 Away We Go
81 Beaches of Agnes, The
62 Big Man Japan
28 Big Shot-Caller, The
78 Boys: The Sherman Brothers' Story, The
55 Brothers Bloom, The
82 Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country
xx Call of the Wild
63 Cheri
62 Cherry Blossoms
63 Dead Snow
65 Departures
18 Downloading Nancy
58 Easy Virtue
70 End of the Line, The
77 Every Little Step
64 Examined Life
80 Food, Inc.
38 Gigantic
56 Girl from Monaco, The
67 Girlfriend Experience, The
87 Gomorrah
89 Goodbye Solo
63 Great Buck Howard, The
79 Harvard Beats Yale 29-29
xx Home
82 Hunger
91 Hurt Locker, The
16 I Hate Valentine's Day
81 Il Divo
54 Is Anybody There?
71 Jerichow
58 Julia
74 Lemon Tree
36 Life is Hot in Cracktown
40 Limits of Control, The
42 Little Ashes
64 Lymelife
50 Management
57 Merry Gentleman, The
66 Moon
35 New York
62 Not Forgotten
xx Offshore
78 O'Horten
64 Outrage
40 Paris 36
54 Pontypool
71 Pressure Cooker
52 Quiet Chaos
83 Revanche
67 Rudo y Cursi
86 Seraphine
65 Sex Positive
70 Shall We Kiss?
77 Sin Nombre
59 Sleep Dealer
74 Song of Sparrows, The
54 Stoning of Soraya M., The
82 Sugar
84 Summer Hours
61 Sunshine Cleaning
28 Surveillance
42 Tennessee
63 Tetro
64 Throw Down Your Heart
80 Tokyo Sonata
63 Tokyo!
70 Tony Manero
74 Treeless Mountain
88 Tulpan
74 Two Lovers
83 Tyson
83 U2 3D
60 Under Our Skin
69 Unmistaken Child
69 Valentino: The Last Emperor
22 What Goes Up
45 Whatever Works
57 Youssou Ndour: I Bring What I Love

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Bug
Lions Gate Films


4.5

based on 29 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 78 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

MPAA RATING: R for some strong violence, sexuality, nudity, language and drug use

Starring Ashley Judd, Michael Shannon, Lynn Collins, Brian F. O'Byrne, and Harry Connick Jr.

Probing the blurry lines between paranoia and nightmarish reality, Bug is an intense, mind-bending psychological thriller in which nothing is quite as it seems. (Lionsgate)

GENRE(S):	Drama \| Horror \| Suspense/Thriller
WRITTEN BY:	Tracy Letts (also play)
DIRECTED BY:	William Friedkin
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: September 25, 2007 Theatrical: May 25, 2007
RUNNING TIME:	102 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	USA

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

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

A triumph for Judd and the director.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Begins as an ominous rumble of unease, and builds to a shriek. The last 20 minutes are searingly intense: A paranoid personality finds its mate, and they race each other into madness.

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

Engrossingly manic version of Tracy Letts's great stage play.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

The enjoyably icky heart of Bug is still contained within the airless, increasingly ''bug-proofed'' room that becomes Agnes and Peter's whole world.

New York Magazine David Edelstein

Has the feverish compression of live theater and the moody expansiveness of film. The mix is insanely powerful.

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

Steppenwolf alumnus Tracy Letts adapted his play into this fearsome horror movie, directed with single-minded claustrophobia by William Friedkin.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Kamal AL-Solaylee

It's one helluva movie that makes Ashley Judd look ugly and demented, while turning Harry Connick Jr. into the most frightening screen thug since Ben Kingsley in "Sexy Beast."

The Onion (A.V. Club) Nathan Rabin

Friedkin's latest rivals his Druid horror flick "The Guardian" for sheer lunacy--Bug remains disconcerting, real, and raw. It poignantly suggests that some lost souls would rather be crazy and doomed than alone.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

Ashley Judd as Agnes White, and a relative newcomer, the remarkable Michael Shannon, as Peter Evans. They're both spellbinding.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

Bug has an uncompromising, anything-goes daring: Friedkin, 71, has nothing to lose at this point, and he has made this low-budget, brazenly over-the-top picture strictly on his own terms.

Philadelphia Inquirer Tirdad Derakhshani

After nearly three decades of misfires, major and minor, William Friedkin, the creator of "The French Connection," "The Exorcist" and "Sorcerer," is back in true form with Bug. And heaven help us for it.

Slate Dana Stevens

It's unapologetically theatrical.

Village Voice Rob Nelson

Genuinely freaky-deaky, not to mention more inventively unsettling than anything Friedkin has mustered in the quarter-century since twisting little Linda Blair into a satanic spewer of pea soup and F-bombs.

The Hollywood Reporter Duane Byrge

With his (Friedkin) vigorous camera compositions and a talented cast, he manages to straddle a wickedly fine line between taught portrayal of paranoia and parody of paranoia.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

We find ourselves in the fascinating no man's land between horror and comedy -- right where this movie wants us to be.

The New York Times Jeannette Catsoulis

The escalating hysteria and grisly set pieces of Bug may strain credulity, but Ms. Judd has never been more believable as a woman condemned to attract the wrong kind of man.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

As near as I can tell, it's the smallest-scale, lowest-budget, most experimental film Friedkin has ever made, as well as the most thoroughly unpleasant and off-putting -- though it builds a grisly, masochistic fascination as it powers along.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

Bug is creepy and hard to dismiss, but it's not a lot of fun and its weaknesses leave a bitter aftertaste.

New York Post Kyle Smith

Buzzes around in random menace for an hour until its third act, when - zzzzzt! - it flies straight into the zapper.

Film Threat Don R. Lewis

It's a tough one to recommend to everyone. Just know now this isn't a horror film as they're making it out to be nor is it a true return to form for Friedkin. Even so, it's worth seeing but perhaps as a DVD rental further down the road.

Austin Chronicle Steve Davis

By the end of Bug, you may find yourself scratching yourself as well -- your head, that is -- wondering what the hell this is all about.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

A tale of love, desperation and conspiratorial madness, comes off on the big screen as a wacky psychological snow job.

Los Angeles Times Carina Chocano

Creepy and unsettling, to say nothing of gory, but overall it's a little claustrophobic and uneven.

USA Today Claudia Puig

Bug won't get under your skin as much as it will assault you with its ghastly claustrophobic drama and over-the-top performances.

TV Guide Ken Fox

A ludicrous foray into psychological horror.

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

If you have claustrophobia and/or fear insects, the last film you should see is Bug. I'm not sure it's worth a trip even if you don't suffer from those maladies.

LA Weekly Ella Taylor

Our traumatized soldiers deserve better representation than this irretrievably ridiculous drama, which will do nothing to revive the flagging fortunes of the man whose career lay down and died after "The Exorcist" and "The French Connection."

Variety Todd McCarthy

A ranting, claustrophobic drama that trades in shopworn paranoid notions, William Friedkin's overwrought screen version of Tracy Letts' play assaults the viewer with aggressive thesping and over-the-top notions of shocking incident, all to intensely alienating effect.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

A humorless picture, a somber, arty exercise in deep denial of its exploitation roots. The dialogue is stiff and mechanical and the performances are too.

The average user rating for this movie is 4.5 (out of 10) based on 78 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Kennedy F. gave it a9:
Tense and totally engrossing. Amazing performances.

Martin Z. gave it a3:
Suspension of disbelief is what my professors & books said about filmmaking... This film, sadly, does not allow me to experience that concept after the first 30 minutes. It starts out very slow and then just gets unbelievable. SPOILER ALERT (kind of) - how do you not get kicked out of a motel with no income...how long does it take for a working, responsible, lonely person to become totally insane (there is NO concept of time in this film, that's why I ask...days/weeks/months/who knows)...why would the ex not pop-in a little quicker once the screaming begins...why would a pizza show up at that moment and nothing come from it - nothing at all... I wanted to like it but the last 20 minutes I had my hand on the remote ready to hit the power button. That's what I get for being curious.

lulu f. gave it a10:
Blew me away! Starts off slow. I actually looked at the CD blurb to see if I had picked up a drama rather than a horror flick. But just hang on. Let the movie steep you like a bag of tea in hot water. The scorch is coming. Hang on! Loved it. Would like to see more filmmaking of this caliber.

M W gave it an8:
Very interesting film. Not at all what I expected (I imagine that's a common observation of this film). I thoroughly enjoyed the ride into madness experienced by Ashley's character, and the gleeful way in which Michael Shannon's character led (not dragged) her into the abyss. I thought both were superb in their roles. And there was just enough of a crack in the door to make you wonder if in fact they were insane at all or if the military really had done something heinous to them (e.g. was the "doctor" really even there?)

Jen C gave it a1:
that was the biggest waste of my time. What is the deal with the bugs, are they really there or are the people just delusional? And was it really necessary to light yourself on fire? The only part that sparked any emotion is me is the pity i felt for Ashley Judd's character, that she needed to be loved so bad that she was willing to put up with psycho path bug boy. Lame.

P CLASS="usercomment">Alicia S. gave it an8:
An awesomely creepy look at how delusion and paranoia can spread. Unbelievable acting. The first half is a little slow, but it becomes more and more creepy as it builds up to a very powerful end. As a Psych major, I ate it up. I have never seen anything else to even begin to compare it to! Unique and clever. A must-see for anyone interested in the human psyche.

Bill B. gave it an8:
Even though I was bored through most of the movie, and the ending wasn't very brutal, or surprising, I still liked this movie. It is not based on a formula, and it is memorable. What more can one ask for?

Suzi P. gave it a10:
I love this movie it totally tore my heart out at the end!

Bug Lions Gate Films

Bug
Lions Gate Films