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
49
2012
60
9
17
All About Steve
37
Amelia
53
Astro Boy
70
Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans
52
Blind Side
47
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
23
Couples Retreat
39
Fame
30
Final Destination, The
34
Fourth Kind, The
41
G-Force
46
Halloween II
73
Hangover, The
78
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
66
Informant!, The
69
Inglourious Basterds
58
Invention of Lying, The
47
Jennifer's Body
66
Julie & Julia
34
Law Abiding Citizen
54
Men Who Stare At Goats, The
67
Michael Jackson's This Is It
28
Pandorum
58
Pirate Radio
39
Planet 51
30
Saw VI
53
Shorts
33
Stepfather, The
45
Surrogates
46
Twilight Saga: New Moon, The
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
39
Adventures of Power
66
Afterschool
73
Amreeka
49
Antichrist
76
Baader Meinhof Complex, The
86
Beaches of Agnes, The
71
Big Fan
65
Black Dynamite
76
Bliss
26
Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day, The
44
Brief Interviews with Hideous Men
81
Bright Star
76
Broken Embraces
70
Bronson
62
Cloud 9
65
Coco Before Chanel
69
Cold Souls
60
Collapse
82
Cove, The
75
Crude
82
Damned United, The
53
Dare
50
Defamation
67
Departures
70
Earth Days
85
Education, An
55
Endgame
88
Fantastic Mr. Fox
31
Fix
49
Food Beware: The French Organic Revolution
80
Food, Inc.
xx
From Mexico with Love
28
Gentlemen Broncos
72
Good Hair
89
Goodbye Solo
63
Horse Boy, The
74
House of the Devil, The
xx
How to Seduce Difficult Women
26
I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell
70
It Might Get Loud
46
Killing Kasztner
43
Little Traitor, The
34
Looking for Palladin
80
Lorna's Silence
46
Love Hurts
84
Maid, The
45
Mammoth
75
Messenger, The
55
Missing Person, The
59
More Than a Game
34
Motherhood
62
My One and Only
48
New York, I Love You
66
No Impact Man
26
Oh My God
68
Paranormal Activity
68
Paris
79
Precious: Based on the Novel by Sapphire
73
Red Cliff
69
September Issue, The
79
Serious Man, A
65
Skin
41
Splinterheads
42
Staten Island
50
Stoning of Soraya M., The
58
Storm
82
Sun, The
49
Ten9Eight: Shoot for the Moon
73
That Evening Sun
61
Trucker
49
Turning Green
83
U2 3D
45
Uncertainty
67
Visual Acoustics
32
War on Kids
67
Way We Get By, The
65
Wedding Song, The
xx
White on Rice
59
William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe
74
Woman in Berlin, A
43
Women in Trouble
69
Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
Calendar Girls
EMAILPRINTBuena Vista Pictures / Walt Disney Pictures
Mixed or average reviews
Based on 30 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 4 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Comedy
Written by:
Tim Firth
Juliette Towhidi
Directed by: Nigel Cole
Release Date:
Theatrical: December 19, 2003
DVD: May 4, 2004
Running Time: 108 minutes, Color
Origin: UK
Summary
RATING: PG-13 for nudity, some language and drug-related material
Starring Julie Walters, Helen Mirren, Linda Bassett, Ciaran Hinds, Penelope Wilton, John Alderton, George Costigan, and Annette Crosbie
This film is based on the true story of the unconventional efforts of the Rylstone Women's Institute in North Yorkshire, England to raise money for leukemia research.
Also On Metacritic
FILM: A Lot Like Love Saving Grace
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 Lisa Schwarzbaum
While each Yorkshire playmate-of-the-month warmly assesses her own undewy flesh, the movie gives off a happy vibe of appreciation -- for the dignity of the real Rylstone lot, the actresses who play them so lovingly, and the simple, flower-bed borders of the story.
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Connie Ogle
The film's appeal is universal, not just female, and, best of all, it's based on a true story.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Mark Caro
It creates a strong sense of a living, breathing community, and you root for its affectionately drawn characters as they experience the giddiness of triumph without forgetting the project's bittersweet inspiration.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey
The story hooks us because stars Helen Mirren and Julie Walters look as fetching in woolens and Wellingtons as they do in the altogether. But it reels us in because it is about people who for so long have paid lip service to making a difference that they are profoundly altered when they actually do.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
It's the kind of sweet, good-humored comedy that used to star Margaret Rutherford, although Helen Mirren and Julie Walters, its daring top-liners, would have curled Dame Margaret's eyebrows.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Jack Mathews
This is good clean fun, with or without the soap, and one of the most spirited entries of the season.
Read Full Review >New York Post Lou Lumenick
May be boomer-baiting formula, but this ingratiating, big-hearted holiday treat is as British as plum pudding - and the closest thing on the market to the famous Ealing comedies.
Read Full Review >The Hollywood Reporter Ray Bennett
It's a real-life story adapted into a grown-up comedy that is warm, winning and sexy. Call it "The Full Auntie."
Read Full Review >Village Voice Jessica Winter
Remains a genial lesson in how to both honor and subvert womanly expectations.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum
Inspired by a true story, this slight but charming and nicely balanced comedy tells the tale of a group of middle-aged women in a Yorkshire village who decide to pose nude for the dozen photographs in a fund-raising calendar.
Read Full Review >Seattle Post-Intelligencer Paula Nechak
The result is a movie that washes down without much thinking or introspection, provides some laughs and a tear or two, and dishes up a little something to mull over with its messages about friendship and loyalty in the face of naked ambition.
Read Full Review >USA Today Mike Clark
What the movie can't quite get over, no matter how hard the filmmakers try, is the story's built-in limitations.
Read Full Review >ReelViews James Berardinelli
Unfortunately, the material doesn't justify the talent. These women deserve more than Calendar Girls ultimately gives them.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey
Both Mirren and Walters are successfully cast against type.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Wesley Morris
More like that crowd-pleasing UK fluff that requires great actresses to do wacky things. Mirren is such an easy, breezy presence that you might think she's playing the screenwriting equivalent of air.
Read Full Review >Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman
A gently pleasing if mostly undramatic picture.
Read Full Review >Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach
A film as clever and embracingly ribald as this shouldn't have to resort to cliche in the end; director Nigel Cole should have kept his girls in Britain and kept the mood light.
Read Full Review >Dallas Observer Bill Gallo
There are many winning moments here, but director Nigel Cole (Saving Grace) sometimes imparts to the thing a terrible case of the cutes and an overeagerness to please.
Read Full Review >Variety Derek Elley
Though the film is never dull, and playing by the cast is spirited, it's actually a surprisingly gentle movie, with no big "Full Monty"-like finale to send auds buzzing into the street.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Manohla Dargis
Closer in texture and consistency to individually wrapped American cheese than good, tangy English cheddar. But even humble plastic-wrapped cheese has its virtues and so does this film.
Read Full Review >Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek
It's too good a story not to have been made into a movie. Yet Calendar Girls, directed by Nigel Cole ("Saving Grace"), is filled with lots of extras it doesn't need, when the bare-naked bones of the story would have been plenty.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Angel Cohn
The caliber of the cast, led by Mirren and Walters, elevates the material above movie-of-the-week level, and viewers can relish seeing these fine actresses play against type.
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy
The result is an overly long, overly cute film that is far too tickled with its own naughtiness. It truly is an instance of if you've seen the trailer, you've seen the film.
Read Full Review >Premiere Glenn Kenny
Everyone involved figured that sentiment trumps sloppiness. Original Soundtrack
Read Full Review >Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
Very funny and surprisingly likable until it goes Hollywood.
The New York Times A.O. Scott
When the biggest compliment you can pay a picture is that it is professional and not smug, there's a little something missing, like invention.
Read Full Review >LA Weekly Scott Foundas
The real-life calendar girls were actual human beings, and here they're merely comic patsies, lacking the distinctive personalities that made the men of "The Full Monty" so endearing, their final act of revelation so peculiarly dignified.
Read Full Review >Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt
Don't race to see it unless a female "Full Monty" is just what you've been waiting for.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten
The actresses are terrific together, and it’s nice to see Helen Mirren smiling onscreen for a change. And although Calendar Girls is resolutely pleasant, the movie never really goes much beyond that.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 7.2 (out of 10) based on 4 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Dr J. gave it a10:
A wonderful, insightful, delicate comedy which touches the heart and brings out the one thing we all hate to talk about...CANCER. Older women do have wonderful charm and to age with grace is a virtue. BRAVO to their courage.
Kristin D. gave it a 7:
Calendar Girls was a cute movie. No, not the best movie, but not the worst movie. Do I recommend it? Yes, but it's not a movie you see over and over again because it's not that good. you really don't have a happy feeling after the movie either.
WAKO JAKO gave it a 7:
Not as funny as the trailier, but still better than expected dramedy that lays the punches a little heavy in the last third and titillates less than it immitates other well-known films... I'm giving it points for sure-footed performances from a rather shaky script.
Cuervo gave it a 5:
The conflicts that show up in the last half of the movie seem artificial, as if the director were looking around for things to extend the length of the film. Some good heart-warming parts, but overall a disappointment.
