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.

City by the Sea
Warner Bros.


5.8

based on 34 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 14 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

FILM:

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

Starring Robert De Niro, Frances McDormand, James Franco, Eliza Dushku, William Forsythe, George Dzundza, and Patti LuPone

The gripping story of a dedicated police officer who discovers that the chief suspect in his current murder investigation is his own son. (Warner Bros.)

GENRE(S):	Drama
WRITTEN BY:	Ken Hixon Mike McAlary (article Mark of a Murderer)
DIRECTED BY:	Michael Caton-Jones
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: February 18, 2003 Video: February 18, 2003 Theatrical: September 6, 2002
RUNNING TIME:	108 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...

LA Weekly Chuck Wilson

For the first time in years, De Niro digs deep emotionally, perhaps because he's been stirred by the powerful work of his co-stars, including a subtle Frances McDormand and a ferocious Patti LuPone, as well as the heartbreaking (and achingly beautiful) Franco.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

Moves along with a quietude, a scruffy direct plainness that has long gone out of style.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Not an extraordinary movie. In its workmanship it aspires not to be remarkable but to be well made, dependable, moving us because of the hurt in the hero's eyes.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

Against the backdrop represented by stark images of abandoned buildings and lost dreams, the tale that is City by the Sea emerges, with the power of the visual cues giving this film its forcefulness.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

It's so bleak that it would play like a contrived neo-noir if it weren't so consistent, committed and obviously sincere.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

Calls on De Niro to drum up the sort of emotional intensity that's been allowed to atrophy of late. City By The Sea isn't always worthy of him, but it makes enough demands to bring out his best.

New Times (L.A.) Luke Y. Thompson

We so often hear the lament that Hollywood films don't have characters we can care about that it's a real pleasure to note that all the people in this one feel fully developed. It'd be nice if there were more of a plot to go along with them.

Variety Robert Koehler

De Niro's reunion with helmer Michael Caton-Jones doesn't stoke the same fire as their previous pere-fils drama, "This Boy's Life," partly because De Niro's latest portrayal of a troubled cop feels so familiar.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

For some reason, the emotional payoff of the film -- the healing of a dysfunctional family -- doesn't quite come off. Possibly this is because Franco doesn't generate the necessary sympathy or father-son chemistry with De Niro, possibly because it's just not in the script.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

Of course, bad writing can undo the best actor. If you doubt that, check out De Niro's soliloquy at the film's climax. He's acting the heck out of the words, but they're still dragging him down with them.

Boston Globe Sam Allis

The movie will be remembered primarily for the huge, emerging talent of James Franco, who plays De Niro's troubled son.

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

As a character study, City by the Sea is engaging. As a police thriller, it's not all there.

USA Today Claudia Puig

It's a run-of-the-mill cop thriller but also a gripping family drama. It is in the moments spent untangling the threads of troubled relationships that the movie is at its best.

Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach

A great cast can't quite pull City by the Sea out of the drink.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

Takes a fascinating true story and turns it into a conventional cop thriller, hoking up the provocative three-generation saga of the LaMarca family.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

Suffers from dialogue that often sounds like convenient exposition as well as from a climax that feels too pat and prosaic. But the film is peppered with small, explosive scenes that have a refreshing complexity.

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

The cast and the direction are too good, in the end, for the rather desultory place the movie ends up.

Wall Street Journal Collin Levey

Notwithstanding a thin script and a color-by-numbers ending, the movie is redeemed by its solid performances.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

A murky, vaguely fact-based melodrama that quickly sinks into the same swamp as such recent De Niro mistakes as "15 Minutes" and "Showtime."

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

The changes are meant to make it easier for audiences to accept Vincent's loyalty to Angelo and Joey, but they blunt the genetic mystery that made McAlary's story so compelling in the first place.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

Shot in gloomy shades of gray, this earnest but banal story about the legacy of bad parenting strands fine actors in a contrived situation and lets them squirm.

Film Threat Michael Dequina

The saccharine conclusion would be problematic in any film, but given how much talent is involved, it's especially disappointing here.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

Has trouble seeming real. Its back story, involving the sins of Detective LaMarca's own father, feels contrived and the eventual resolution is simultaneously shaky and too pat.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

Frances McDormand and Patti LuPone are solid as his girlfriend and ex-wife, respectively, and James Franco is just right as his wayward son. They're a talented team. Too bad the movie doesn't live up to their abilities.

Slate David Edelstein

That City by the Sea isn't laughed off the screen is testament to Caton-Jones' attention to actors and to some tightly written scenes.

The New York Times Dana Stevens

Stumbles from restrained, fine-edged realism into blunt and muddy melodrama.

Austin Chronicle Steve Davis

The biggest shame in this movie is how it wastes Frances McDormand.

Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir

Robert De Niro and Frances McDormand almost rescue this lifeless, clichéd cop drama! Close isn't good enough!

Village Voice Mark Holcomb

There's nothing wrong with a little creative license, but the abundance of self-serving fabrication in City by the Sea not only diminishes LaMarca's experience and cheapens McAlary's work, it all but desecrates the memory of the real murder victim.

The New Yorker David Denby

After the complex buildup of tensions, the last ten minutes of the movie are a comic-pathetic letdown: the subdued acting and the trash-strewn street scenes lead to nothing more striking than the kind of overexplicit clichés heard in mediocre TV dramas. Even De Niro's discipline and skill can't save lines that should never have been spoken in the first place. [9 September 2002, p.162]

Chicago Reader Fred Camper

De Niro sinks this crime drama with his vacant, inattentive performance as an affectionally challenged homicide detective.

New York Magazine Peter Rainer

The role plays all too easily into De Niro's worst current habits. He's dulled himself out in the service of a phony kitchen-sink pseudo-realism. For De Niro, less has become less.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

The true story of the LaMarcas, well told by the late Mike McAlary in Esquire, has been pounded into TV-crime mush by screenwriter Ken Hixon and director Michael Caton-Jones. Shockingly, the acting doesn't help.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

Yields the same sort of archetype and the usual results: De Niro's workmanlike in a dismayingly familiar role.

The average user rating for this movie is 5.8 (out of 10) based on 14 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

John N. gave it a9:
I thought this was a beautifully constructed movie; a gripping story, great casting and understandably strong performances. Notably, I welcomed the minimal use of music to tell me how I should feel; the script and performances were largely left to stand on their strengths. It's a mystery to me that this movie had such poor reviews, although perhaps it suited the DVD medium on which we viewed it. Highly recommended.

[Anonymous] gave it a7:
Flawed, but it fleshes out how horrid things can be in NYC's dark side. Deniro acts a bit wussy in a scene, though, and some emotional scenes feel cliched. nevertheless, decent entertainment.

Pat C. gave it a 5:
It was thought-provoking, but would then expose those thoughts as irrelevant. One thought that got through is that sometimes fathers have to make hard choices.

Matt F. gave it an 8:
This movie really taught how no matter what you are and your son may go through, that you'll always try and work things out. His dad (Robert De Niro) was determined to get his son out of trouble.

Tommy L. gave it a 5:
Boring...nothing really wrong with the movie...just boring.

Phil D. gave it an 8:
Am I the only one who actually enjoyed this movie? The story was great, the actors were great. Actually, the only thing I hated was the Spyder caracter...too cliche for me but it's still a great flick.

John J. gave it a 1:
Oh ouch! De Niro produced it....that was his first mistake. It stunk as badly as the scenery looked!

City by the Sea Warner Bros.

City by the Sea
Warner Bros.