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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

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
91
Hurt Locker, The
89
Goodbye Solo
88
Tulpan
87
Gomorrah
86
Seraphine
84
Summer Hours
83
U2 3D
83
Revanche
83
Tyson
82
Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country
82
Sugar
82
Hunger
82
Anvil! The Story of Anvil
81
Il Divo
81
Beaches of Agnes, The
80
Food, Inc.
80
Tokyo Sonata
79
Harvard Beats Yale 29-29
78
Boys: The Sherman Brothers' Story, The
78
O'Horten
77
Every Little Step
77
Sin Nombre
75
24 City
74
Treeless Mountain
74
Afghan Star
74
Two Lovers
74
Song of Sparrows, The
74
Lemon Tree
71
Pressure Cooker
71
Jerichow
70
Shall We Kiss?
70
Tony Manero
70
End of the Line, The
69
Valentino: The Last Emperor
69
Unmistaken Child
67
$9.99
67
Rudo y Cursi
67
Girlfriend Experience, The
66
Adoration
66
Moon
65
Sex Positive
65
Departures
64
Outrage
64
Examined Life
64
Throw Down Your Heart
64
Lymelife
63
Tokyo!
63
Cheri
63
Dead Snow
63
Tetro
63
Great Buck Howard, The
62
Cherry Blossoms
62
Big Man Japan
62
Not Forgotten
61
Sunshine Cleaning
60
Under Our Skin
59
Sleep Dealer
58
Julia
58
Easy Virtue
57
Away We Go
57
Merry Gentleman, The
57
Youssou Ndour: I Bring What I Love
56
Girl from Monaco, The
56
American Violet
55
Brothers Bloom, The
54
Is Anybody There?
54
Pontypool
54
Stoning of Soraya M., The
52
Quiet Chaos
50
Management
48
Alien Trespass
45
Whatever Works
42
Little Ashes
42
Tennessee
40
Limits of Control, The
40
Paris 36
38
Gigantic
36
Life is Hot in Cracktown
35
New York
28
Big Shot-Caller, The
28
Surveillance
22
What Goes Up
18
Downloading Nancy
16
I Hate Valentine's Day
xx
Call of the Wild
xx
Home
xx
Offshore
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
|
Closer
Columbia Pictures / Sony Pictures Entertainment
FILM:
MPAA RATING: R for sequences of graphic sexual dialogue, nudity/sexuality and language
Starring
Natalie Portman,
Jude Law,
Julia Roberts,
Clive Owen,
Nick Hobbs,
and
Colin Stinton
A bitingly funny and honest look at modern relationships, Closer is the story of four strangers -- their chance meetings, instant attractions and casual betrayals. (Sony Pictures)
| GENRE(S): |
Drama
|
| WRITTEN BY: |
Patrick Marber (also play)
|
| DIRECTED BY: |
Mike Nichols
|
| RELEASE DATE: |
DVD: March 29, 2005
Theatrical: December 3, 2004
|
| RUNNING TIME: |
100 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
Chicago Sun-Times
Roger Ebert
They are all so very articulate, which is refreshing in a time when literate and evocative speech has been devalued in the movies.

90
Time
Richard Corliss
Funny, hurtful, splendidly acted.

89
Austin Chronicle
Marc Savlov
Closer is an un-love story as honest and naked as Cupid in the devil's dock, the whole truth, and nothing but.

88
Boston Globe
Wesley Morris
From Marber's fiercely polished writing, Nichols wrings every drop of acid, yet it's a show of the director's goodness that a movie fundamentally preoccupied with interpersonal ugliness is allowed to end on a convincing note of beauty.

88
Rolling Stone
Peter Travers
Mike Nichols' haunting, hypnotic Closer vibrates with eroticism, bruising laughs and dynamite performances from four attractive actors doing decidedly unattractive things.

88
Chicago Tribune
Michael Wilmington
Few directors are more adept at playing with all this anguish and exhilaration than Mike Nichols.

88
ReelViews
James Berardinelli
This is most definitely NOT a date movie. But if you appreciate films that are more substance than style, that take challenges and don't follow formulas, and that feature Oscar-caliber performances, Closer is not to be missed.

80
Washington Post
Stephen Hunter
If you're the sort of person who laughs at funerals, train wrecks, earnest political documentaries and stories about the rape of nature, you'll love Closer.

80
Film Threat
Pete Vonder Haar
An intelligently written, well-acted, and thoughtful film about adult relationships. Im surprised it came out of Hollywood.

80
Empire
Kim Newman
Its almost as structurally daring as "Memento," demanding that the audience fills in the gaps.

80
Dallas Observer
Bill Gallo
Full of intellectual stimulation as well as low, dark pleasures--"Carnal Knowledge" redux!

80
Newsweek
Sean Smith
Here's a surprise: of the four actors in Closer, Clive Owen is the least famous, but he delivers the most memorable performance.

80
New York Magazine
Ken Tucker
Closer is marred by some drippy music courtesy of Damien Rice and a small-surprise ending that feels like gimmicky irony. But the film's core idea is compelling.

80
The Onion (A.V. Club)
Scott Tobias
Dramatically leaps through time, covering months or sometimes years in the span of a single cut. The effect is jarring and exhilarating, but it also bucks the common idea that relationships deepen over time.

75
Premiere
Glenn Kenny
Most of the dialogue is pretty fresh, and its delivered with great brio, particularly by Owen. Roberts, alas, is not at her best here, but she has almost nothing to work with.

75
Philadelphia Inquirer
Steven Rea
Closer, in the end, lacks a certain heft. The language and the actions of the characters are brutal and devastating. The movie itself, a little too nice.

75
Christian Science Monitor
David Sterritt
It's too emotionally honest and psychologically dense for its own good. It's a movie that demands more than one viewing to absorb all its ideas and feelings.

75
New York Post
Lou Lumenick
An impeccably acted and directed - but quite icy - portrait of deception and betrayal.

75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
Rick Groen
Despite Marber's sardonic wit and Nichols's intelligent direction, the film winds up in the ironic position of practising exactly what it preaches: Closer invites and even gains our intimacy, only to finish by driving us ever farther away.

70
TV Guide
Maitland McDonagh
Overall, Owen and Law are more nuanced than Roberts and Portman, but Portman's dewy youth is 90 percent of Alice (the remaining 10 is an eleventh-hour twist), and Nichols uses the unkindly costumed Roberts so skillfully that her performance looks like a revelation.

70
Village Voice
Dennis Lim
Closer casts a smugly amused eye on the human capacity for betrayal. But because it also seeks to congratulate its audience for its urbane unshockability, it never strays beyond the limits of middlebrow complacency.

70
Variety
Todd McCarthy
The caustic wit and brute force of Patrick Marber's acclaimed play come across with a softened edge in Mike Nichols' bigscreen version of Closer.

70
The New Republic
Stanley Kauffmann
The finish is so asymmetrical that it, too, seems a comment on the kind of film this might once have been.

67
Entertainment Weekly
Lisa Schwarzbaum
The last thing Marber's quartet of modern miserables needs is to be admired; they are the very worst of average people, but on screen they have become the very best of the baddest.

67
Portland Oregonian
Shawn Levy
It's in its aspiration to depict deceit and obsession, selfishness and recklessness, bitterness, revenge and fury that the film's power lies. There and in Clive Owen's sure and powerful hands.

67
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
William Arnold
While its execution is fine, the movie is almost shockingly vapid.

63
USA Today
Claudia Puig
Offers a bleak though thought-provoking take on relationships. The challenge for the viewer is in caring enough to become invested in characters who seem hellbent on hurting one another.

63
Charlotte Observer
Lawrence Toppman
It's the most claustrophobic, airless movie of the year, a menage a quatre among unstable, manipulative, needy people who prey on each other like sharks at a feeding frenzy of the emotions.

60
Slate
David Edelstein
Closer is in the same arena as Labute, and I found it sour and airless, with the feel of a mathematical proof. The acting is superb, though, with one key exception. Jude Law.

60
Los Angeles Times
Kenneth Turan
Despite involved acting and Nichols' impeccable professionalism as a director, the end result is, to quote one of the characters, "a bunch of sad strangers photographed beautifully."

60
Chicago Reader
Jonathan Rosenbaum
The actors are brilliant, the dialogue extremely clever, and the direction assured. But by the end I couldn't have cared less about any of the characters.

60
The New York Times
Dana Stevens
Unlike most movie love stories, Closer does have the virtue of unpredictability. The problem is that, while parts are provocative and forceful, the film as a whole collapses into a welter of misplaced intensity.

60
The New Yorker
Anthony Lane
The Nichols of 1971 was bold and speedy, keeping pace with Jack Nicholson's contempt, whereas the more civilized Nichols of 2004 seems a beat behind the lines, waiting for peace or charity to break out. They never do.

50
LA Weekly
Ella Taylor
Strip away the cavernous lofts, the minimalist art galleries and the pricey consulting rooms, and you have four characters unable to earn their keep with the audience.

50
Miami Herald
Rene Rodriguez
One of the most pessimistic movies about love Hollywood has ever made, a star-studded, glossy anti-date movie.

50
The Hollywood Reporter
Kirk Honeycutt
Determined to be faithful to the strong, often shocking language and in-your-face drama in Marber's mannered writing, Nichols and his actors find no way to lift Closer into a realm that enlightens.

50
Salon.com
Stephanie Zacharek
So bloodless that it feels like an act of arty dishonesty.

50
New York Daily News
Jack Mathews
Despite four very strong performances, Closer is hard emotional work to sit through. It's impossible to empathize with either the viciously insecure Larry or the unscrupulous, childlike Dan.

50
San Francisco Chronicle
Mick LaSalle
Whenever Roberts is onscreen, Closer freezes and starts to atrophy. And when she's off, tender shoots of life begin to sprout.

50
Baltimore Sun
Michael Sragow
The word "yuppie" has fallen out of favor from overuse, but Closer's young urban professionals are so vain and superficial they may bring it back as the ultimate putdown. This movie is a yuppie nightmare.

30
Wall Street Journal
Joe Morgenstern
Bring Zoloft and a tank of oxygen to Closer, an airless, ultimately joyless drama of sexual politics.
30
Washington Post
Desson Thomson
Everything is tearful confessions, angry interrogations and breakups. But there's nothing underneath.


The average user rating for this movie is 6.2 (out of 10) based on 163 User Votes
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