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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
Dirty Pretty Things

Generally favorable reviews
Based on 35 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 42 votes
Read user comments
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Movie Info
Genre(s): Drama
Written by: Steve Knight
Directed by: Stephen Frears
Release Date:
Theatrical: July 18, 2003
DVD: March 23, 2004
Running Time: 97 minutes, Color
Origin: UK
Summary
RATING: R for sexual content, disturbing images and language
Starring Chiwetel Ejiofor, Audrey Tautou, Sergi López, Sophie Okonedo, Benedict Wong, Zlatko Buric, Kriss Dosanjh, and Israel Aduramo
A thriller set in London's secret underworld, where everything is for sale. A young man (Ejiofor) and a Turkish chambermaid (Tautou) both work at the same West London hotel -- a breeding ground for illegal activity. They are put to the test when the man makes a shocking discovery late one night. (Miramax Films)
Also On Metacritic
FILM: Cheri Dangerous Liaisons High Fidelity Liam Mary Reilly Mrs. Henderson Presents The Grifters The Queen
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...
Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir
The grandest and most vigorous movie he's (Frears) made in at least a decade. Like Okwe himself, it rises above its limitations, and it's just a little bit bigger than the landscape around it.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan
This is a film that insinuates itself deeply into our awareness. It's that rare pulp story with something on its mind, an unnerving, socially conscious thriller with a killer sense of narrative drive.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Edward Guthmann
All told, the best ensemble cast I've seen this year.
Read Full Review >Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach
A crackerjack thriller, laced with labyrinthine mysteries, moral quandaries and unspeakable evil.
Read Full Review >Dallas Observer Gregory Weinkauf
It's best appraised as a strong ensemble piece, a darkly dreamy slab of social commentary and definitely one of the year's best films.
Read Full Review >The New York Times A.O. Scott
This film has a conquering spirit. The dankness is replaced by an optimistic blast of sunlight at the end, a contrast to the earlier lighting dimmed with human misery. Mr. Frears blasts away the blight, though he doesn't have to work to restore Okwe's dignity. It shines through from the start.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader J.R. Jones
An impressive mix of entertainment and social comment, spinning a great mystery even as it confronts an ugly world.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Desson Thomson
Once again, Frears -- who has enjoyed a glorious run of diverse, good-quality movies, from "My Beautiful Laundrette" to "High Fidelity" -- has crafted a unique gem.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
The strength of the thriller genre is that it provides stories with built-in energy and structure. The weakness is that thrillers often seem to follow foreseeable formulas. Frears and his writer, Steve Knight, use the power of the thriller and avoid the weaknesses in giving us, really, two movies for the price of one.
Read Full Review >ReelViews James Berardinelli
It's a dark and revealing movie, and, while the ending may not be upbeat enough for those expecting mainstream fare, it offers a measure of hope and a catharsis.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington
It's an exciting but brainy, cross-cultural thriller about modern London and life in a contemporary urban pressure cooker, and it depends more on plot, character and atmosphere than it does on chases and gunfire.
Read Full Review >Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman
Director Stephen Frears...drops down to the underclass in "DPT," examining the ways in which educated illegals fight off despair, poverty and extradition.
Read Full Review >Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker
The poetic justice strains the verisimilitude of a film otherwise grounded in a tough reality, but there is a guilty satisfaction to it all.
Read Full Review >Wall Street Journal Collin Levey
The thriller aspect of this work, happily, doesn't overshadow its real beauty -- its stark portrayal of the nightmare despair of aliens, hunted, on edge, prepared to risk all for a new start.
Variety David Stratton
An intelligent and extremely well-made romantic drama that tells an intriguing story with economy and insight.
Read Full Review >Slate David Edelstein
The whole movie is like that: gleaming, but with a whiff of the charnel house. Dirty Pretty Things doesn't quite cut to the bone, but it gets as far as a couple of vital organs.
Read Full Review >Newsweek David Ansen
Steven Knights smart, if overly plotted, script delivers social insights tautly wrapped in genre thrills.
Read Full Review >Film Threat Don R. Lewis
A romance wrapped in a mystery wrapped in a tale of redemption or something like that. To be honest, I'm not sure what the film really is as far as a genre goes. One thing is for sure, it's a damn fine film.
Read Full Review >New York Post Megan Lehmann
Part urban thriller, part unorthodox love story, this well-acted portrayal of the shadowy realm occupied by London's illegal immigrants is buoyed by stinging social commentary and a surprising twist of intelligent humor.
Read Full Review >Rolling Stone Peter Travers
Fueled by gripping suspense, dark humor and outraged humanity, the film is a modern horror story that means to shake you, and does.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Ty Burr
This is the meatiest role Tautou has had post-''Amelie'' and she drops the zombie-pixie act for once, giving us a character who's caught in a daily dance between propriety and abandon, and who can only dance faster as desperation sets in.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey
By its third act, Okwe has found his solution and Dirty Pretty Things comes across as both clever but a little pat, another British drama about the misfits who pool their resources to defy the oppressive system, though it does not precisely leave a warm glow.
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez
The result is an unwieldy but still compelling look at the plight of immigrants wrapped in a thriller about black-market organ transplants.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps
Frears has directed a surprisingly sturdy hybrid of thriller and social melodrama, even if the thrills turn ludicrous and the social critique grows a little pat.
Read Full Review >Village Voice Jessica Winter
Slick and sober, fiercely contemporary, and rigged by a fail-safe three-act structure, Dirty Pretty Things nimbly straddles the line between realism and popcorn pop, but it knows which side its bread is buttered on.
Read Full Review >The New Yorker David Denby
We are entertained, but we see this squalid world clearly. The great cinematographer Chris Menges keeps the images cool and crisp. [15 September 2003, p.100]
USA Today Mike Clark
Things will not be a big concession-stand movie because the floating heart is our introduction to a cottage industry we hope won't catch on. It is dirtier than pretty, yet Frears finds beauty in the telling.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Jack Mathews
Frears story's grotesque subject offers an opportunity for a sick audience payoff that is more "Death Wish" than social commentary, and he takes it. It works -- you'll laugh! you'll gulp! -- but it's cheap.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Maitland McDonagh
Ejiofor's subtle, infinitely humane performance is the invisible glue that holds everything together and Chris Menges's darkly shimmering cinematography lends the story a gritty, coolly seductive glamour.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum
Jammed with banner-ready political rhetoric, and the relentlessness of the lectures is wearying. The plot, on the other hand, is a standard contraption built on enduring urban anxieties and involving a nasty hotel-room trade.
Read Full Review >LA Weekly Ella Taylor
Essentially a TV movie souped up by the divinely skittish cinematography of Chris Menges, the film suffers from a screenplay full of labored attempts at wit by Steven Knight, and characters who barely make it off the page alive.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 8.1 (out of 10) based on 42 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Pat gave it a6:
Great story, though the presentation is blunted. [***SPOILERS***]The cramming of most of Okwe's character development into the last 30 seconds of the film didn't work for me. There's an amazing tour de force in the middle of the film when an unexpected organ donor is found, but then the film proceeds to go back to sleep.
Shivvahna R. gave it a9:
Great film that tackles the issues of illegal immagiants in a system that is used and abused by the corrupt. Beautiful performances which could have turned Sterotypical however became three dimensional characters through the wounderful direction of Frears. A classic in the making.
Frank O. gave it a10:
A great movie...seen it twice, once in theatre and once on television; enjoyed it just as much 2nd time, Ejiofor and Tautou were very good..kept my interest as to what was happening..good plot.
Rob S. gave it a10:
Amaziing cast that perfectly executed an Acadamy Award nominated screen play. This type of movie should be a blockbuster, period!
Chad S. gave it a 7:
"Dirty Pretty Things" reminded me of John Sayles' "The Brother from Another Planet", from the standpoint of a black actor, who doesn't portray a criminal as the lead, is directed by a white male in an English-speaking film. The love between Okwe (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and Senay (Audrey Tautou) is Mulder and Scully-like; so understated, and so transparent. The black market organs was a necessary component to the screenplay, or else this film would've never been financed. We still get our social commentary and nimble character studies. Frears gets to say what he wants to say despite the somewhat hokey genre elements of the thriller.
Gabor A. gave it a 7:
A well made movie about a fresh and newer issue. Not superb at any level but a nice breather in a stale period of hollywood film making.
Mark D. gave it a 3:
Slow, illogical, and generally boring. A turkey.
