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82
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73
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72
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71
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70
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65
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64
Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist
63
Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2, The
62
Burn After Reading
60
Traitor
58
Express, The
58
City of Ember
58
Body of Lies
57
Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D
57
Flash of Genius
55
House Bunny, The
54
Quarantine
54
Get Smart
53
Rocker, The
53
Lucky Ones, The
52
Longshots, The
51
Mamma Mia!
49
Family That Preys, The
47
Swing Vote
47
X-Files: I Want to Believe, The
46
Lakeview Terrace
45
Blindness
43
Meet Dave
43
Death Race
43
Eagle Eye
41
Beverly Hills Chihuahua
39
Nights in Rodanthe
37
Miracle at St. Anna
36
Space Chimps
36
Righteous Kill
36
Fly Me to the Moon
35
How to Lose Friends & Alienate People
35
Star Wars: The Clone Wars
35
Mirrors
34
My Best Friend's Girl
27
Women, The
26
Babylon A.D.
24
Bangkok Dangerous
20
American Carol, An
15
Disaster Movie
15
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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

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84
Up the Yangtze
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U2 3D
83
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82
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82
Tell No One
82
Frozen River
82
Rachel Getting Married
81
Ballast
80
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80
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79
Visitor, The
78
Last Mistress, The
76
Pool, The
73
Girl Cut in Two, A
73
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73
Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson
72
Secret, A
72
Transsiberian
72
I Served the King of England
71
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68
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68
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66
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66
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65
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64
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64
In Search of a Midnight Kiss
63
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63
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63
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63
Man Named Pearl, A
63
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62
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62
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62
Mister Foe
62
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61
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61
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57
Towelhead
57
Amazing Truth About Queen Raquela, The
57
Sixty Six
57
RocknRolla
56
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55
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55
Religulous
55
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55
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53
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53
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53
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52
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51
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50
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49
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47
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45
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44
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43
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41
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40
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37
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31
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28
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26
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xx
Phoebe in Wonderland
xx
All of Us
xx
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xx
W.
xx
Billy: The Early Years
xx
Call and Response
xx
Just Buried
xx
Beer for My Horses
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Lower Learning
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
|
Election
Paramount Pictures
FILM:
MPAA RATING: R for strong sexuality, sex-related dialogue and language, and a scene of drug use
Starring
Matthew Broderick,
Reese Witherspoon,
Loren Nelson,
and
Chris Klein
This satirical comedy uses a high school election as the backdrop to take an uncommon look at ambition, morality, desire, love and the lies we never cease telling ourselves. (Paramount Pictures)
| GENRE(S): |
Comedy
|
| WRITTEN BY: |
Tom Perrotta (novel)
Alexander Payne
Jim Taylor
|
| DIRECTED BY: |
Alexander Payne
|
| RELEASE DATE: |
DVD: October 19, 1999
Video: October 19, 1999
Theatrical: April 23, 1999
|
| RUNNING TIME: |
103 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
Boston Globe
Jay Carr
An invigoratingly mordant comedy that proves that Alexander Payne's rambunctious debut, "Citizen Ruth," was no fluke.

100
Slate
David Edelstein
American satire rarely comes more winning than Election, an exuberantly caustic comedy that shows the symbiotic relationship between political go-get-'em-ism and moral backsliding.

100
Washington Post
Desson Thomson
The satire of the season, a hilarious, razor-sharp indictment of the American Dream.

100
Film.com
Ernest Hardy
One of the funniest, shrewdest, smartest movies in recent memory.
100
Washington Post
Stephen Hunter
A wonderful, piercing and hilarious examination of high school politics and how bitter and ruinous it can become.

100
San Francisco Examiner
Wesley Morris
With Election, Payne announces himself as one of the keenest purveyors of the scattered pieces that once was an American morality.

100
Entertainment Weekly
Lisa Schwarzbaum
Alexander Payne's scathing, subtle, and complexly funny tragicomedy builds a perfect, off-kilter universe--it's a first cousin to "Rushmore."

100
Los Angeles Times
Kenneth Turan
This is a nearly flawless little film, a cheerful nightmare that knows just where it wants to go and uses precisely calibrated comic effects to get there.

90
Mr. Showbiz
Kevin Maynard
Election is a bracingly intelligent adult comedy that shrewdly captures adolescence.
90
Film.com
Henry Cabot Beck
Resonates with the fluorescent horror of real-life high school, something few movies about this generation have managed to successfully capture.
90
Variety
Todd McCarthy
Brandishes the sort of intelligent wit and bracing nastiness that will make it more appealing to discerning adults than to teens who just want to have fun.

90
Film.com
John Hartl
Wickedly funny, scathingly original new comedy.
88
Chicago Sun-Times
Roger Ebert
Alexander Payne is a director whose satire is omnidirectional. He doesn't choose an easy target and march on it. He stands in the middle of his story and attacks on all directions.

88
New York Daily News
Jack Mathews
The actors are solid at every position, but Broderick, who seems to get better with each performance, is especially good at playing the impulsively self-destructive yet sympathetic loser.

88
USA Today
Susan Wloszczyna
When it comes to eloquently telling it like it is, Election puts the nation's political pundits to shame.
88
ReelViews
James Berardinelli
Election has the sharpest satire of any teen movie made in years. Like the best lampoons, it attacks by exaggerating reality ever-so-slightly and targeting a broad range of subjects.

88
New York Post
Jonathan Foreman
A terrific work of political and social satire set in a Nebraska high school that has the intelligence of (the less coherent) "Rushmore," while painting a much darker picture of politics and human relationships.
80
The New York Times
Janet Maslin
Election is a deft dark comedy with a resemblance to "Rushmore." It's smart no matter what.

80
The Onion (A.V. Club)
Scott Tobias
Witherspoon's broad, obsessive comic performance is bound to get the most attention, but Broderick does the best work of his career, finding an affecting spot between the all-purpose defiance of Ferris Bueller and the put-upon foil of his recent work.

80
Salon.com
Mary Elizabeth Williams
Wickedly funny, an ode to youthful overachievers that's as blackhearted as "Rushmore" was gently sentimental.

78
Austin Chronicle
Marc Savlov
A fine, near-seamless film that finally suffers slightly from an inability to wrap up its tale.

75
San Francisco Chronicle
Mick LaSalle
The screenplay by Payne and Jim Taylor, based on the novel by Tom Perrotta, sees the lives of these suburban students and teachers through a prism of absurdity that refracts more truth than any straightforward telling.

75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
Rick Groen
At best, the humour in Election is perceptive, nasty, pointed, and lets no one off its barbed hook, not even the audience. In other words, it's a lovely piece of satire, made all the more relevant by the setting.

70
LA Weekly
Manohla Dargis
Election is finally, necessarily, as much about sex as it is about politics -- wanting it, getting it, losing it.

70
TV Guide
Maitland McDonagh
Surprise! An intelligent, well-written high school story.

70
Newsweek
David Ansen
Director Payne, who adapted Tom Perrotta's novel with Jim Taylor, has an authentically dire view of human behavior, which he expresses in crisp, edgy and sometimes startlingly raunchy style.

70
Dallas Observer
Bill Gallo
Happily, this irreverent, sharply observant comedy sweeps us into the maelstrom too. Amid the glut of teen movies rolling out of the studios every week, Election deserves special attention.

70
Chicago Reader
Lisa Alspector
The treatment of this touchy material is impressive, neither gratuitous nor mincing, but this satirical comedy doesn't really go anywhere.

67
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
William Arnold
Often distastefully juvenile.

63
Chicago Tribune
Marc Caro
Entertaining but frustratingly uneven.
50
Christian Science Monitor
David Sterritt
Broderick and Witherspoon give perfectly matched performances at the head of a first-rate cast.

50
Village Voice
Dennis Lim
The film never finds a confident tone: it's pitched as a satire, but seems to have no real targets.

40
TNT RoughCut
Christopher Brandon
Dumb, dumb, dumb.

The average user rating for this movie is 8.0 (out of 10) based on 20 User Votes
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