Advanced Search >
Help Me Search

Movies

Weekend Box Office
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores

Wide Releases
Now In Theaters

sort by namesort by score

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Limited Releases
Now In Theaters

sort by namesort by score

58 (Untitled)
96 35 Shots of Rum
56 Adam
72 Adela
39 Adventures of Power
78 Afghan Star
61 After the Storm
66 Afterschool
xx All the Best
58 American Casino
72 Amreeka
48 Antichrist
73 Araya
62 Art & Copy
55 As Seen Through These Eyes
76 Baader Meinhof Complex, The
86 Beaches of Agnes, The
13 Beautiful Life, A
70 Beeswax
35 Beyond a Reasonable Doubt
71 Big Fan
66 Black Dynamite
51 Blind Date
xx Blind Pig Who Wants to Fly
76 Bliss
35 Blue Tooth Virgin, The
26 Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day, The
57 Boys Are Back, The
45 Brief Interviews with Hideous Men
81 Bright Star
70 Bronson
45 Burning Plain, The
xx Carriers
55 Casi Divas
57 Chelsea on the Rocks
62 Cloud 9
65 Coco Before Chanel
69 Cold Souls
59 Collapse
44 Confessionsofa Ex-Doofus-ItchyFooted Mutha
82 Cove, The
75 Crude
82 Damned United, The
67 Departures
xx Dil Bole Hadippa
71 Disgrace
xx Do Knot Disturb
70 Earth Days
24 Eating Out 3: All You Can Eat
85 Education, An
55 Endgame
xx Eulogy for a Vampire
xx Everyone Else
xx Fatal Promises
56 Fifty Dead Men Walking
62 Five Minutes of Heaven
74 Flame & Citron
49 Food Beware: The French Organic Revolution
80 Food, Inc.
28 Free Style
xx From Mexico with Love
50 Fuel
25 Gentlemen Broncos
50 Give Me Your Hand
58 Gogol Bordello Non-Stop
72 Good Hair
89 Goodbye Solo
52 Grace
64 Harmony and Me
81 Headless Woman, The
xx Heretics, The
63 Horse Boy, The
73 House of the Devil, The
xx How to Seduce Difficult Women
74 Humpday
94 Hurt Locker, The
29 I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell
16 If One Thing Matters: A Film About Wolfgang Tillmans
75 In Search of Beethoven
83 In the Loop
61 Intimate Enemies
42 Irene in Time
70 It Might Get Loud
46 Killing Kasztner
19 Labor Day
xx Laila's Birthday
41 Little Ashes
41 Little Traitor, The
66 Liverpool
34 Looking for Palladin
80 Lorna's Silence
83 Maid, The
xx Ministers, The
59 More Than a Game
67 Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers, The
34 Motherhood
62 My One and Only
xx Mystery Team
48 New York, I Love You
73 Night and Day
66 No Impact Man
47 Ong Bak 2: The Beginning
34 Other Man, The
xx Painter Sam Francis, The
54 Paper Heart
xx Paradise
68 Paranormal Activity
68 Paris
44 Peter and Vandy
35 Play the Game
77 Precious: Based on the Novel by Sapphire
xx Pretty Ugly People
65 Providence Effect, The
76 Rembrandt's J'accuse
69 September Issue, The
79 Serious Man, A
40 Shrink
61 Skin
77 Skin Too Few: The Days of Nick Drake, A
xx Skiptracers
46 Splinterheads
39 St. Trinian's
89 Still Walking
50 Stoning of Soraya M., The
55 Storm
65 Tetro
70 That Evening Sun
72 Thirst
xx Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas 3D (re-release)
61 Trucker
xx Turning Green
83 U2 3D
66 Unmade Beds
66 Unmistaken Child
70 Visual Acoustics
55 Walt & El Grupo
67 Way We Get By, The
69 We Live in Public
64 Wedding Song, The
64 Where is Where?
xx White on Rice
74 Woman in Berlin, A
69 World's Greatest Dad
70 Yes Men Fix the World
69 Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg
xx You, the Living

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Elizabethtown

EMAILPRINTParamount Pictures

Elizabethtown reviews
45
5.4 User Score:

Mixed or average reviews

Based on 37 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

Based on 85 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >

Movie Info

Genre(s): Comedy  |  Drama  |  Romance

Written by: Cameron Crowe

Directed by: Cameron Crowe

Release Date:
Theatrical: October 14, 2005
DVD: February 7, 2006

Running Time: 138 minutes, Color

Origin: USA

Summary

RATING: PG-13 for language and some sexual references

Starring Orlando Bloom, Kirsten Dunst, Susan Sarandon, Alec Baldwin, Bruce McGill, Judy Greer, Jessica Biel, and Paul Schneider

A love letter to the resilience of the life force, Elizabethtown is a charming, music-filled journey that proves amazing things can happen when you least expect them. (Paramount Pictures)

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...

91

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

That rare animal, a dialogue-driven comedy -- and a good one at that. While one or two of its scenes may seem a tad too talky for today's low-attention spans, the script is mostly razor-sharp acerbic and sophisticated.

Read Full Review >
80

Empire Simon Braund

Crowe is still a master navigator of swampy territory, and any movie that can warm the heart and tickle the funny bone without selling its soul is to be cherished, warts and all.

Read Full Review >
75

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

It's an uncommonly optimistic meditation on death and lament, befitting a filmmaker whose movies (Jerry Maguire, Singles, Say Anything), no matter their subject matter, always double as a celebration of life.

Read Full Review >
75

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Nowhere near one of Crowe's great films (like "Almost Famous"), but it is sweet and good-hearted and has some real laughs.

Read Full Review >
67

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

There are wonders here, but there are as many things that just plain make you wonder. By the end you're too addled to be truly moved.

Read Full Review >
63

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

Crowe likes to work with large ensembles...But he doesn't know when we've had enough, however interesting they all may be; he's like a guy who decorates a Christmas tree with so many ornaments that you can't see the foliage.

Read Full Review >
63

Premiere Allison Williams

Beyond the tunes, however, Elizabethtown falls short of actual emotional resonance, and is really nothing more than a passable "Garden State" doppelgänger.

Read Full Review >
63

ReelViews James Berardinelli

What's sad is that Elizabethtown contains two GREAT sequences.

Read Full Review >
60

LA Weekly John Patterson

Crowe's undeniable gifts -- his well-crafted individual scenes and his love for his characters -- are more evident here than his flaws.

Read Full Review >
60

The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps

Only a truly great director can make a film of high artistic merit, filled with personality and memorable scenes, that's still a borderline disaster. (Think One From The Heart or 1941.) So the heartfelt and woefully miscalculated Elizabethtown may be the film that marks Cameron Crowe's arrival as a truly great director.

Read Full Review >
58

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

Think of Elizabethtown as Cameron Crowe's rambling amateur travelogue, one from a well-liked professional filmmaker momentarily so distracted by private notes scrawled on his souvenir map that he gets lost en route to telling his story of self-renewal. This undershaped, overlong warmedy is an homage to the memory of his late father.

Read Full Review >
58

Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach

Cameron Crowe crams at least three movies' worth of plotlines into Elizabethtown, and gives short shrift to all of them.

Read Full Review >
50

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

Audiences of a certain hipster disposition, in fact, will see Elizabethtown and pine for Zach Braff's ''Garden State," the movie to which Elizabethtown bears an unfortunate and inferior resemblance.

Read Full Review >
50

USA Today Claudia Puig

Though it's no fiasco -- there's nothing mythic about its disjointed story -- it is a failure.

Read Full Review >
50

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

An unmitigated, inexplicable, unforgivable flop.

Read Full Review >
50

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

The film's problems lie with the lack of spark between a wired Dunst and a bland Bloom, and the meltdown of Drew's mother (Susan Sarandon), who grieves by tap-dancing.

Read Full Review >
50

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

That gift doesn't desert him [Crowe] in Elizabethtown, but he clutters his movie with plot elements that confuse the focus, the central character and, ultimately, I suspect, Crowe himself.

Read Full Review >
50

Dallas Observer Robert Wilonsky

It's a mess, absolutely, more a collage than a narrative.

Read Full Review >
50

The Hollywood Reporter Ray Bennett

Tedious humor and sentimentality bury what could have been a pretty good road picture.

Read Full Review >
50

Variety Leslie Felperin

Although rich in screwball silliness and sharp one-liners, film lacks the narrative drive one finds in the classic comedies of Preston Sturges, Frank Capra and Billy Wilder, whom Crowe always seems to try to emulate.

Read Full Review >
50

Village Voice Laura Sinagra

Where the earlier flick (Garden State), in its smallness, felt like an honest representation of writer-director-star Zach Braff's struggles with notions of home, Crowe's is a hodgepodge of great ideas and moods in search of a plot to enrich.

Read Full Review >
50

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

It may not be much of a movie, but it's a terrific concert.

Read Full Review >
50

The New York Times Dana Stevens

Elizabethtown is a long, lurching trip to nowhere in particular, but Elizabethtown is a place where you wouldn't mind spending some more time, though perhaps under different circumstances.

Read Full Review >
50

Los Angeles Times Carina Chocano

A mess of a movie -- but a warm, friendly mess that's hard not to like, even when it tests your patience.

Read Full Review >
50

Slate David Edelstein

For all sort of reasons, I was disappointed that there is barely anything of Bruce McGill as the family's hearty swindler. And there is too much of Sarandon, whose big scene--a speech at her late husband's memorial service, complete with jokes and a tap dance--is the movie's most egregious misfire.

Read Full Review >
50

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

This lighthearted meditation on life, death, love and timing contains some genuinely lovely scenes, but they're buried in a shapeless jumble of cutesy-pie vignettes.

Read Full Review >
40

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

An especially lame variation on Crowe's feel-good formula.

Read Full Review >
40

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

When she's (Dunst) off the screen, Elizabethtown goes dark and broody, stranding us with the morose Bloom during a third-act road trip that goes everywhere and nowhere at once.

Read Full Review >
40

Film Threat Pete Vonder Haar

The biggest problem with Elizabethtown isn't in its shopworn theme, but that it's perhaps the first of Crowe's movies (though "Jerry Maguire"comes very close) that really feels forced.

Read Full Review >
40

The New Yorker David Denby

Crowe is attempting a modern screwball comedy--the kind of thing that, sixty years ago, Howard Hawks, directing Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck, would have turned into romantic farce--but he has scaled the movie as an epic and turned his gabby heroine into a fount of New Age wisdom.

Read Full Review >
40

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

Elizabethtown is a sprawl, perhaps the victim of a kind of ADD of the heart.

Read Full Review >
38

New York Post Lou Lumenick

Rambling, schmaltzy romantic comedy.

Read Full Review >
38

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

Crowe was going for something magical in all this, but the film is so affected and mannered, so preciously in love with itself, that it's painful to watch. Scenes go on and on, and when you think the movie's over, it goes on and on some more.

Read Full Review >
30

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

A saga of static set pieces and strenuously clever notions, this is a fiasco of a film if ever there was one.

25

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

So many romantic comedies come and go without making the slightest impression. Elizabethtown is not one of them; I found it galling.

Read Full Review >
25

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

It's obvious now that the cinematic junk routinely released every Friday can be safely categorized as a mere failure. But this alleged comedy is a whole other species entirely. This is a bona fide, absolute, unmitigated fiasco.

Read Full Review >
20

Washington Post Desson Thomson

It's hard to believe the creative mind that gave us "Almost Famous," "Jerry Maguire," "Say Anything" and "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" looked up with satisfaction after typing 117 pages of this.

Read Full Review >

What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this movie is 5.4 (out of 10) based on 85 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Colstman gave it a2:
Unbelievably awful. Watched it with my wife and daughter and they thought it was dire.

David gave it an8:
the movie was about a person so tied up in his misfounture that he stop living. then a girl comes along shows him there is still life after failure. best to celebrate life and remembrance.

Ian T. gave it a10:
Elizabethtown is one of the all great movies with one of the best sound tracks around. It’s a movie about life, we will all experience parts of Elizabethtown in our lives. Orlando Bloom & Kirsten Dunst were great. Elizabethtown comes highly recommended.

Jack C. gave it an8:
Elizabethtown is flawed, but I really like this movie. There are some scenes that are actually somewhat cringe worthy and Orlando Bloom, while not horrible, is not the ideal actor for this role. However, all that aside, I really think this is quite an underrated movie. To me, this is one of the truest feel-good movies there is. I feel motivated and happier after watching this movie. There is heart in it. And while heart alone does not make a good movie, there is something to be said about pure, lighthearted movie that makes you feel good. Again, the movie is flawed in a few ways, especially structurally. The whole road trip part at the end, while I like it, does feel tacked on and awkward, as it feels like the movie already ended. Also, the fiasco about the shoe is unbelievable. Still, if you're going through a rough time, or if anything similar to what the main character is going through in the movie, give the movie a shot, it might even make you smile.

steve s gave it a3:
i have loved cameron crowe's movies. but not this one. this was a tedious movie of disjointed scenes and corny - at best - (if not silly), over sappy scenes which just didnt work.

J Jarvis gave it a10:
This film touched me. I wish to have a road-trip with my dad...before he passes. The Chuck & Cindy wedding was great. Also a wish.

Scarbarough Painless gave it a10:
This movie was very beautiful, and very thought provoking. Like the best of these films, the soundtrack was exquisite, cinematography right on target, and a little off kilter. The subject matter brought questions of life, and what it's worth. Is true love really worth an otherwise banal existence? The answer is a resounding yes.

Read more user comments >

Popular on CBS sites: SEC Football | NFL | Video Game Cheats | iPhone | Video Game Reviews | Notebooks | Antivirus Software

About CBS Interactive | Jobs | Advertise

© 2009 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved. | Privacy Policy | Terms of Use