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34
10,000 B.C.
55
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36
College Road Trip
xx
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31
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41
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57
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67
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54
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49
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34
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57
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xx
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71
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61
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65
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79
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35
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73
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24
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37
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xx
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58
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48
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55
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22
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69
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44
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53
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76
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37
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37
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61
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47
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55
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33
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93
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64
Wanted
36
What Happens in Vegas...
54
You Don't Mess with the Zohan
93
WALL-E
79
Iron Man
76
Shine a Light
73
Kung Fu Panda
71
Horton Hears a Who!
69
Redbelt
67
Forgetting Sarah Marshall
65
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
64
Wanted
62
Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, The
61
Stop Loss
61
Incredible Hulk, The
58
Mist, The
57
Forbidden Kingdom, The
57
Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay
55
Street Kings
55
Nim's Island
55
Baby Mama
54
You Don't Mess with the Zohan
54
Get Smart
53
Sex and the City: The Movie
49
Hancock
48
National Treasure: Book of Secrets
47
Strangers, The
44
Ruins, The
41
Drillbit Taylor
37
Made of Honor
37
Shutter
37
Speed Racer
36
College Road Trip
36
What Happens in Vegas...
35
Jumper
34
Happening, The
34
10,000 B.C.
33
Superhero Movie
31
Deception
24
Love Guru, The
22
Postal
xx
Hellboy II: The Golden Army
xx
Mamma Mia!
xx
Dark Knight, The
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

83
Alexandra
80
Band's Visit, The
76
Beauty in Trouble
47
Bella
80
Bigger, Stronger, Faster*
59
Blind Mountain
55
Bra Boys
60
Brick Lane
70
Caramel
49
Children of Huang Shi, The
83
Chop Shop
83
Chris & Don. A Love Story
78
Counterfeiters, The
52
Diminished Capacity
64
Dreams with Sharp Teeth
73
Duchess of Langeais, The
84
Edge of Heaven, The
52
Elsa & Fred
79
Encounters at the End of the World
62
Expired
64
Fall, The
51
Finding Amanda
57
Flawless
86
Flight of the Red Balloon, The
63
Foot Fist Way, The
60
Fugitive Pieces
45
Full Grown Men
55
Glass: A Portrait of Philip in Twelve Parts
69
Go-Getter, The
74
Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson
63
Gunnin for that #1 Spot
68
Heartbeat Detector
34
Holding Trevor
68
Honeydripper
55
Irina Palm
69
Jellyfish
60
Jihad for Love, A
68
Kabluey
62
Kiss the Bride
63
Kit Kittredge: An American Girl
82
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38
Life Before Her Eyes, The
70
Love Songs
64
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30
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33
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53
Mister Lonely
75
Mongol
52
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52
My Blueberry Nights
71
My Brother Is an Only Child
84
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61
On the Rumba River
69
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61
OSS 117: Cairo - Nest of Spies
83
Paranoid Park
72
Priceless
51
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55
Quid Pro Quo
29
Red Roses and Petrol
79
Reprise
71
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56
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51
Savage Grace
76
Shotgun Stories
66
Son of Rambow
70
Standard Operating Procedure
62
Stuck
72
Surfwise
81
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56
Then She Found Me
xx
Thoda Pyaar Thoda Magic
71
To the Limit
54
Tracey Fragments, The
70
Trumbo
72
Tuya's Marriage
83
U2 3D
56
Unknown Woman
86
Up the Yangtze
79
Visitor, The
62
Wackness, The
37
War, Inc.
64
Water Lilies
66
When Did You Last See Your Father?
55
Without the King
72
Woman on the Beach
64
XXY
67
Year My Parents Went on Vacation, The
75
Young@Heart
86
Up the Yangtze
86
Flight of the Red Balloon, The
84
My Winnipeg
84
Edge of Heaven, The
83
Chop Shop
83
Paranoid Park
83
Alexandra
83
U2 3D
83
Chris & Don. A Love Story
82
Last Mistress, The
81
Tell No One
80
Bigger, Stronger, Faster*
80
Band's Visit, The
79
Reprise
79
Encounters at the End of the World
79
Visitor, The
78
Counterfeiters, The
76
Beauty in Trouble
76
Shotgun Stories
75
Young@Heart
75
Mongol
74
Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson
73
Duchess of Langeais, The
72
Woman on the Beach
72
Priceless
72
Tuya's Marriage
72
Surfwise
71
To the Limit
71
My Brother Is an Only Child
71
Roman de gare
70
Standard Operating Procedure
70
Trumbo
70
Love Songs
70
Caramel
69
Go-Getter, The
69
Operation Filmmaker
69
Jellyfish
68
Kabluey
68
Heartbeat Detector
68
Honeydripper
67
Year My Parents Went on Vacation, The
66
Son of Rambow
66
When Did You Last See Your Father?
64
Married Life
64
Dreams with Sharp Teeth
64
XXY
64
Water Lilies
64
Fall, The
63
Foot Fist Way, The
63
Gunnin for that #1 Spot
63
Kit Kittredge: An American Girl
62
Stuck
62
Expired
62
Wackness, The
62
Kiss the Bride
61
OSS 117: Cairo - Nest of Spies
61
On the Rumba River
60
Fugitive Pieces
60
Brick Lane
60
Jihad for Love, A
59
Blind Mountain
57
Flawless
56
Unknown Woman
56
Then She Found Me
56
Sangre de mi sangre
55
Quid Pro Quo
55
Glass: A Portrait of Philip in Twelve Parts
55
Irina Palm
55
Bra Boys
55
Without the King
54
Tracey Fragments, The
53
Mister Lonely
52
Diminished Capacity
52
Elsa & Fred
52
Mother of Tears, The
52
My Blueberry Nights
51
Finding Amanda
51
Promotion, The
51
Savage Grace
49
Children of Huang Shi, The
47
Bella
45
Full Grown Men
38
Life Before Her Eyes, The
37
War, Inc.
34
Holding Trevor
33
Miss Conception
30
Meet Bill
29
Red Roses and Petrol
xx
Thoda Pyaar Thoda Magic
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
|
Elizabethtown
Paramount Pictures
FILM:
MPAA 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)
| GENRE(S): |
Comedy
|
Drama
|
Romance
|
| WRITTEN BY: |
Cameron Crowe
|
| DIRECTED BY: |
Cameron Crowe
|
| RELEASE DATE: |
DVD: February 7, 2006
Theatrical: October 14, 2005
|
| RUNNING TIME: |
138 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...
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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

63
ReelViews
James Berardinelli
What's sad is that Elizabethtown contains two GREAT sequences.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

50
USA Today
Claudia Puig
Though it's no fiasco -- there's nothing mythic about its disjointed story -- it is a failure.

50
Philadelphia Inquirer
Carrie Rickey
An unmitigated, inexplicable, unforgivable flop.

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.

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.

50
Dallas Observer
Robert Wilonsky
It's a mess, absolutely, more a collage than a narrative.

50
The Hollywood Reporter
Ray Bennett
Tedious humor and sentimentality bury what could have been a pretty good road picture.

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.

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.

50
Christian Science Monitor
Peter Rainer
It may not be much of a movie, but it's a terrific concert.

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.

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.

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.

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.

40
Chicago Reader
J.R. Jones
An especially lame variation on Crowe's feel-good formula.

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.

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.

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.

40
Salon.com
Stephanie Zacharek
Elizabethtown is a sprawl, perhaps the victim of a kind of ADD of the heart.

38
New York Post
Lou Lumenick
Rambling, schmaltzy romantic comedy.

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.

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.

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.

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.


The average user rating for this movie is 5.3 (out of 10) based on 82 User Votes
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