Movies
Weekend Box Office
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores
Wide Releases
Now In Theaters
76
(500) Days of Summer
60
9
17
All About Steve
37
Amelia
53
Astro Boy
66
Bandslam
45
Box, The
61
Capitalism: A Love Story
55
Christmas Carol, A
43
Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant
66
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
29
Collector, The
23
Couples Retreat
80
District 9
61
Extract
39
Fame
30
Final Destination, The
34
Fourth Kind, The
60
Funny People
32
G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra
27
Gamer
41
G-Force
39
Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard, The
46
Halloween II
73
Hangover, The
78
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
55
I Can Do Bad All By Myself
66
Informant!, The
69
Inglourious Basterds
58
Invention of Lying, The
47
Jennifer's Body
66
Julie & Julia
34
Law Abiding Citizen
33
Love Happens
54
Men Who Stare At Goats, The
67
Michael Jackson's This Is It
51
My Sister's Keeper
42
Orphan
28
Pandorum
63
Perfect Getaway, A
86
Ponyo![]()
35
Post Grad
48
Proposal, The
30
Saw VI
53
Shorts
24
Sorority Row
83
Star Trek![]()
33
Stepfather, The
45
Surrogates
55
Taking Woodstock
47
Time Traveler's Wife
96
Toy Story/Toy Story 2 3D![]()
35
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
28
Ugly Truth, The
88
Up![]()
71
Where the Wild Things Are
67
Whip It
28
Whiteout
73
Zombieland
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
Limited Releases
Now In Theaters
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.
Golden Door, The

Generally favorable reviews
Based on 22 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 7 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Drama | Foreign
Written by: Emanuele Crialese
Directed by: Emanuele Crialese
Release Date:
Theatrical: May 25, 2007
DVD: January 8, 2008
Running Time: 120 minutes, Color
Origin: Italy / Germany / France
Summary
RATING: PG-13 for brief graphic nudity
Starring Charlotte Gainsbourg, Vincenzo Amato, Aurora Quattrocchi, Francesco Casisa, Filippo Pucillo, Federica De Cola, Isabella Ragonese, and Vincent Schiavelli
Golden Door is a classic tale of coming to America. It is a romantic fable that takes audiences into the very heart of this quintessential American experience -- as on man, driven by fantastic dreams and confronted with shocking realities, makes an epic odyssey in search of a brand new world. (Miramax Films)
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...
TV Guide Ken Fox
Sicilian-born filmmaker Emanuele Crialese takes a huge leap forward from his pretty but simplistic "Respiro" with this highly original, startlingly beautiful and emotionally resonant film.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Wesley Morris
It's so hypnotically breathtaking, you don't realize you're not breathing. By the final shot, you don't realize you're crying either, but there go the tears.
Read Full Review >Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker
The familiar majesty of the Statue of Liberty and the New York skyline is replaced with anticipation and imagination. The sense of hope and wonder is the greater for it, and the sense of promise glows from the screen.
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Peter Debruge
Virtually everything Americans know about Ellis Island they've learned from the movies, and virtually all those movies were American. Golden Door offers the other side of the story, the one that ends at Ellis Island instead of beginning there.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea
The Golden Door feels, at points, like a silent film - a silent film with CinemaScope vistas and dazzling, saturated color.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington
Called "Nuovomondo" in its native Italy, it's bittersweet, neither as comic and sentimental as Charlie Chaplin's 1917 great silent comedy "The Immigrant," nor as cynical and epic as Elia Kazan's 1963 "America, America," but close to both.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Ann Hornaday
Writ small, Golden Door is an absorbing and moving love story; writ large, it's the story we've never stopped telling ourselves.
Read Full Review >Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
After countless films in which immigration plays a central role -- one of the earliest was Charlie Chaplin's 1917 silent classic "The Immigrant" while one of the best, Jan Troell's "The Emigrants," has never migrated to DVD -- you'd think the canon was essentially complete. Yet this visionary work adds to it by combining harsh realities with magic-realist fantasies.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader J.R. Jones
Italian writer-director Emanuele Crialese is best known for the art-house piffle "Respiro" (2002), a sun-kissed fairy tale that didn't prepare me for the weight and solidity of this historical drama about a Sicilian peasant family immigrating to the U.S.
Read Full Review >The New York Times A.O. Scott
What makes Mr. Crialese's telling unusual, apart from the gorgeousness of his wide-screen compositions, is that his emphasis is on departure and transition, rather than arrival.
Read Full Review >New York Magazine David Edelstein
The greatness of Golden Door is its tone; sympathetic but always wry.
Read Full Review >Variety Jay Weissberg
An imaginative, intelligent and attractive Italo pic precisely when the country needs it most, Emanuele Crialese's Golden Door reps a solid piece of cinema that neither panders nor preaches.
Read Full Review >Village Voice Jean Oppenheimer
With dialogue kept to a minimum, cinematographer Agnés Godard confirms her status as one of the most extraordinary visual artists working today.
Read Full Review >New York Post V.A. Musetto
The acting is superb, especially the always alluring Charlotte Gainsbourg as a mysterious Englishwoman taking the ship to America. Agnes Godard's lensing is painterly, and Crialese's direction is seamless.
Read Full Review >Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman
Historians at Ellis Island estimate nearly half of all Americans had at least one ancestor pass through there between 1892 and 1954.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey
As lovely to look at as it is dramatically inert.
Read Full Review >Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer
Draggy Italian epic that's big on production values but skimpy on inspiration.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Jack Mathews
The movie never really comes alive, and Crialese's coyness with Lucy's character is more frustrating than mysterious.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Gregory Kirschling
A sluggish procedural on what it was like to make the journey to Ellis Island back in the day.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov
Despite the hardships depicted, Golden Door is a sweet film at heart, playing witness to the birth pangs of modern America with both due respect and the occasional comic grace note, but not, oddly, one single shot of the Statue of Liberty.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 7.7 (out of 10) based on 7 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Ezekiel B gave it a9:
A stunningly beautiful epic with a very original concept that breaks from the standard immigrant story, here it is the emigrant story about departure, and the dream.
Jim G gave it a7:
Some wonderful moments in this film visually and emotionally, but unfortunately uneven. Way better than most films however.
Kenneth B. gave it a4:
50 minutes shorter and maybe there is a movie here! It just dragged on. The art direction and cinematography was excellent.
