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71
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70
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65
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64
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64
Pineapple Express
63
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61
Incredible Hulk, The
60
Traitor
57
Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D
55
House Bunny, The
54
You Don't Mess with the Zohan
54
Get Smart
53
Sex and the City: The Movie
53
Rocker, The
52
Longshots, The
51
Mamma Mia!
51
Step Brothers
49
Hancock
47
Swing Vote
47
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43
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42
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36
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36
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35
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35
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34
Happening, The
31
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26
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24
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19
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Up the Yangtze
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83
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82
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81
Trouble the Water
80
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80
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80
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79
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78
Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired
78
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77
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76
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75
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75
Boy A
74
Anita O'Day: The Life of a Jazz Singer
74
Mongol
73
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73
Secret, A
72
Priceless
72
Transsiberian
72
I.O.U.S. A
71
To the Limit
71
Girl Cut in Two, A
71
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70
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67
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67
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66
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66
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66
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66
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65
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64
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63
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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
|
History Boys, The
Fox Searchlight Pictures
FILM:
MPAA RATING: R for language and sexual content
Starring
Richard Griffiths,
Frances de la Tour,
Stephen Campbell Moore,
Clive Merrison,
Samuel Barnett,
Dominic Cooper,
Samuel Anderson,
and
James Corden
The History Boys tells the story of an unruly class of bright, funny history students in pursuit of an undergraduate place at Oxford or Cambridge. (Fox Searchlight)
| GENRE(S): |
Comedy
|
Drama
|
| WRITTEN BY: |
Alan Bennett (also play)
|
| DIRECTED BY: |
Nicholas Hytner
|
| RELEASE DATE: |
DVD: April 17, 2007
Theatrical: November 21, 2006
|
| RUNNING TIME: |
109 minutes, Color |
| ORIGIN: |
UK |

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
Baltimore Sun
Michael Sragow
In The History Boys, as in all of Bennett's work, irony is what the characters live and breathe - and I mean irony in its truest sense, of using language to present opposite and often sly alternatives to accepted wisdom.

91
The Onion (A.V. Club)
Nathan Rabin
History Boys boasts a dazzling verbal cleverness--the gleeful rat-a-tat of snappy banter expertly executed--that doesn't keep it from also being deeply, exquisitely sad.

91
Christian Science Monitor
Peter Rainer
If the literacy of The History Boys is deemed uncinematic, then give me uncinema anytime.

88
Boston Globe
Wesley Morris
A shrewdly acted, bittersweet comedy.

88
Philadelphia Inquirer
Carrie Rickey
Vibrates with exuberance and erudition.

80
Washington Post
Peter Marks
Wildean panache of this caliber is not the norm in movie dialogue, so on this score alone, The History Boys is a blessing. The top-drawer work of a fine ensemble is another.

80
Wall Street Journal
Joe Morgenstern
The screen, like the stage, can barely contain this marvelous play of intelligence.
80
Village Voice
Scott Foundas
The film version of The History Boys is a lesser thing, more fixed in space and time and rendered almost unbearably "cinematic" in patches by Hytner's gymnastic camerawork. Yet the ideas and feelings of the piece remain so rich that it almost doesn't matter.

80
New York Magazine
David Edelstein
The movie is brilliant and infectious, much like Bennett's voice: English-deadpan but never snide, and generous to a fault.

80
The New Yorker
David Denby
Revved by the stage performances, the cast courses through the material with disciplined exuberance--especially the eight young actors at the center of the drama, many of whom have never appeared in a film before.

80
The New York Times
Stephen Holden
The current of intellectual energy snapping through the ferociously engaging screen adaptation of Alan Bennett’s Tony Award-winning play feels like electrical brain stimulation.

78
Austin Chronicle
Toddy Burton
Clearly, the filmmakers did manage to capture some measure of lightning in a bottle.

75
Portland Oregonian
Shawn Levy
As you can reliably expect of a work by Alan Bennett, The History Boys is bubbly, witty, sneaky-smart entertainment with the additional virtues of heart and cunning.

75
Charlotte Observer
Lawrence Toppman
Though all but two students look too old, their interpretations are unanimously fine.

75
Entertainment Weekly
Lisa Schwarzbaum
The History Boys is as much about the meaning and value of reading and learning as it is about the ho-humness of genital fondling by sir with love.

75
Rolling Stone
Peter Travers
The film can't hide its stage origins, and in cutting almost an hour on the journey from stage to screen some resonance is lost. But Bennett's dialogue sparkles and skewers with killer wit. Dig in.

75
USA Today
Claudia Puig
The History Boys is an erudite, sharply written film with consummate performances, but its origins on the stage are all too obvious.

75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
Rick Groen
This is a piece engineered to run on the high octane of clever dialogue. It's chatty, it's wordy, but a passion for the well-written word lies at the thematic heart of the thing, and cinematic flourishes would only clog the arteries. Purists can rest assured -- there's no clogging.

75
Chicago Tribune
Michael Phillips
The film is worth seeing, if you have any fondness for the writer who co-created "Beyond the Fringe" and who is second only to Stoppard in his sprightly but mellow wit.

75
Premiere
Glenn Kenny
There's no one today writing English dialogue as sharp as Bennett's, and hearing it delivered expertly is a pleasure worth sitting through some dodgy montages for.

70
Los Angeles Times
Carina Chocano
A lively and entertaining disquisition on the purpose and uses of knowledge in a world that cares less about scholarship than quantifiable results.

70
The Hollywood Reporter
Kirk Honeycutt
If you liked the play and the compelling ideas Bennett kicks around, the movie makes for an intellectually invigorating couple of hours.

70
Salon.com
Stephanie Zacharek
The material has crackle, but its vibrancy feels far off and muted, like a fireworks display going off in a neighboring town.

70
Chicago Reader
J.R. Jones
An excellent British drama adapted by Alan Bennett (The Madness of King George) from his celebrated play.

70
The New Republic
Stanley Kauffmann
At the last, despite the modern touches in Bennett's screenplay, The History Boys fills the traditional bill. Wellington would probably not be too upset by it. Eventually it tells us that Waterloo is still in pretty good hands.

63
Miami Herald
Rene Rodriguez
A funny thing happened to The History Boys on the way to the screen. The players are the same, the dialogue is pretty much identical, but the vibrancy of the play -- its exhilarating immediacy -- has been muted.

63
New York Daily News
Jack Mathews
The play's most acclaimed performance - rotund Richard Griffiths as the closeted teacher Hector - is great in the movie, too.

63
TV Guide
Ken Fox
Now seen for the first time in close-up, these "boys" are well past adolescence, which makes Bennett's sympathy for poor Hector a bit easier to take.

63
New York Post
Lou Lumenick
Though it preserves the terrific lead performance of Richard Griffiths - best known to film audiences as Harry Potter's evil stepfather - The History Boys is essentially filmed theater, with minimal, and usually clumsy, attempts to take the action out of the classroom.

60
Variety
Leslie Felperin
Audiences coming cold to this largely faithful adaptation of Alan Bennett's clever but contrived classroom comedy won't be so wowed, given picture's irrevocably stagy feel. Nicholas Hytner's flat-footed direction doesn't help, nor do picture's younger cast members' over-rehearsed performances, although the seasoned thesps shine.

50
San Francisco Chronicle
Mick LaSalle
Somewhere in the translation from stage to screen, The History Boys has become an intelligent misfire. What's left is a literate but listless film.

50
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
William Arnold
With the original stage cast, the film is doggedly faithful to the play but has failed to translate it into much of a film.


The average user rating for this movie is 5.8 (out of 10) based on 43 User Votes
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