Now Playing
Critics & Publications
Archives: A-Z Index
Advanced Search

Upcoming Release Calendar
Weekend Box Office
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores
How Metascores Are Calculated
Discuss Film In Our Forums

sort by name

sort by score

38 12 Rounds
48 17 Again
76 Adventureland
48 Angels & Demons
54 Battle for Terra
xx Bruno
80 Coraline
40 Dance Flick
83 Drag Me to Hell
72 Earth
45 Fast & Furious
61 Fighting
34 Ghosts of Girlfriends Past
72 Gran Torino
73 Hangover, The
47 Hannah Montana: The Movie
51 Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs
54 Imagine That
41 Knowing
32 Land of the Lost
56 Monsters vs. Aliens
34 My Life in Ruins
51 My Sister's Keeper
46 Next Day Air
42 Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian
54 Observe and Report
25 Obsessed
48 Proposal, The
70 Public Enemies
61 Soloist, The
83 Star Trek
64 State of Play
55 Taking of Pelham 1 2 3, The
52 Terminator Salvation
35 Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
77 Under the Sea 3D
88 Up
43 X-Men Origins: Wolverine
34 Year One

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

sort by name

sort by score

67 $9.99
75 24 City
66 Adoration
74 Afghan Star
48 Alien Trespass
56 American Violet
82 Anvil! The Story of Anvil
57 Away We Go
81 Beaches of Agnes, The
62 Big Man Japan
28 Big Shot-Caller, The
78 Boys: The Sherman Brothers' Story, The
55 Brothers Bloom, The
82 Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country
xx Call of the Wild
63 Cheri
62 Cherry Blossoms
63 Dead Snow
65 Departures
18 Downloading Nancy
58 Easy Virtue
70 End of the Line, The
77 Every Little Step
64 Examined Life
80 Food, Inc.
38 Gigantic
56 Girl from Monaco, The
67 Girlfriend Experience, The
87 Gomorrah
89 Goodbye Solo
63 Great Buck Howard, The
79 Harvard Beats Yale 29-29
xx Home
82 Hunger
91 Hurt Locker, The
16 I Hate Valentine's Day
81 Il Divo
54 Is Anybody There?
71 Jerichow
58 Julia
74 Lemon Tree
36 Life is Hot in Cracktown
40 Limits of Control, The
42 Little Ashes
64 Lymelife
50 Management
57 Merry Gentleman, The
66 Moon
35 New York
62 Not Forgotten
xx Offshore
78 O'Horten
64 Outrage
40 Paris 36
54 Pontypool
71 Pressure Cooker
52 Quiet Chaos
83 Revanche
67 Rudo y Cursi
86 Seraphine
65 Sex Positive
70 Shall We Kiss?
77 Sin Nombre
59 Sleep Dealer
74 Song of Sparrows, The
54 Stoning of Soraya M., The
82 Sugar
84 Summer Hours
61 Sunshine Cleaning
28 Surveillance
42 Tennessee
63 Tetro
64 Throw Down Your Heart
80 Tokyo Sonata
63 Tokyo!
70 Tony Manero
74 Treeless Mountain
88 Tulpan
74 Two Lovers
83 Tyson
83 U2 3D
60 Under Our Skin
69 Unmistaken Child
69 Valentino: The Last Emperor
22 What Goes Up
45 Whatever Works
57 Youssou Ndour: I Bring What I Love

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Human Nature
Fine Line Features


8.6

based on 30 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 3 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

FILM:

MPAA RATING: R for sexuality/nudity and language

Starring Tim Robbins, Patricia Arquette, Rhys Ifans, Miranda Otto, Robert Forster, Mary Kay Place, Miguel Sandoval, and Toby Huss

A philosophical burlesque, Human Nature follows the ups and downs of an obsessive scientist, a female naturalist, and the man they discover, born and raised in the wild. (Fine Line Features)

GENRE(S):	Romance
WRITTEN BY:	Charlie Kaufman
DIRECTED BY:	Michel Gondry
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: December 10, 2002 Theatrical: April 12, 2002
RUNNING TIME:	96 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	France / 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...

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

Both deeply weird and charmingly dear.

Newsweek Devin Gordon

Kaufman's new script isn't as inspired as "Malkovich." It's a precious little concoction -- the B-plus work of a madcap genius.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

A hoot, or at least a collection of delightful hootlets hung on a short, frayed line.

Slate David Edelstein

The characters are much less finely tuned and the climax is a botch, but the French-financed film is often a riot, and the sensibility is all there.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

Pure unadulterated animal fun.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

Fresh and often very funny, and it makes its point that when our native urges conflict with social norms, the former shall give in to the latter, or else.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

A treat for aficionados of oddball movies.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

The movie has nowhere much to go and nothing much to prove, except that Stephen King is correct and if you can devise the right characters and the right situation, the plot will take care of itself -- or not, as the case may be.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

The result is a satisfying and original picture.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps

Nature lacks a little of Malkovich's freshness, but that's just about all it lacks.

New Times (L.A.) Gregory Weinkauf

You'll laugh a lot, but not without a sense of animal desperation.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey

Human Nature's zigzag ingenuity wears out some time before the farce bounces slowly to an uneven conclusion. For all its highfalutin title and corkscrew narrative, the movie turns out to be not much more than a shaggy human tale.

Boston Globe Renee Graham

It's just weirdness for the sake of weirdness, and where ''Human Nature'' should be ingratiating, it's just grating.

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

In truth, I didn't care much for it, while respecting it a great deal. It's self-consciously childish and "innocent," and everything is overdrawn to cartoon dimension.

Film Threat Ron Wells

What was needed was either a Stanley Kubrick, or, well, the Farrelly Brothers. Instead we get warmed over Spike Jonze. Still, a little watered down Spike Jonze has to be entertaining some of the time, so this isn't a total loss.

Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir

The second movie by "Being John Malkovich" writer Charlie Kaufman is even weirder than his first.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

The movie is too cute to take itself too seriously, but it still feels like it was made by some very stoned college students.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

After some promising leaps, bounds and swings through a fascinating jungle of possibility, Charlie Kaufman's movie misses an all-important creeper.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

The best stuff in Human Nature comes early, while the movie is still spry and daring --Then the film runs out of ideas, repetition sets in and so does boredom.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

Feels forced and awkward, as though it's trying too hard to be weird, culty and profound.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

Every single frame of this film is as cute, slick, and snappy as the adorable little mice who end the movie with a gag right out of "Babe: Pig in the City."

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

The movie never gets off the ground. Kaufman's script is never especially clever and often is rather pretentious.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

Tries for both civilized wit and primitive joy -- and mostly misses both.

Variety Todd McCarthy

Charlie Kaufman's clever screenplay bears many traces of the same brand of originality and eccentric imagination that graced his work on "Being John Malkovich," although even at an hour-and-a-half the conceit is stretched almost too thin for audience sustenance.

The New York Times Dana Stevens

Should have been more polished, and less tame.

Village Voice J. Hoberman

An overemphatic, would-be wacky, ultimately tedious sex farce.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

Characters remain stuck in their cliche profiles, and the direction -- by music video specialist Michel Gondry -- doesn't improve matters.

LA Weekly John Powers

Although a few moments are hilarious, this would-be romp remains laboriously earthbound when it should be swinging gaily through the trees.

Los Angeles Times John Anderson

A goofball movie, in the way "Malkovich" was, but it tries too hard.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

Feeble, vapid picture.