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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

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
91
Hurt Locker, The
89
Goodbye Solo
88
Tulpan
87
Gomorrah
86
Seraphine
84
Summer Hours
83
U2 3D
83
Revanche
83
Tyson
82
Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country
82
Sugar
82
Hunger
82
Anvil! The Story of Anvil
81
Il Divo
81
Beaches of Agnes, The
80
Food, Inc.
80
Tokyo Sonata
79
Harvard Beats Yale 29-29
78
Boys: The Sherman Brothers' Story, The
78
O'Horten
77
Every Little Step
77
Sin Nombre
75
24 City
74
Treeless Mountain
74
Afghan Star
74
Two Lovers
74
Song of Sparrows, The
74
Lemon Tree
71
Pressure Cooker
71
Jerichow
70
Shall We Kiss?
70
Tony Manero
70
End of the Line, The
69
Valentino: The Last Emperor
69
Unmistaken Child
67
$9.99
67
Rudo y Cursi
67
Girlfriend Experience, The
66
Adoration
66
Moon
65
Sex Positive
65
Departures
64
Outrage
64
Examined Life
64
Throw Down Your Heart
64
Lymelife
63
Tokyo!
63
Cheri
63
Dead Snow
63
Tetro
63
Great Buck Howard, The
62
Cherry Blossoms
62
Big Man Japan
62
Not Forgotten
61
Sunshine Cleaning
60
Under Our Skin
59
Sleep Dealer
58
Julia
58
Easy Virtue
57
Away We Go
57
Merry Gentleman, The
57
Youssou Ndour: I Bring What I Love
56
Girl from Monaco, The
56
American Violet
55
Brothers Bloom, The
54
Is Anybody There?
54
Pontypool
54
Stoning of Soraya M., The
52
Quiet Chaos
50
Management
48
Alien Trespass
45
Whatever Works
42
Little Ashes
42
Tennessee
40
Limits of Control, The
40
Paris 36
38
Gigantic
36
Life is Hot in Cracktown
35
New York
28
Big Shot-Caller, The
28
Surveillance
22
What Goes Up
18
Downloading Nancy
16
I Hate Valentine's Day
xx
Call of the Wild
xx
Home
xx
Offshore
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
|
Ice Storm, The
Fox Searchlight Pictures
FILM:
MPAA RATING: R for sexuality and drug use, including scenes involving children, and for language
Starring
Kevin Kline,
Joan Allen,
Sigourney Weaver,
Henry Czerny,
Tobey Maguire,
Christina Ricci,
Elijah Wood,
and
Adam Hann-Byrd
It's November 1973 in New Canaan, Connecticut. Watergate has caught up with Richard Nixon. The Beatles are recording solo albums. Wife-swapping has come to the suburbs. And, the Hood family is skidding out of control. (Fox Searchlight)
| GENRE(S): |
Drama
|
| WRITTEN BY: |
James Schamus
Rick Moody (novel)
|
| DIRECTED BY: |
Ang Lee
|
| RELEASE DATE: |
DVD: December 17, 2002
Video: April 2, 2002
Theatrical: September 26, 1997
|
| RUNNING TIME: |
112 minutes, Color |
| ORIGIN: |
USA |
Best Screenplay, 1997 Cannes Film Festival

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
Chicago Sun-Times
Roger Ebert
What we sense after the film is that the natural sources of pleasure have been replaced with higher-octane substitutes, which have burnt out the ability to feel joy.

100
ReelViews
James Berardinelli
Provocative, entertaining, and impeccably crafted.

100
Rolling Stone
Peter Travers
This emotional climax of the film, with its warring glints of despair and hope, typifies the stunning achievement of The Ice Storm and confirms Lee as a director of the first rank.

100
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
Rick Groen
This remarkable analysis of a decade when
American society lost its moral compass is both brutally honest and lyrically compassionate.

90
The New York Times
Elvis Mitchell
Elegant and deeply disquieting drama.

90
The Onion (A.V. Club)
Keith Phipps
A harsh (though slightly toned down from Moody's book), deeply moving, emotionally rich and intelligent film about the difficulty of rebelling against social restrictions--and the inescapable consequences of such attempts when they do succeed--The Ice Storm should not be missed.

83
Entertainment Weekly
Owen Gleiberman
Kevin Kline is sweetly befuddled as a good man caught between worlds, and Sigourney Weaver, as a hard, sexy adulteress, makes her wit sting.

80
Variety
Todd McCarthy
A well-observed and deftly performed examination of upper-middle-class emotional deep freeze, The Ice Storm is an intelligent, adult American film.

80
Empire
Angie Errigo
The dazzling ensemble perfectly captures every nuance in one of the finest acting showcases you could hope for.

80
Newsweek
David Ansen
Unlike many dramas of middle-class family wreckage, which tilt toward soapoperatic revelations, The Ice Storm is told from an ironic, almost meditative distance that gives the movie its paradoxical power.

75
San Francisco Chronicle
Edward Guthmann
Never becomes the thoroughly satisfying psychological drama that it promises to be. There's also a problem with the central metaphor of ice -- a literary device that turns repetitive and obvious.

75
USA Today
Mike Clark
This time, he (Ang Lee) has Kevin Kline, Joan Allen and Sigourney Weaver trudging through ice both emotional and literal -- an omnipresent metaphor but not one unduly sledgehammered. [26 September 1997, pg. 1 D}
70
Salon.com
Charles Taylor
Ricci's Wendy captures the volatile combination of aggressiveness and uncertainty in a young woman trying to come to terms with her sexuality like no performance since Emily Lloyd's in "Wish You Were Here." It's a very different performance, quieter, harder and yet more vulnerable.

70
Slate
David Edelstein
Lee views these mortal fools with a sorrowful detachment. He's a sort of clinical humanist, editorializing only by what he leaves out. The downside of this method is its impersonality, which limits our involvement. The upside is its lack of cheap sentiment, and its clarity.

70
Dallas Observer
Andy Klein
It's during the shift to seriousness that The Ice Storm makes its missteps. The intrusion of tragedy, while altogether believable, still seems like a device, a calculated tug at the heart strings. It is, in short, a once-effective ploy that now feels like a cliche. A near-miss might have been more effective.

70
Washington Post
Rita Kempley
The decade has been fondly spoofed in capers like "The Brady Bunch," but Lee's film takes a much more searing, if initially hilarious look at the sexual revolution's migration to a New England suburb and the community's subsequent meltdown. [17 October 1997, p.D6]
63
San Francisco Examiner
Barbara Shulgasser
Leaves the audience on such a devastatingly dramatic ledge.

60
Los Angeles Times
Kenneth Turan
As frigid as its name. Burdened with a story of some of the world's least interesting people going through a holiday crisis, director Ang Lee and screenwriter James Schamus get as close as any creative team could to making matters involving, but the task is finally too much for them.

60
TV Guide
Maitland McDonagh
An honorable film, beautifully acted, refreshingly un-camp in its take on wide lapels and progressive rock and occasionally coolly moving. It's just that ultimately, there's less here than meets the eye.

60
Chicago Reader
Jonathan Rosenbaum
The tragic and highly "symbolic" death toward the end, which is supposed to illustrate the sins of the parents being visited upon their children, barely resonates at all, because most of the insights are strictly incidental. The film elicits guilty, lascivious chuckles, not analysis.

50
Christian Science Monitor
David Sterritt
Directed by Ang Lee, whose exposure of middle-class hypocrisy would be more effective if it weren't rigged to provide evidence for the story's take on contemporary values.

50
Austin Chronicle
Marjorie Baumgarten
With The Ice Storm, Lee seems to have emphasized the details of cultural accuracy over the rudiments of telling a gripping drama.

30
Washington Post
Desson Thomson
Unfortunately, the drama operates on a see-through, easily shatterable metaphor: the frigidity of the WASP soul.
[17 October 1997, p.N32]

The average user rating for this movie is 8.6 (out of 10) based on 9 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
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