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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

97
4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days
83
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35
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32
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62
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47
Bella
63
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71
Blindsight
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Cashback
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82
Chop Shop
46
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Diving Bell and the Butterfly, The
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Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed
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Favor, The
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First Saturday in May, The
57
Flawless
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Flight of the Red Balloon, The
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Funny Games
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Glass: A Portrait of Philip in Twelve Parts
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Hats Off
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Honeydripper
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Jack and Jill vs. the World
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Jellyfish
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Life of Reilly, The
50
Look
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Married Life
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Meet Bill
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Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
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52
My Blueberry Nights
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My Brother Is an Only Child
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Noise
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OSS 117: Cairo - Nest of Spies
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Paranoid Park
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Pathology
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Penelope
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Persepolis
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Planet B-Boy
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Witnesses, The
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XXY
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Year My Parents Went on Vacation, The
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Young@Heart
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Zombie Strippers
97
4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days
92
Diving Bell and the Butterfly, The
91
Up the Yangtze
90
Persepolis
87
Flight of the Red Balloon, The
85
Savages, The
83
Paranoid Park
83
Alexandra
83
U2 3D
82
Chop Shop
82
Taxi to the Dark Side
80
Band's Visit, The
79
Visitor, The
78
Counterfeiters, The
76
Unforeseen, The
76
Stuff and Dough
75
Young@Heart
75
Shotgun Stories
74
Witnesses, The
73
Duchess of Langeais, The
72
Roman de gare
72
Priceless
72
Tuya's Marriage
72
Life of Reilly, The
71
My Brother Is an Only Child
71
Blindsight
71
Standard Operating Procedure
70
Caramel
69
Redbelt
69
Chicago 10
68
Honeydripper
67
Snow Angels
67
Praying with Lior
67
Year My Parents Went on Vacation, The
67
Jellyfish
66
George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead
66
Shelter
65
Married Life
64
Surfwise
64
Son of Rambow
64
Water Lilies
63
XXY
63
Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
63
Body of War
63
Blind Mountain
62
Planet B-Boy
62
Battle for Haditha
61
Dhamma Brothers, The
61
OSS 117: Cairo - Nest of Spies
61
Girls Rock!
59
Under the Same Moon
59
Fugitive Pieces
58
First Saturday in May, The
58
Fall, The
58
Hats Off
58
Bra Boys
57
Flawless
57
Teeth
57
Without the King
57
Grand, The
56
Turn the River
56
Then She Found Me
55
Vice
55
Tracey Fragments, The
55
Pathology
55
Glass: A Portrait of Philip in Twelve Parts
54
Cashback
54
Mister Lonely
52
My Blueberry Nights
50
Look
49
Noise
48
Run, Fat Boy, Run
48
Dark Matter
48
Penelope
47
Bella
47
Boarding Gate
46
CJ7
45
Where in the World Is Osama Bin Laden?
45
Zombie Strippers
44
Frontier(s)
44
Chaos Theory
44
Previous Engagement, A
43
Anamorph
43
Favor, The
41
Funny Games
40
Sleepwalking
37
Life Before Her Eyes, The
35
Meet Bill
35
Babysitters, The
35
Deal
32
Backseat
32
Chapter 27
30
Cover
24
Sex and Death 101
20
Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed
17
Prom Night
xx
Tashan
xx
Unsettled
xx
Plumm Summer, A
xx
Kiss the Bride
xx
Jack and Jill vs. the World
xx
From Within
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
|
Insomnia
Warner Bros.
FILM:
MPAA RATING: R for language, some violence and brief nudity
Starring
Al Pacino,
Robin Williams,
Hilary Swank,
Maura Tierney,
Martin Donovan,
Nicky Katt,
Paul Dooley,
and
Jonathan Jackson
From acclaimed director Christopher Nolan ("Memento") comes the story of Will Dormer (Pacino), a veteran LAPD detective who travels to a small Alaskan town with his partner Hap (Donovan) to investigate the disturbing murder of a seventeen year-old girl. (Warner Bros.)
| GENRE(S): |
Suspense/Thriller
|
| WRITTEN BY: |
Hillary Seitz
Nikolaj Frobenius (1997 screenplay)
Erik Skjoldbjærg (1997 screenplay)
|
| DIRECTED BY: |
Christopher Nolan
|
| RELEASE DATE: |
DVD: October 15, 2002
Video: October 15, 2002
Theatrical: May 24, 2002
|
| RUNNING TIME: |
116 minutes, Color |
| ORIGIN: |
USA |
This is the English-language remake of the 1997 Norwegian film, "Insomnia," starring Stellan Skarsgard.

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
USA Today
Mike Clark
A perfect fit between filmmaker (Memento's Christopher Nolan) and material (Norway's same-name psycho-chiller from 1997), this remake gets all there is to get out of a peculiar premise with promise.

100
New York Post
Lou Lumenick
A rare case of an American remake that actually improves on a European movie.

100
Rolling Stone
Peter Travers
It's taut, tense and terrific.

100
Washington Post
Desson Thomson
Something to treasure: a thriller whose style, structure and rhythms are so integrated with the story, you cannot separate them.

100
Portland Oregonian
Shawn Levy
About as good a movie as you could have hoped for. Really good. Hole-in-one good.

91
Entertainment Weekly
Lisa Schwarzbaum
Superb psychological thriller.

90
The New York Times
A.O. Scott
The anomalous proliferation of scenic beauty gives Mr. Nolan irony to play with, and he uses it spectacularly. The director and his gifted cinematographer, Wally Pfister, are clearly turned on by all this wasted beauty.

90
Los Angeles Times
Kenneth Turan
Insomnia shows an equally welcome ability: a gift of creating intelligent, engrossing popular entertainment.

90
Variety
Todd McCarthy
Gripping, highly dramatic thriller that more than confirms the distinctive talent of young Brit helmer Christopher Nolan.

88
Chicago Sun-Times
Roger Ebert
Unlike most remakes, the Nolan "Insomnia" is not a pale retread, but a re-examination of the material, like a new production of a good play.

88
Charlotte Observer
Lawrence Toppman
Less gloriously showy than "Memento," but it proves you can still craft fine art under the auspices of a big studio.

83
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Sean Axmaker
Despite the cat-and-mouse games between cop and criminal, this is less a battle of wills than one man's battle for his own soul. Nolan bravely treads where few American films dare to delve -- into the world of ambivalence and ambiguity -- and emerges with a compelling portrait.

80
Slate
David Edelstein
Sensationally made and in patches pretty nerve-jangling.

80
LA Weekly
John Powers
Nolan gets his two larger-than-life leads playing off each other in the same frame (which is something Michael Mann couldn't pull off in "Heat's" pairing of Pacino and De Niro) and coaxes a melancholy turn from Pacino, an icon of angst whose real strength has always been his capacity for eloquent silence.

80
Newsweek
David Ansen
It might, however, have been a greater film if its villain were as compelling as its flawed hero. Williams is effectively creepy, but next to Pacinos rich, multileveled portrait he seems one-note, and one weve seen before.
80
The Onion (A.V. Club)
Scott Tobias
Nolan reverses the emphasis -- no surprise from the director of a plot-driven film like "Memento" -- but achieves the same end, bringing Hollywood noir under the harsh glare of permanent daylight.

80
Village Voice
Dennis Lim
Nolan, withholding master of disorientation in his previous non-linear films, allows far too easy access into the psychic tumult of Al Pacino's cop and Robin Williams's prime suspect.

80
Salon.com
Andrew O'Hehir
Like the best thrillers it dives below the ordered surface of the genre into the coldest waters of the individual soul, where Hitchcock and David Lynch and Dostoyevsky have ventured. Does Christopher Nolan belong in that company? Not quite yet, but he's on the way.

80
New Times (L.A.)
Andy Klein
What Nolan does accomplish here that we haven't seen from him before is staging a few horrifyingly effective suspense set pieces -- one of which, in particular, is likely to stay with you for a long time.
78
Austin Chronicle
Marjorie Baumgarten
Nolan creates an effective thriller, although he keeps his stylistic pyrotechnics to a minimum.

75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
Rick Groen
In the ongoing case of the fan versus the movies, the evidence suggests that a good policier is damn hard to find. So when you come across one that can boast a decent script, taut direction and a single superb performance, there's no need for prolonged deliberation.

75
ReelViews
James Berardinelli
Under the relentless glare of the Midnight Sun, the only darkness is in the hearts and actions of the characters.

75
New York Daily News
Jami Bernard
Pacino is masterful as the sharp-witted, seen-it-all detective.
75
Boston Globe
Wesley Morris
Has to be appreciated simply for doing its job, for being the only thriller I've seen recently that made me wonder how my knuckles ended up in my mouth.

75
Philadelphia Inquirer
Carrie Rickey
With Insomnia, his third feature, Nolan, 32, has proven himself a precocious master of the thriller, unsettling the audience with a brief image of blood seeping through fabric.

75
Miami Herald
Rene Rodriguez
So thoroughly absorbing while it's unfolding that later, when you play the movie back in your head, it's surprising to realize how ordinary it is. That's a testament to Nolan's talent: He's able to make even the hoariest clichés feel fresh.

75
San Francisco Chronicle
Mick LaSalle
Haunting psychological drama.

75
Chicago Tribune
Mark Caro
Smart and well-crafted, and it boasts complex characters, effective star turns and evocative photography of a small Alaskan town in summertime, when the sun never sets. It's a solid Hollywood thriller.

70
Film Threat
David Grove
A good movie, atmospheric and sometimes creepy. It grabs us with the premise and holds our attention and doesnt let go, right up to the explosive climax.

70
New York Magazine
Peter Rainer
The best thing about Insomnia is that despite director Christopher Nolan's soft spot for moody-blues obfuscation, he has the good sense to keep his star in practically every shot.

70
Wall Street Journal
Joe Morgenstern
This one is nowhere near as original -- it's a flawed remake of a fine first feature from Norway -- but "Insomnia" still stands on its own as a thriller with brains and scenic beauty.
70
Chicago Reader
Ted Shen
Pacino is typically excitable but also strangely sad, as if the case could take all he's got; Williams, on the other hand, tries playing against type but still goes over the top.

60
TV Guide
Maitland McDonagh
Nolan's intention was clearly to cast the material in a more conventional Hollywood mold without turning it into namby-pamby nonsense, and he succeeds admirably.

60
The New Yorker
Anthony Lane
In Insomnia, the crunch comes as the hero and his opposite number hook up on a ferry, to discuss what each of them knows about the other. This should be Nolan's big moment, his answer to that quiet, magnificent interlude in Michael Mann's "Heat," when Pacino met De Niro in a coffee shop. -- But Williams and Pacino just don't mesh. [27 May 2002, p.124]
40
Washington Post
Stephen Hunter
In this film, Nolan seems overwhelmed by the budget, the egos of the stars, the thinness of the script, and he doesn't impose much personality on the picture. It's all Pacino.

38
Baltimore Sun
Michael Sragow
Nolan pushes the twilight-zone atmosphere so hard that it loses its capacity for mystery. When it's not assaulting us with jolting audiovisual expressions of fatigue, this movie plays like a pedestrian response to David Lynch's effortlessly eerie "Twin Peaks."


The average user rating for this movie is 6.6 (out of 10) based on 47 User Votes
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