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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.
|
K-19: The Widowmaker
Paramount Pictures
FILM:
MPAA RATING: PG-13 for disturbing images
Starring
Harrison Ford,
Liam Neeson,
Peter Sarsgaard,
Ingvar Eggert Sigurðsson,
Joss Ackland,
George Anton,
and
John Shrapnel
Inspired by a true story, the film follows the heroism of Captain Alexei Vostrikov (Ford) who, at the height of the Cold War, is ordered to take command of the nuclear missile submarine K-19 away from its original commander Captain Mikhail Polenin (Neeson). Vostrikov's mission is to quickly ready the ill-prepared sub for her maiden voyage -- no matter what the cost. (Paramount Pictures)
| GENRE(S): |
Suspense/Thriller
|
| WRITTEN BY: |
Christopher Kyle
Louis Nowra
|
| DIRECTED BY: |
Kathryn Bigelow
|
| RELEASE DATE: |
DVD: December 10, 2002
Video: December 10, 2002
Theatrical: July 19, 2002
|
| RUNNING TIME: |
138 minutes, Color |
| ORIGIN: |
UK / 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...
80
Slate
David Edelstein
Impressive and heartfelt.

80
The New York Times
Dana Stevens
(Director Bigelow) piles up one nerve-racking crisis after another, interspersed with moments of ethereal, almost otherworldly beauty.

80
Salon.com
Andrew O'Hehir
May be a bit too grim and claustrophobic to become a certifiable summer blockbuster, but it's a pulse-pounding thriller that brings one of the Cold War's darkest and deadliest episodes to the big screen.

75
ReelViews
James Berardinelli
K-19 will not go down in the annals of cinema as one of the great submarine stories, but it is an engaging and exciting narrative of Man confronting the Demons of his own fear and paranoia.

75
Philadelphia Inquirer
Carrie Rickey
I don't think that a woman behind the camera necessarily affects the tenor of what is on screen, but never before have I seen a men-of-war film more notable for its psychology than its spectacle.

75
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
William Arnold
As a grueling "trip" movie and cautionary tale of the nuclear age, K-19 fits the bill. The harsh depiction of everyday life in the Soviet navy and numerous scenes of seamen exposing themselves to lethal doses of radiation are profoundly disturbing.

75
Boston Globe
Wesley Morris
A relentlessly serious action movie, characterized by, of all things, sorrow.

75
Chicago Sun-Times
Roger Ebert
There is one surprise in the movie, a decision having nothing to do with the reactor, that depends entirely on the ability of the characters to act convincingly under enormous pressure; casting stars of roughly equal weight helps it to work.

75
San Francisco Chronicle
Mick LaSalle
The movie gradually works its way, with quiet intelligence and apparent conviction, until there's no turning from it. An hour in, and we're on that boat.

75
Chicago Tribune
Michael Wilmington
Bigelow gives this film edge, tension and something you aren't expecting: a woman's touch for teasing out the buried emotion beneath those stoic surfaces.

70
New York Magazine
Peter Rainer
As a technical achievement, K-19 is right up there with Das Boot. Don't expect much dramatic depth, though. The fathoms descended in this movie are strictly nautical.

70
Village Voice
Dennis Lim
As square-shouldered as you'd expect of a National Geographic co-production. But Bigelow hits all her marks and more within the narrow parameters.

67
Austin Chronicle
Marc Savlov
Remains an above-average and affecting descent into both heretofore unknown Soviet naval history and the always popular submarine-in-peril genre.

63
New York Daily News
Jami Bernard
The Cold War isn't exactly a hot ticket right now, but K-19 punches up the timeless aspects of the story -- adventure, danger, teamwork, noble self-sacrifice and two forceful actors butting heads, even if you don't buy them as Russian for a moment.

63
Baltimore Sun
Michael Sragow
It took guts to bring this story to the screen, but at its core it has the wrong stuff.

63
Miami Herald
Connie Ogle
Despite its exciting moments, the film is too long.

63
New York Post
Jonathan Foreman
With uncommon ineptitude even by the standards of contemporary action flicks, Kyle's script submerges the inherently dramatic tale of the K-19 under a pile of clichés, while failing to tell you enough about the characters for their actions to make much sense.

60
Variety
Robert Koehler
Obediently follows the verities of the submarine movie and its true story origins but without the imagination needed to refresh the genre.

60
The Onion (A.V. Club)
Keith Phipps
After spending so much time letting the characters' deeds do the talking, the film veers into overkill, which comes as a letdown. But the actions linger longer than the words.

60
Los Angeles Times
Kenneth Turan
K-19's determination to push hard for self-congratulatory morals and convenient resolutions undercut the film's strengths and make it more conventional.

60
Washington Post
Stephen Hunter
It's a pretty good sub movie, with some pretty good performances, that, alas, somewhat disintegrates in the last half-hour.

60
Film Threat
Michael Dequina
While watchable, skews more toward the drier expectations fostered by that publication's name then the more exciting, explosive ones associated with the genre.

60
Chicago Reader
Jonathan Rosenbaum
Perhaps the post-cold-war attitudes behind this film are progressive, but the same old pre-nuclear-war worship of the military goes all but unchallenged.

60
Film Threat
David Grove
A cold war thriller told from the Russian point of view which gives it the appearance of having more credibility and dark truth than if this were an American story.

50
Washington Post
Desson Thomson
Despite drawing from one of the most powerful and true stories from the Cold War, K-19 is only moderately moving.

50
LA Weekly
John Powers
K-19 is so unnervingly square that it seems eerily like Party-sanctioned Soviet filmmaking: Its Motherland-loving sailors, myth-making shots of K-19 and displays of heroism are worthy of the Young Lenin Pioneers' Handbook.

50
Portland Oregonian
Shawn Levy
The script doesn't give Bigelow enough human stuff to balance the mechanical. For good or ill, like so many other submarine thrillers before it, K-19 is more about the machine than the men.

50
Charlotte Observer
Lawrence Toppman
The lead actors come from America, Ireland, Iceland, England and South Africa. Who decided they should attempt Russian accents? Neeson forgets his, Ford wavers in and out, and real Russians in the cast make the others sound inauthentic.

50
New Times (L.A.)
Gregory Weinkauf
Of all the A-list men playing dedicated authority figures, Star Wars alums Harrison Ford and Liam Neeson remain among the most amusing and pleasing, which is why K-19: The Widowmaker glides along engagingly rather than sinking.
50
USA Today
Mike Clark
Though this saga would be terrific to read about, it is dicey screen material that only a genius should touch. With no genius in sight, K-19 might be headed for meltdown.

50
TV Guide
Ken Fox
The truly heartbreaking sacrifice of a few extraordinarily heroic men is lost under the ponderous score and a series of even heavier speeches.

50
Entertainment Weekly
Owen Gleiberman
What's really needed is a story with some sizzle, but Bigelow, in K-19, can't seem to decide whether she's making a shoot-the-works underwater rouser, like ''U-571'' or ''Crimson Tide,'' or a lofty historical message movie that hits us with the breaking news that the arms race was, in every sense, a poisonous game.

50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
Liam Lacey
The movie becomes an American salute to military patriotism, anybody's military patriotism. Think of it as "A Few Good Reds."

30
The New Yorker
Anthony Lane
A long, lumbering brute of a movie, no easier to maneuver than the vessel itself. [29 July 2002, p. 92]
20
Wall Street Journal
Joe Morgenstern
Rarely has a major motion picture -- and this one is major by virtue of its misplaced ambition as well as its budget -- been afflicted by such flagrant dissonance between subject and style.

The average user rating for this movie is 7.2 (out of 10) based on 24 User Votes
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