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Kinsey
Fox Searchlight Pictures

Kinsey reviews
Critic Score
Metascore: 79 Metascore out of 100
User Score  
8.8 out of 10
based on 40 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
based on 51 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

MPAA RATING: R for pervasive sexual content, including some graphic images and descriptions

Starring Liam Neeson, Laura Linney, Chris O'Donnell, Peter Sarsgaard, Timothy Hutton, John Lithgow, Tim Curry, and Oliver Platt

This film turns the microscope on Alfred Kinsey (Neeson) in a portrait of a man driven to uncover the most private secrets of a nation. (Fox Searchlight)


GENRE(S): Drama  
WRITTEN BY: Bill Condon  
DIRECTED BY: Bill Condon  
RELEASE DATE: DVD: May 17, 2005 
Theatrical: November 12, 2004 
RUNNING TIME: 118 minutes, Color 
ORIGIN: USA 

What The Critics Said

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
The Hollywood Reporter Michael Rechtshaffen
One of the year's most satisfying films.
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100
Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
The strength of Kinsey is finally in the clarity it brings to its title character. It is fascinating to meet a complete original, a person of intelligence and extremes.
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91
Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum
Kinsey is patient and educational and never (darn it) rude or shocking.
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90
The New Yorker David Denby
Playful and happy and even naughty. It's partly a scientific brief, partly a song of sex, and it's enormously enjoyable.
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90
LA Weekly Ella Taylor
The movie's strength lies in its portrayal of a many-sided genius, as manipulative as he was charming and persuasive, monomaniacal to a fault, generous and sweet yet utterly clueless about the emotional havoc he wrought in the name of science.
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90
Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan
Intelligently written and directed with a pleasing frankness by Bill Condon and well played by Liam Neeson, Laura Linney and a strong supporting cast, the film skillfully uses the forms of old Hollywood to tell a story that would have given heart failure to Harry Cohn and his fellow tycoons.
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90
The New York Times Dana Stevens
Mr. Condon's great achievement is to turn Kinsey's complicated and controversial career into a grand intellectual drama.
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90
Slate David Edelstein
A stupendously moving film. Neeson nails Kinsey's rock-hard decency and fragile ego, and Linney abets him beautifully: There isn't an actress in movies right now who's more simply alive.
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90
Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
Liam Neeson has never had a richer character to play on screen -- including his landmark role in "Schindler's List" -- and has never displayed such formidable energy and virtuosity.
88
New York Daily News Jack Mathews
The face-to-face interviews laced throughout the movie are fascinating and often laugh-out-loud funny. Ask people to talk dirty and you don't know what they'll say.
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88
Rolling Stone Peter Travers
Scrappy, funny, hot-to-trot biopic.
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88
Boston Globe Ty Burr
As superbly crafted -- as good -- as this movie is, Condon never really owns up to the cloud of pessimism at its center.
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88
Premiere Glenn Kenny
Those who aren't inclined to lambaste will surely have some stimulating conversations after the film is over.
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88
USA Today Mike Clark
Linney is a match for Neeson, and the only thing that might keep Lithgow from getting a supporting-Oscar nomination is the brevity of the part.
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88
New York Post Lou Lumenick
It's as purely entertaining as it is thought-provoking and timely.
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88
Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington
This hip, highly partisan biography of Dr. Alfred C. Kinsey is a surprisingly entertaining movie about the perils of studying sexual behavior in a sexually uptight culture--our own.
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88
Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez
The movie's scientific content is so fascinating that it almost feels like a bonus that Kinsey himself is such an intriguing figure.
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83
Portland Oregonian Marc Mohan
Controversy aside, there's no denying that Kinsey was a pivotal figure in 20th-century America, and one whose fascinating story makes for a fascinating film.
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80
Empire Adam Smith
A deftly directed, superbly acted and occasionally witty biopic which is not afraid to engage with the complexities of its central character.
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80
Time Richard Corliss
The movie wants to entertain and educate, not leer, about people flummoxed by participating in a revolution they had meant only to calibrate, and at that it succeeds handsomely.
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80
Washington Post Desson Thomson
If it lacks a certain fuzzy warmth, Kinsey makes up for the shortfall with spirited and (for a commercial movie) amazingly candid vigor. It's an alert, lively movie with a crackling performance by Liam Neeson.
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80
Film Threat Pete Vonder Haar
It is Condon's adroit handling of the subject matter and the caliber of performances within that carry it above the norm.
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80
Variety Todd McCarthy
Lively, sometimes funny and, inevitably, provocative.
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75
ReelViews James Berardinelli
This is a fine motion picture with a couple of superlative performances. It is arguably the best, most honest bio-pic of the year.
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75
Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt
The movie's style is fairly staid, but it's hard to imagine how Neeson could be better, and the subject is handled with taste and tact.
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75
San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle
It's sober, never flashy or exciting but always engrossing.
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75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen
A mature biopic as entertaining as it is timely.
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75
Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea
Compared to "Ray," which takes Ray Charles' unique life story and manages to make it feel like a cliche, Kinsey is total sophistication and nuance.
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75
Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold
Condon's direction is steady and fearless, Neeson and Linney are individually excellent and together they create an inspiring chemistry for a truly adventurous marriage.
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70
Dallas Observer Robert Wilonsky
If only Condon kept up the Q&A format, because when he ditches it the movie turns flat and familiar.
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70
New York Magazine Ken Tucker
It's a new Neeson as Dr. Alfred Kinsey, all spiky-haired and harried, and he's enormously appealing in the role.
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70
The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias
For a film about man who spent half his life defying staid convention, Kinsey remains as timid as a choirboy.
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70
Village Voice J. Hoberman
Opening too late for the election but still one the year's most politically relevant movies, Condon's earnestly middlebrow biopic is an argument for tolerance and diversity.
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70
The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann
Throughout the film a question tugs at the viewer. Kinsey's work was inarguably important, but his life is not especially interesting.
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67
Austin Chronicle Kimberley Jones
Kinsey is too tasteful by half, and while it may have its gentle charms, it never thrills.
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60
Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum
Apart from some unexaggerated notations about American puritanism in the 1940s and '50s, this is more a work of exploration than a thesis, and Condon mainly avoids sensationalism.
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60
TV Guide Ethan Alter
By focusing on one period in his life, this film chronicles the bulk of Kinsey's experiences while barely scratching the surface of his personality.
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60
Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek
Condon's tone is gentle and lifeless and at times baffling: The picture is a weird cross between clinical and whimsical.
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60
Washington Post Teresa Wiltz
For all its explosive material, this is a fairly straightforward telling.
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50
Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow
The movie dramatizes a social-sexual sea change with an out-of-control blend of cartoon farce and melodrama and clinical, often ludicrous sex scenes.
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What Our Users Said

Vote Now!The average user rating for this movie is 8.8 (out of 10) based on 51 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Abby L gave it a9:
Very complex and interesting view.

Tony S. gave it a10:
Moving, complex, educational, and fully satisfying. Neeson and Linney head up as good a cast as you can get. Compelling both as a tribute to the modern scientific spirit and as a critique of pre-modern moralistic rigidity.

Frank O. gave it a9:
Better than I expected, like the use of color and blk/white...great sequence learning their interview process...Neeson and Linney were very good. Peter Sarsgaard is underrated actor; plot kept moving, Bill Condon did great job just as he did with Gods and Monsters - another good flick you should see.

Tony gave it a7:
Structurally sound and extremely well acted, Kinsey is a reminder of both how things change and how they remain essentially the same.

v dawg gave it a9:
Convincing indeed.

Mathew gave it a9:
A wonderful nuanced biopic of an important, colorful, and controversial figure in mid-century America (what a naive time that was!). Neeson, Linney and the supporting cast are superb. As with most biopics, small scenes are often meant to cover substantial territory. For the most part this film succeeds better than most in highlighting many facets of a long event-filled life. It's only failing might be that it seriously underplays the significantly less than scientific nature of some of the 'sex research' his institute team undertakes and the tendency to overstate the exceptions to the 'norm'. The thornier question that this film fails to pursue, really is not about how sexually unaware America was fifty/sixty years ago, but how one man's unique perspective and eccentricities can shape supposedly 'objective' research–the hand of the scientist literally leaving its mark upon the subject observed. This movie chooses to shy from this isuue and instead favor the heroic nature of what Kinsey achieved, adding illumination where lights were always kept dim, and perhaps this is as it should be.

J. Ryan G. gave it a7:
A mostly fine film, it fails only near the end, when it has become too full of information and the audience has become aware that it should be taking notes. If it needed more of anything, it would be John Lithgow's heartbreaking performance.

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