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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.
|
Little Children
New Line Cinema
FILM:
MPAA RATING: R for strong sexuality and nudity, language and some disturbing content
Starring
Kate Winslet,
Patrick Wilson,
Jennifer Connelly,
Jackie Earle Haley,
Noah Emmerich,
Gregg Edelman,
Phyllis Somerville,
and
Raymond J. Barry
Based on the novel by Tom Perrotta, Little Children centers on a handful of individuals whose lives intersect on the playgrounds, town pools and streets of their small community in surprising and potentially dangerous ways. (New Line Cinema)
| GENRE(S): |
Comedy
|
Crime
|
Drama
|
Romance
|
| WRITTEN BY: |
Todd Field
Tom Perrotta (also novel)
|
| DIRECTED BY: |
Todd Field
|
| RELEASE DATE: |
DVD: May 1, 2007
Theatrical: October 6, 2006
|
| RUNNING TIME: |
130 minutes, Color |
| ORIGIN: |
USA |
Named best picture of 2006 by the San Francisco Film Critics Circle.

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
Los Angeles Times
Carina Chocano
The movie is one of the few films I can think of that examines the baffling combination of smugness, self-abnegation, ceremonial deference and status anxiety that characterizes middle-class Gen X parenting, and find sheer, white-knuckled terror at its core.

100
TV Guide
Ken Fox
Once again, Field has crafted and grown-up movie that grabs you by the throat, drags you in and doesn't let you go until the very bitter end.

100
Chicago Tribune
Michael Phillips
Unnervingly good, Little Children is one of the rare American films about adultery that feels right--dangerous, hushed, immediate.

100
San Francisco Chronicle
Mick LaSalle
Perrotta and Field succeed, not by guessing, but by knowing this world. They understand it enough to see it with cold precision -- and to approach it, at times, with disarming warmth. The characters aren't types, but people.

91
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
William Arnold
It's as absorbing as a train wreck, and its brand of heavy drama is so rare in movies these days that everything about it seems amazingly fresh.

91
Portland Oregonian
Shawn Levy
Like "In the Bedroom," the film is studded with brilliant acting, and it's all rendered with gorgeously fluent technique. The result is a film that skirts cruelty and easy satire for deep, troubling realities -- a nearly thorough triumph, in short.

91
Entertainment Weekly
Lisa Schwarzbaum
A jolting, artfully made drama set in and around a suburban playground somewhere between "American Beauty" and "In the Bedroom" on America's psychic highway.

90
The Hollywood Reporter
John DeFore
Providing richness of detail and metaphor, elegantly blueprinted themes and impressive mastery of a constantly shifting tone, Little Children does just that. It is a deeply satisfying film.

90
The New York Times
A.O. Scott
The result is a movie that is challenging, accessible and hard to stop thinking about...But in too many recent movies intelligence is woefully undervalued, and it is this quality -- even more than its considerable beauty -- that distinguishes Little Children from its peers.

90
The New Yorker
David Denby
A sharply intelligent and affecting view of suburban blues.

90
Washington Post
Desson Thomson
A hugely absorbing social drama that is, by turns, excruciating, sad and sardonic.

90
Film Threat
Don R. Lewis
While the screenplay for Little Chilldren is basically perfect, it's the acting that really drives the film home.

88
New York Daily News
Jack Mathews
Built from a perfect story-telling collaboration.

88
ReelViews
James Berardinelli
The rarest of movies - a literary multi-character drama. From the erudition of the voiceover narrative to the three dimensionality of the characters, Field's film is the closest it's possible to get to a book without reading one.

88
Rolling Stone
Peter Travers
This unnervingly funny and quietly devastating film -- director Todd Field's first since his smash 2001 debut with "In the Bedroom" -- pulls you in like a magnetic-force field.

80
Slate
Dana Stevens
All of the actors, most notably Winslet, are superb, but the movie belongs to Jackie Earle Haley, a former child actor.

80
Time
Richard Schickel
Little Children does not have quite the bleak discipline of Field's more keenly judged "In the Bedroom." Yet it is a more ambitious film and a considerable achievement.

80
Chicago Reader
J.R. Jones
The characters are drawn with such compassion their follies become our own and their desires seem as vast as the night sky.

80
Empire
Helen O'Hara
This is complex, thought-provoking cinema.

75
Philadelphia Inquirer
Carrie Rickey
During its two hours-plus running time, Field's movie veers from dark comedy to melodrama, not always gracefully. But tonal inconsistencies don't blunt the keenness of its satire, so sharp that I walked out with emotional razor burn.

75
Boston Globe
Wesley Morris
What Little Children understands so well, and so poignantly, is a kind of parental existentialism that hits 30- somethings with kids: How does having children make you such a less interesting adult?

75
USA Today
Claudia Puig
Little Children maintains much of the power, humor and nuance of Tom Perrotta's wonderful novel, but seems unsure if it's a satire or a serious drama.

75
The Onion (A.V. Club)
Scott Tobias
Decades removed from his dreamy Kelly in the "Bad News Bears" movies, Haley pulls off the remarkable feat of bringing childlike vulnerability to his character while still suggesting ungodly menace.

70
Newsweek
David Ansen
The Madame Bovary-in-suburbia motif may sound familiar, yet the unusual mix of satire and melodrama feels fresh. Not everything works (beware the football scenes), but this adaptation of Tom Perrotta's novel is hard to shake off.

70
Variety
Todd McCarthy
Like "In the Bedroom," Little Children, at well over two hours, is somewhat long for an intense, intimate drama, and arguments could run many ways concerning what could be tightened or excised.

67
Austin Chronicle
Marc Savlov
It's Winslet who is the heart and soul of Little Children, and when she makes a desperate, final bid to reclaim her soul, it's both horrifying and heart-rending.

63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
Rick Groen
To these disappointed eyes, Little Children seems a frustrating mess.

63
Miami Herald
Rene Rodriguez
Slowly loses its grip, becoming just another story about infidelity, albeit an exceptionally polished, well-acted one.

50
Baltimore Sun
Michael Sragow
Instead of being supple and expansive like the book, this Little Children is heavy-handed and snarky.

50
Village Voice
Ella Taylor
This overly long movie, made sluggish by a superfluously novelistic narrator, feels divided against itself, driven by opposed impulses of tragedy and dark humor that make it impossible for us to identify with these lost souls' break for freedom or wait for them to grow up.

50
New York Magazine
David Edelstein
An unusually powerful mess, a broad satire of suburban self-indulgence with little in the way of a consistent style, and with a character who's serious business: a convicted child molester.

50
Christian Science Monitor
Peter Rainer
By turns jokey, portentous, and pretentious, the movie immediately sizes up each of its protagonists and never budges from that assessment.

50
Wall Street Journal
Joe Morgenstern
Mr. Field is a filmmaker with an exceptional gift for directing actors -- he's an actor himself -- and an eye for telling detail. (His cinematographer here, as in the previous film, is Antonio Calvache, and again the images are quietly sumptuous.) Yet I was put off by Little Children's satiric tone.
40
Salon.com
Andrew O'Hehir
It's an unholy mess, simultaneously too Gothic and too sarcastic, that preaches liberation and delivers only puritanism. It's a craftsmanlike but robotic imitation of "interesting" filmmaking, only in patches, and by accident, the real thing.


The average user rating for this movie is 7.1 (out of 10) based on 114 User Votes
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