Movies
Weekend Box Office
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores
Wide Releases
Now In Theaters
76
(500) Days of Summer
60
9
17
All About Steve
37
Amelia
53
Astro Boy
66
Bandslam
45
Box, The
61
Capitalism: A Love Story
55
Christmas Carol, A
43
Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant
66
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
29
Collector, The
23
Couples Retreat
80
District 9
61
Extract
39
Fame
xx
Fantastic Mr. Fox
30
Final Destination, The
34
Fourth Kind, The
60
Funny People
32
G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra
27
Gamer
41
G-Force
39
Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard, The
46
Halloween II
73
Hangover, The
78
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
55
I Can Do Bad All By Myself
66
Informant!, The
69
Inglourious Basterds
58
Invention of Lying, The
47
Jennifer's Body
66
Julie & Julia
34
Law Abiding Citizen
33
Love Happens
54
Men Who Stare At Goats, The
67
Michael Jackson's This Is It
51
My Sister's Keeper
42
Orphan
28
Pandorum
63
Perfect Getaway, A
86
Ponyo![]()
35
Post Grad
48
Proposal, The
30
Saw VI
53
Shorts
24
Sorority Row
83
Star Trek![]()
33
Stepfather, The
45
Surrogates
55
Taking Woodstock
47
Time Traveler's Wife
96
Toy Story/Toy Story 2 3D![]()
35
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
28
Ugly Truth, The
88
Up![]()
71
Where the Wild Things Are
67
Whip It
28
Whiteout
73
Zombieland
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
Limited Releases
Now In Theaters
58
(Untitled)
96
35 Shots of Rum![]()
56
Adam
72
Adela
39
Adventures of Power
78
Afghan Star
61
After the Storm
66
Afterschool
xx
All the Best
58
American Casino
72
Amreeka
48
Antichrist
73
Araya
62
Art & Copy
55
As Seen Through These Eyes
76
Baader Meinhof Complex, The
86
Beaches of Agnes, The![]()
13
Beautiful Life, A
70
Beeswax
35
Beyond a Reasonable Doubt
71
Big Fan
66
Black Dynamite
51
Blind Date
xx
Blind Pig Who Wants to Fly
76
Bliss
35
Blue Tooth Virgin, The
26
Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day, The
57
Boys Are Back, The
45
Brief Interviews with Hideous Men
81
Bright Star![]()
70
Bronson
45
Burning Plain, The
xx
Carriers
55
Casi Divas
57
Chelsea on the Rocks
62
Cloud 9
65
Coco Before Chanel
69
Cold Souls
59
Collapse
44
Confessionsofa Ex-Doofus-ItchyFooted Mutha
82
Cove, The![]()
75
Crude
82
Damned United, The![]()
67
Departures
xx
Dil Bole Hadippa
71
Disgrace
xx
Do Knot Disturb
70
Earth Days
24
Eating Out 3: All You Can Eat
85
Education, An![]()
55
Endgame
xx
Eulogy for a Vampire
xx
Everyone Else
xx
Fatal Promises
56
Fifty Dead Men Walking
62
Five Minutes of Heaven
74
Flame & Citron
49
Food Beware: The French Organic Revolution
80
Food, Inc.
28
Free Style
xx
From Mexico with Love
50
Fuel
25
Gentlemen Broncos
50
Give Me Your Hand
58
Gogol Bordello Non-Stop
72
Good Hair
89
Goodbye Solo![]()
52
Grace
66
Harmony and Me
81
Headless Woman, The![]()
xx
Heretics, The
63
Horse Boy, The
73
House of the Devil, The
xx
How to Seduce Difficult Women
74
Humpday
94
Hurt Locker, The![]()
29
I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell
16
If One Thing Matters: A Film About Wolfgang Tillmans
75
In Search of Beethoven
83
In the Loop![]()
61
Intimate Enemies
42
Irene in Time
70
It Might Get Loud
46
Killing Kasztner
19
Labor Day
xx
Laila's Birthday
41
Little Ashes
41
Little Traitor, The
66
Liverpool
34
Looking for Palladin
80
Lorna's Silence
83
Maid, The![]()
xx
Ministers, The
59
More Than a Game
67
Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers, The
34
Motherhood
62
My One and Only
xx
Mystery Team
48
New York, I Love You
73
Night and Day
66
No Impact Man
47
Ong Bak 2: The Beginning
34
Other Man, The
xx
Painter Sam Francis, The
54
Paper Heart
xx
Paradise
68
Paranormal Activity
68
Paris
44
Peter and Vandy
35
Play the Game
77
Precious: Based on the Novel by Sapphire
xx
Pretty Ugly People
65
Providence Effect, The
76
Rembrandt's J'accuse
69
September Issue, The
79
Serious Man, A
40
Shrink
61
Skin
77
Skin Too Few: The Days of Nick Drake, A
xx
Skiptracers
46
Splinterheads
39
St. Trinian's
89
Still Walking![]()
50
Stoning of Soraya M., The
55
Storm
65
Tetro
70
That Evening Sun
72
Thirst
xx
Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas 3D (re-release)
61
Trucker
xx
Turning Green
83
U2 3D![]()
66
Unmade Beds
66
Unmistaken Child
70
Visual Acoustics
55
Walt & El Grupo
67
Way We Get By, The
69
We Live in Public
64
Wedding Song, The
64
Where is Where?
xx
White on Rice
74
Woman in Berlin, A
69
World's Greatest Dad
70
Yes Men Fix the World
69
Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg
xx
You, the Living
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
Malena

Mixed or average reviews
Based on 22 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 31 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Romance
Written by:
Giuseppe Tornatore
Luciano Vincenzoni (story)
Directed by: Giuseppe Tornatore
Release Date:
Theatrical: December 25, 2000
DVD: July 10, 2001
Running Time: 105 minutes, Color
Origin: USA / Italy
Summary
RATING: R for sexuality, nudity, language and some violence
Starring Monica Bellucci, Daniele Arena, Giovanni Litrico, and Giuseppe Sulfaro
Malena (Bellacci), a beautiful young war widow, inspires the sensual awakenings of a group of adolescent boys in 1941 Sicily.
Also On Metacritic
FILM: Cinema Paradiso Cinema Paradiso: The Director's Cut Malena The Legend of 1900
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database Official Studio Site
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...
San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle
Qualifies as director Giuseppe Tornatore's second full-fledged masterpiece. His first: "Cinema Paradiso."
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas
Malena the film is as beautiful and seductive as its heroine, with its ravishing Lajos Koltai cinematography and sweepingly romantic Ennio Morricone score.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey
Gives audiences something more than just a heart-stopping beauty to contemplate.
Read Full Review >Rolling Stone Peter Travers
Nothing new here except model-turned-actress Bellucci. To call her noteworthy would be an understatement.
Read Full Review >Village Voice Dennis Lim
A nostalgic coming-of-age sex comedy tastefully lecherous enough to indicate that its intended demographic is several decades past puberty.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Stephen Holden
What begins as a blushing, priapic opera buffa about coming of age turns into a verismo shocker, before softening into something mellower.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Frank Lovece
It differs from American films about the period in its evocation of day-to-day passion. The power of beauty is often dealt with in films, but not so often its powerful curse.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
You wish that Malena's inner life had been given as much accent as her outer charms.
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian Kim Morgan
Intriguing, containing a truthful kernel of sweetness, rot and brutality that will shock many.
Read Full Review >Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt
Striking photography, period detail, screen-filling crowd scenes, and veteran composer Morricone's score make this one worth seeing, but the sheer nastiness of the town's people drags it down.
Read Full Review >New York Post Jonathan Foreman
Too often seems like a slightly silly film.
Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington
No period of Italian history has produced more great movies than the WWII years . But, Malena romanticizes and even sentimentalizes those years.
New York Daily News Jack Mathews
If Mussolini had a Monica Bellucci to inspire his troops, we might still be trying to take Palermo.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
There is noting quite so awkward as a film that is one thing while it pretends to be another.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov
When the film changes gears from light coming-of-age comedy to ex-post-facto war parable midway through, it loses its focus and suddenly becomes a much darker beast.
Read Full Review >Variety David Rooney
Combining a coming-of-age story with the sad odyssey of a woman punished for her beauty, the film ultimately has too little depth, subtlety, thematic consequence or contemporary relevance.
USA Today Mike Clark
There's definitely some paradiso in watching Malena walking, but not enough to sustain almost two hours of cinema.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum
Somewhere in writer-director Giuseppe Tornatore's overstyled movie, about a 12-year-old boy (Sulfaro) during the Italian fascist period who has the hots for a mistreated war widow (Belluci), is a pretty good short story about the fickleness of community and the cruelty of gossip struggling to get out.
Read Full Review >Time Richard Schickel
Things finally work out all right--except for audiences, who will find this thin movie bereft of the more richly textured sentiments of Tornatore's "Cinema Paradiso."
Read Full Review >Mr. Showbiz Kevin Maynard
Giuseppe Tornatore has long been a master of cheap sentiment ("Cinema Paradiso," " The Legend of 1900"), but his latest film is his most shallow, reprehensible exercise in nostalgia to date.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Michael O'Sullivan
Feels more like "Porky's" with marinara sauce than "Summer of '42."
Read Full Review >Film.com Henry Cabot Beck
In the end, Malena is an unlikable and foul farce, unworthy of Tornatore's previously gentle touch.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 9.3 (out of 10) based on 31 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
R. L. gave it a10:
A truly extraordinary film! I loved every minute of it.
sathya v. gave it a10:
I love this movie. we must view this film in an auto-analystic way of admiring the characters. this movie has some magic that we keep on thinking about it even after weeks or months...oops! i must say this is a movie of a life time. i'm glad to have it in my collections of dvd. tornatore is way ahead of mankind.
Chris S. gave it a9:
What a great movie. Excellent performances with a spectacular score and striking images. You won't forget this one.
W. Christopher H. gave it a4:
In the past I have greatly admired Tornatore movies, but this one is just not worth the time. It's almost as if he watched Fellini's "Amarcord," decided to focus entirely on the character "La Gradisca" from that movie, also included the obsessive attention to pre-teen auto-eroticism, and then turned it all into some sort of cruel neo-realist "critique." It's got all the cruel intensity of a Giovanni Verga novel near the end, which is very Sicilian, but completely misplaced. It's rather disgusting, in fact. Tornatore was already going downhill at "The Star Maker," but this takes the cake.
Halla A. gave it a 10:
I loved it. very beautifully portrayed at how sometimes beauty isn't exactly always a blessing.
Willy Billy gave it a 10:
The Best Lovley Musical Beauty File that i saw yet ... What a greate object ;)
Christophe C. gave it a 10:
The most beautiful story I've ever seen.
