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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

97
4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days
83
Alexandra
43
Anamorph
35
Babysitters, The
32
Backseat
80
Band's Visit, The
62
Battle for Haditha
47
Bella
63
Blind Mountain
71
Blindsight
47
Boarding Gate
63
Body of War
58
Bra Boys
70
Caramel
54
Cashback
44
Chaos Theory
32
Chapter 27
69
Chicago 10
82
Chop Shop
46
CJ7
78
Counterfeiters, The
30
Cover
48
Dark Matter
35
Deal
61
Dhamma Brothers, The
92
Diving Bell and the Butterfly, The
73
Duchess of Langeais, The
20
Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed
58
Fall, The
43
Favor, The
58
First Saturday in May, The
57
Flawless
87
Flight of the Red Balloon, The
xx
From Within
44
Frontier(s)
59
Fugitive Pieces
41
Funny Games
66
George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead
61
Girls Rock!
55
Glass: A Portrait of Philip in Twelve Parts
57
Grand, The
58
Hats Off
68
Honeydripper
xx
Jack and Jill vs. the World
67
Jellyfish
xx
Kiss the Bride
37
Life Before Her Eyes, The
72
Life of Reilly, The
50
Look
65
Married Life
35
Meet Bill
63
Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
54
Mister Lonely
52
My Blueberry Nights
71
My Brother Is an Only Child
52
Noise
61
OSS 117: Cairo - Nest of Spies
83
Paranoid Park
55
Pathology
48
Penelope
90
Persepolis
62
Planet B-Boy
xx
Plumm Summer, A
67
Praying with Lior
46
Previous Engagement, A
72
Priceless
17
Prom Night
69
Redbelt
72
Roman de gare
48
Run, Fat Boy, Run
85
Savages, The
24
Sex and Death 101
66
Shelter
75
Shotgun Stories
40
Sleepwalking
67
Snow Angels
64
Son of Rambow
71
Standard Operating Procedure
76
Stuff and Dough
64
Surfwise
xx
Tashan
82
Taxi to the Dark Side
57
Teeth
56
Then She Found Me
55
Tracey Fragments, The
56
Turn the River
72
Tuya's Marriage
83
U2 3D
59
Under the Same Moon
76
Unforeseen, The
xx
Unsettled
91
Up the Yangtze
55
Vice
79
Visitor, The
64
Water Lilies
45
Where in the World Is Osama Bin Laden?
57
Without the King
74
Witnesses, The
63
XXY
67
Year My Parents Went on Vacation, The
75
Young@Heart
45
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
Noise
52
My Blueberry Nights
50
Look
48
Run, Fat Boy, Run
48
Dark Matter
48
Penelope
47
Bella
47
Boarding Gate
46
CJ7
46
Previous Engagement, A
45
Where in the World Is Osama Bin Laden?
45
Zombie Strippers
44
Frontier(s)
44
Chaos Theory
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.
|
Monster's Ball
Lions Gate Films Inc.
FILM:
MPAA RATING: R for strong sexual content, language and violence
Starring
Billy Bob Thornton,
Halle Berry,
Heath Ledger,
Peter Boyle,
Sean 'Puffy' Combs,
and
Coronji Calhoun
A hard-hitting Southern drama tempered by a story of powerful, life-changing love. It is the story of Hank (Thornton), an embittered prison guard working on Death Row in rural Georgia. He begins an unlikely but emotionally charged affair with Leticia (Berry), the wife of a man he has just executed. (Lions Gate Films)
| GENRE(S): |
Suspense/Thriller
|
| WRITTEN BY: |
Milo Addica
Will Rokos
|
| DIRECTED BY: |
Marc Forster
|
| RELEASE DATE: |
DVD: June 11, 2002
Video: June 11, 2002
Theatrical: December 26, 2001
|
| RUNNING TIME: |
111 minutes, Color |
| ORIGIN: |
USA |
Received 2002 Oscar nominations for Best Actress (Halle Berry, who won the award) and Best Original Screenplay. Berry also received a Golden Globe nomination.

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
Chicago Sun-Times
Roger Ebert
As for myself, as Leticia rejoined Hank in the last shot of the movie, I was thinking about her as deeply and urgently as about any movie character I can remember.

91
Portland Oregonian
Shawn Levy
It's a film in which complex issues are boiled down to human essences, not so much simplified as dramatized in the very best way.

90
Los Angeles Times
Kevin Thomas
Hank is but the latest of Thornton's strikingly taciturn characters in a whole string of movies, but for Berry, Leticia represents a big-screen breakthrough.

90
Washington Post
Stephen Hunter
The movie's stroke of sheer genius is its wondrous ending.

90
Rolling Stone
Peter Travers
The actors make it unique and unforgettable.

90
The New York Times
Dana Stevens
The raw intimacy of some of the scenes -- whether they take place at a diner, in the death house or in the bedroom -- is breathtaking.

90
Washington Post
Desson Thomson
The movie holds you in thrall from first frame to last. Hatred is hatred unslaked. So is racism, ugliness, love, lust and sorrow.

88
Miami Herald
Rene Rodriguez
Profoundly hopeful and optimistic film.

88
New York Post
Lou Lumenick
Packs a dramatic wallop that makes it one of the year's best movies.

88
ReelViews
James Berardinelli
This is as anti-Hollywood a film as I have seen in recent months, one which takes conventional plot ideas and uses them not to season a melodrama, but to enrich fully three-dimensional characters and create a forceful motion picture.

80
Time
Richard Corliss
The cast is uniformly superb, and Marc Forster's attentive direction gives proper weight to each perplexing emotion. Strip away the strident melodrama, and you have this season's moodiest, most adult love story.
80
Variety
Robert Koehler
Burning with a quiet intensity, Monster's Ball is bolstered by a poetic, intelligent sensibility not seen in an American film since Terrence Malick's "The Thin Red Line."

80
New Times (L.A.)
Gregory Weinkauf
Well redeemed by its dank atmosphere and cracker-barrel performances.

78
Austin Chronicle
Marjorie Baumgarten
The kind of quiet, effective film that burrows under the viewer's skin and takes root before you've had a chance to realize that it's permeated your constitutional makeup.

75
Philadelphia Inquirer
Carrie Rickey
Hate, love, bigotry, empathy and chance are the uninvited guests at Monster's Ball.

75
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Sean Axmaker
For all its darkness and tragedy, Monster's Ball is a film that wants to be liked and Forster stumbles over his good intentions to win the audience over.

75
Christian Science Monitor
David Sterritt
Its ethical and intellectual insights wane when the love story kicks in, weakening what might have been a much deeper movie. Still, its performances are wonderful to watch.

75
Baltimore Sun
Chris Kaltenbach
The film has a lot of right in it, including an ending that's suitably uncertain, but fraught with possibilities.
75
Boston Globe
Jay Carr
The kind of film that could easily be undone by its own high-minded ambitions and dissolve in a pall of uplift. But it stays the course and gives the season two of its notable performances.

75
San Francisco Chronicle
Edward Guthmann
Dark and beautifully directed melodrama about the strange intersection of racism and emotional need.

70
Wall Street Journal
Joe Morgenstern
Halle Berry is something else as Leticia Musgrove, the widow of an inmate who's just been executed by Hank and his crew, and that something else is commandingly passionate.
70
Film Threat
Michael Dequina
Berry delivers an extraordinary performance that will startle even her most faithful fans.

70
Chicago Reader
Lisa Alspector
A black waitress and a white corrections officer in rural Georgia experience more misery in the first hour of this movie than some people do in a lifetime, and to its credit the drama doesnt collapse under the weight.

67
Entertainment Weekly
Lisa Schwarzbaum
A traffic map of calls and responses, lessons and homework, wishes and fulfillment. All roads lead to acting-award nominations, but none lead to truth.

63
Chicago Tribune
Mark Caro
A serious movie made by seriously talented people, and I never quite came 'round to it.

60
TV Guide
Maitland McDonagh
The film's elliptical character development sometimes renders the actors' work opaque; restraint is an underpracticed virtue, but even it can be taken to excess.

50
New York Daily News
Jami Bernard
This movie hyperventilates with pessimism to the point of perversity.

50
Salon.com
Stephanie Zacharek
Handled more delicately, Monster's Ball could have been a fine little movie about human beings' capacity for growth and change. As it is, it's less than half a fine movie. The great surprise is that its actors come through in the clutch.

50
Village Voice
Michael Atkinson
Wastes a ton of potent material.

40
LA Weekly
Manohla Dargis
In its exploitation of human misery, Monster's Ball doesn't just invite cynicism; it provokes hostility.

40
New York Magazine
Peter Rainer
An arty sleepwalk. Thornton has developed a style of acting that goes beyond minimal into the near nonexistent.

30
Slate
David Edelstein
When a movie wrenches you with the deaths of children then leaves you with nothing to take home but your confusion, it can make you thirsty for the blood of directors.


The average user rating for this movie is 6.1 (out of 10) based on 32 User Votes
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