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Monster's Ball
Lions Gate Films Inc.

Monster's Ball reviews
Critic Score
Metascore: 69 Metascore out of 100
User Score  
6.1 out of 10
based on 32 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
based on 32 votes
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Rate this movie

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.

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
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.
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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.
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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.
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90
Washington Post Stephen Hunter
The movie's stroke of sheer genius is its wondrous ending.
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90
Rolling Stone Peter Travers
The actors make it unique and unforgettable.
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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.
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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.
Read Full Review
88
Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez
Profoundly hopeful and optimistic film.
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88
New York Post Lou Lumenick
Packs a dramatic wallop that makes it one of the year's best movies.
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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.
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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."
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80
New Times (L.A.) Gregory Weinkauf
Well redeemed by its dank atmosphere and cracker-barrel performances.
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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.
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75
Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey
Hate, love, bigotry, empathy and chance are the uninvited guests at Monster's Ball.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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75
San Francisco Chronicle Edward Guthmann
Dark and beautifully directed melodrama about the strange intersection of racism and emotional need.
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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.
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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 doesn’t collapse under the weight.
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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.
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63
Chicago Tribune Mark Caro
A serious movie made by seriously talented people, and I never quite came 'round to it.
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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.
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50
New York Daily News Jami Bernard
This movie hyperventilates with pessimism to the point of perversity.
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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.
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50
Village Voice Michael Atkinson
Wastes a ton of potent material.
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40
LA Weekly Manohla Dargis
In its exploitation of human misery, Monster's Ball doesn't just invite cynicism; it provokes hostility.
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40
New York Magazine Peter Rainer
An arty sleepwalk. Thornton has developed a style of acting that goes beyond minimal into the near nonexistent.
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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.
Read Full Review

What Our Users Said

Vote Now!The average user rating for this movie is 6.1 (out of 10) based on 32 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

[Anonymous] gave it a7:
Barley any sex? what the hell does that have to do with a good movie. you guys are pretty stupid. Halle beery won and deserved that Oscar. she was the first African American woman to ever win one. she's a good actress and i only defend movies and actresses when people such as below give it low ratings because "there wasn't any nudity." give me a break

Blake J. gave it a9:
The most depressing movie I have ever seen, by far. Halle Berry's performance is mesmerizing. The scene in the hospital brings tears to my eyes, every time I watch it. For some reason, although it brings me down when I watch it, I watch it several times a year.

Pompè E. gave it a0:
This film was terrible. I was embarrassed, actually. How did Berry win the Oscar? She deserved the Razzie! Bad film. And barely any sex!

Ryan K. gave it a0:
Nothing but cheap, depressing & degrading movie. Doesn't do anything for black women nor black people in General. The only excuse for this movie is so Hollywood could see her screwing the O' Massa butt naked & that's a dirty cheap excuse to win an Oscar. Monsterball is nothing to be proud of. GET REAL!!!! Oh, & I get sick of people making excuses saying Hallie's character was raped when she was willing to perform like a weak needy hoe.

Mike M. gave it a 10:
Excellent! edge of your seat film. It will engross you totally!

Rodrigo R. gave it a 2:
The only thing that might have made this film worth the time waste was Halley Berry's acting... and it's just not enough.

Pat C. gave it a 6:
Engaging premise. Trails off somewhat to vaguely state whatever it was it was trying to say, something about moving on as either a insightful decision or an inevitable process. Either way, what the characters move on to seems to promise more vicious turns of fate in the future. Salvaged by dramatic performances - Berry is quite good. Admittedly a show which can be timely and beneficial for people in certain circumstances.

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