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
49
2012
60
9
17
All About Steve
37
Amelia
53
Astro Boy
70
Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans
52
Blind Side
47
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
23
Couples Retreat
39
Fame
30
Final Destination, The
34
Fourth Kind, The
41
G-Force
46
Halloween II
73
Hangover, The
78
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
66
Informant!, The
69
Inglourious Basterds
58
Invention of Lying, The
47
Jennifer's Body
66
Julie & Julia
34
Law Abiding Citizen
54
Men Who Stare At Goats, The
67
Michael Jackson's This Is It
28
Pandorum
58
Pirate Radio
39
Planet 51
30
Saw VI
53
Shorts
33
Stepfather, The
45
Surrogates
46
Twilight Saga: New Moon, The
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
39
Adventures of Power
66
Afterschool
73
Amreeka
49
Antichrist
76
Baader Meinhof Complex, The
86
Beaches of Agnes, The
71
Big Fan
65
Black Dynamite
76
Bliss
26
Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day, The
44
Brief Interviews with Hideous Men
81
Bright Star
76
Broken Embraces
70
Bronson
62
Cloud 9
65
Coco Before Chanel
69
Cold Souls
60
Collapse
82
Cove, The
75
Crude
82
Damned United, The
53
Dare
50
Defamation
67
Departures
70
Earth Days
85
Education, An
55
Endgame
88
Fantastic Mr. Fox
31
Fix
49
Food Beware: The French Organic Revolution
80
Food, Inc.
xx
From Mexico with Love
28
Gentlemen Broncos
72
Good Hair
89
Goodbye Solo
63
Horse Boy, The
74
House of the Devil, The
xx
How to Seduce Difficult Women
26
I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell
70
It Might Get Loud
46
Killing Kasztner
43
Little Traitor, The
34
Looking for Palladin
80
Lorna's Silence
46
Love Hurts
84
Maid, The
45
Mammoth
75
Messenger, The
55
Missing Person, The
59
More Than a Game
34
Motherhood
62
My One and Only
48
New York, I Love You
66
No Impact Man
26
Oh My God
68
Paranormal Activity
68
Paris
79
Precious: Based on the Novel by Sapphire
73
Red Cliff
69
September Issue, The
79
Serious Man, A
65
Skin
41
Splinterheads
42
Staten Island
50
Stoning of Soraya M., The
58
Storm
82
Sun, The
49
Ten9Eight: Shoot for the Moon
73
That Evening Sun
61
Trucker
49
Turning Green
83
U2 3D
45
Uncertainty
67
Visual Acoustics
32
War on Kids
67
Way We Get By, The
65
Wedding Song, The
xx
White on Rice
59
William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe
74
Woman in Berlin, A
43
Women in Trouble
69
Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
My Own Private Idaho
Generally favorable reviews
Based on 18 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 8 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Drama
Written by:
Gus Van Sant
William Shakespeare (play Henry IV)
Directed by: Gus Van Sant
Release Date:
Theatrical: October 18, 1991
DVD: March 1, 2005
Running Time: 102 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: R
Starring River Phoenix, Keanu Reeves, James Russo, William Richert, Rodney Harvey, Chiara Caselli, Michael Parker, and Jessie Thomas
In this loose reworking of Shakespeare's "Henry IV," Reeves stars as the prodigal son who slums in the Pacific Northwest's junkie lowlife milieu with Phoenix, who plays a narcaleptic hustler.
Also On Metacritic
FILM: Drugstore Cowboy Elephant Even Cowgirls Get the Blues Finding Forrester Gerry Good Will Hunting Last Days Milk Psycho To Die For
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database
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...
The New York Times Vincent Canby
The film itself is invigorating - written, directed, and acted with enormous insight and comic elan. [27 Sept 1991]
Washington Post Desson Thomson
It gets you below the emotional belt in a searing, delicate way. No movie this year approaches such magnificent imagery, such delectable poetry.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Dave Kehr
Beautifully wrought, darkly funny and finally devastating, My Own Private Idaho almost single-handedly revives the notion of personal filmmaking in the United States. [18 Oct 1991]
Washington Post Hal Hinson
Van Sant's sensibility is wholly original, wholly fresh. "My Own Private Idaho" adds a new ingredient: a kind of boho sweetness. I loved it.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum
The style is so eclectic that it may take some getting used to, but Van Sant, working from his own story for the first time, brings such lyrical focus to his characters and his poetry that almost everything works.
Read Full Review >Rolling Stone Peter Travers
Before this trippy, mesmerizing movie swerves out of control, it delivers an exhilarating and challenging ride.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Jay Scott
My Own Private Idaho achieves more than most movies dream of attempting. The Shakespearian allusions aside, Van Sant has essentially remade "Of Mice and Men" for the nineties, with Mike as the "mouse," Scott as the "man." It is the mouse who roars.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
There is no mechanical plot that has to grind to a Hollywood conclusion, and no contrived test for the heroes to pass; this is a movie about two particular young men, and how they pass their lives.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Staff (Not Credited)
Van Sant casts a gently hypnotic spell that is not easily forgotten.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten
It's a daredevil's ride that keeps you glued with fascination.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Lawrence O'Toole
But Van Sant, whose vision is otherwise sharp, pushes the connection to Shakespeare's Henry IV too far, having Reeves at one point declaim in rhyming couplets, which severely tests even the most forgiving viewer.
Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan
No matter what you've been used to, Idaho is something completely different, a film that manages to confound all expectations, even the ones it sets up itself. [18 Oct 1991]
USA Today Mike Clark
Truth is, Idaho is nothing but set pieces; tossed into a mix whose meaning is almost certainly private. [27 Sept 1991]
Empire Philip Thomas
With a more accomplished script and an actor of rather more technical prowess than Reeves (nabbing the Prince Hal role), this may just have worked. Here, it is just squirmingly embarrassing stuff.
Read Full Review >The New Yorker Terrence Rafferty
It's a beautiful disaster, like a bomb test out in the middle of nowhere. [7 Oct 1991, p.100]
Wall Street Journal Julie Salamon
This is all very strange and a little tedious. Yet there is something arresting and oddly poignant in Mr. Van Sant's playful vision of the road to nowhere. [3 Oct 1991, p.A14(E)]
Variety Staff (Not Credited)
The Shakespearean side of the story falls short due to Reeves' very narrow range as an actor.
Read Full Review >Time Richard Schickel
What plot it has is borrowed, improbably, from Henry IV, and whenever anyone manages to speak an entire paragraph, it is usually a Shakespearean paraphrase. But this is a desperate imposition on an essentially inert film. [28 Oct 1991]
What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 8.2 (out of 10) based on 8 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Eldon gave it a9:
This movie is intense and bizarre at times, I love it. And this new DVD release gives the movie new life and packaging worthy of it's art. A unique cinematic journey that deserves revisitation.
Pat C. gave it an 8:
It's an accurate visit to the hellhole some of us fell into in our adolescence. There's a lonely nostalgia about a place & time that would be a mistake on every imaginable level to return to. It is really a shame that a movie this good is about stuff that simply is not enjoyable to deal with, ever.
