|

Now Playing
Critics & Publications
Archives: A-Z Index
Advanced Search
Upcoming Release Calendar
Weekend Box Office
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores
How Metascores Are Calculated
Discuss Film In Our Forums

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
49
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
44
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
My Blueberry Nights
50
Look
49
Noise
48
Run, Fat Boy, Run
48
Dark Matter
48
Penelope
47
Bella
47
Boarding Gate
46
CJ7
45
Where in the World Is Osama Bin Laden?
45
Zombie Strippers
44
Frontier(s)
44
Chaos Theory
44
Previous Engagement, A
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.
|
Nacho Libre
Paramount Pictures
FILM:
MPAA RATING: PG for some rough action, and crude humor including dialogue
Starring
Jack Black,
Ana de la Reguera,
Héctor Jiménez,
and
Richard Montoya
Jack Black stars as Ignacio (friends call him Nacho), a cook by day in a Mexican orphanage, who moonlights as a lucha libre wrestler to raise money for the orphans in this comedy from the creators of "Napoleon Dynamite" and the writer of "The School of Rock." (Paramount)
| GENRE(S): |
Comedy
|
| WRITTEN BY: |
Jared Hess
Jerusha Hess
Mike White
|
| DIRECTED BY: |
Jared Hess
|
| RELEASE DATE: |
DVD: October 24, 2006
Theatrical: June 16, 2006
|
| RUNNING TIME: |
100 minutes, Color |
| ORIGIN: |
USA |

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...
80
The New York Times
Manohla Dargis
Endearingly ridiculous.

80
Los Angeles Times
Carina Chocano
What's rare to see, and what ultimately makes Nacho Libre so enjoyable, is the story of an underdog who's allowed to remain a humble clown all the way to becoming a hero.

75
Philadelphia Inquirer
Steven Rea
Black's caped "luchador" grows on you. Like a fun guy.

75
USA Today
Claudia Puig
What is missing in plot and character development is made up for in silly fun.

75
New York Post
Kyle Smith
Hess' deadpan dorks are strange, really strange. As in the Christopher Guest movies, there is a distinct comedy architecture you recognize from the opening minutes.

70
New York Magazine
David Edelstein
The movie is semi-infantile camp but often riotous.

70
The Hollywood Reporter
Michael Rechtshaffen
An amiably clunky, unapologetically silly summer confection that nevertheless lands sufficient lethal slams to the funny bone.

70
Variety
Joe Leydon
Nacho Libre strikes a delicate balance of whimsy and absurdity that may surprise auds primed to expect wall-to-wall slapstick.

67
Portland Oregonian
Shawn Levy
You either come into Nacho Libre ready to surrender yourself to Hess' quirks and smirks or you don't. Middle ground is virtually impossible to imagine.

63
Miami Herald
Rene Rodriguez
The movie is a bauble, but it's an enjoyably weird and original one, and it is anchored by Black's constantly amusing performance.

63
Chicago Tribune
Michael Phillips
The film is easy to take and easy to forget, even with Black running around Oaxaca in turquoise wrestling tights.

63
New York Daily News
Jack Mathews
The sweetness of Nacho's nature, along with Black's unselfconscious physical
enthusiasm, turn all this into a live-action cartoon, with the ring violence
having no greater consequence than a Wile E. Coyote fall from a high place.

60
Empire
Ian Nathan
A daft idea perfectly calibrated to Black?s pop mania, then hermetically sealed by a director who thinks he?s making a Hal Hartley movie.

58
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Sean Axmaker
It's weird, clean, good-natured fun, and it's far too subdued for its madcap milieu.

58
Baltimore Sun
Chris Kaltenbach
Nacho Libre enhances Hess' reputation as a gifted filmmaker and suggests there's more to Black than manic dementia. Both director and actor, however, need to find projects better-suited to their respective (and often impressive) talents.

50
Boston Globe
Ty Burr
Very broad and very silly, it's a doodle of a comedy -- a one-joke idea (fat guy goes luchador) padded out to feature length by Black's willingness to do anything for a laugh.

50
Film Threat
Pete Vonder Haar
As with "Napoleon Dynamite," Hess' sense of humor is an acquired taste, where all the characters speak in peculiar cadences and are afflicted with a terminal case of the "quirkies." What?s unfortunately missing from Nacho Libre is much in the way of humor.

50
Chicago Reader
J.R. Jones
Mike White contributed to the script, and though he shares with the Hesses an innocence that can be both sweet and slightly grotesque (e.g., Chuck and Buck), his influence is most evident here in the conventional plotting.

50
San Francisco Chronicle
Mick LaSalle
The comedy is hit and miss, with good bits interrupted by dead patches. It's a movie to root for more than to enjoy.

50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
Liam Lacey
This is a comedy at cross-purposes -- by turns low-key, bombastic, mildly amusing, manically slapstick. At least there are the fart jokes as a connecting thread.

50
The New Yorker
David Denby
There are many scenes of mock-lucha wrestling, which become as boring as actual wrestling. Nacho Libre, naïvely made kids? stuff, lacks such minor attributes as a decent script and supporting cast.

50
Rolling Stone
Peter Travers
This Nacho leaves your palate longing for more spice and less rancid cheese.

50
Austin Chronicle
Marc Savlov
Infinitely more entertaining than anything the WWE has done recently, this sophomore outing from "Napoleon Dynamite" director Hess is full of cheesy goodness, but it's Velveeta.

50
Village Voice
Robert Wilonsky
Nacho Libre plays like a Jack Black best-of, down to the song he wrote and performs for de La Reguera that sounds like some Tejano version of a Tenacious D throwaway.

50
LA Weekly
Scott Foundas
Like the abominable "Napoleon Dynamite," director Jared Hess' second feature will doubtless capture the hearts and minds of 12-year-old boys everywhere, even if Nacho Libre sacrifices the earlier film's aggressive mean-spiritedness in favor of gentle slapstick lunacy.

50
Premiere
Aaron Hillis
When he runs out of material to tickle with, Black dips into his musically tenacious "deedle-diddle-dee" for some sure-fire ridiculousness.

50
Christian Science Monitor
Peter Rainer
By making Nacho a do-gooder, Hess defuses Black's subversive energy. You could argue that Black also played a do-gooder in "School of Rock," but the kids in that film were a lot spunkier, and Black wasn't constantly playing for sympathy as he does here.

50
Washington Post
Stephen Hunter
Is it funny? Now and then. Stupid? Very. Racist? Possibly. Ugly? Profoundly. Wild? Undeniably. Singular? Completely.

50
The Onion (A.V. Club)
Nathan Rabin
How can any comedy with Jack Black as a Mexican wrestler not be gut-bustingly hilarious? Nacho Libre provides an all-too-convincing answer.

50
Wall Street Journal
Joe Morgenstern
Once Nacho gets the wrestling bug, though, it's all about Jack Black the irrepressible clown, and the comedy dies a slow death for lack of fresh ideas.
50
ReelViews
James Berardinelli
Too much in Nacho Libre doesn't work to enable me to recommend it to anyone except a card-carrying member of the Jack Black fan club.

50
Charlotte Observer
Lawrence Toppman
The two stars of Nacho Libre, Jack Black and Jack Black's hair, take different paths.

40
Slate
Dana Stevens
Sputters to an ignominious halt in the first 20 minutes.

38
Chicago Sun-Times
Roger Ebert
It takes some doing to make a Jack Black comedy that doesn't work. But Nacho Libre does it.

38
TV Guide
Maitland McDonagh
It's a one-gag film that rises or falls on how funny you find the sight of fat, grease-slicked Jack Black crammed into spandex pants and capering like an epileptic lamb.

33
Entertainment Weekly
Owen Gleiberman
You can see what the film was going for, but the jokes just sit there; you chuckle a few times, mostly out of lame hope, but you never bust a gut, never really get what you came for.


The average user rating for this movie is 6.5 (out of 10) based on 112 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Read more user comments...
Discuss this movie in our forums |