Advanced Search >
Help Me Search

Movies

Weekend Box Office
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores

Wide Releases
Now In Theaters

sort by namesort by score

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Limited Releases
Now In Theaters

sort by namesort by score

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.

Paprika

EMAILPRINTSony Pictures Classics

Paprika reviews
81
8.0 User Score:

Movie Info

Genre(s): Animation  |  Foreign  |  Horror  |  Mystery  |  Sci-fi

Written by: Seishi Minakami
Satoshi Kon
Yasutaka Tsutsui (novel)

Directed by: Satoshi Kon

Release Date:
Theatrical: May 25, 2007
DVD: November 27, 2007

Running Time: 90 minutes, Color

Origin: Japan

Summary

RATING: R for violent and sexual images

Starring Megumi Hayashibara, Tôru Furuya, Kôichi Yamadera, Katsunosuke Hori, Toru Emori, Akio Ôtsuka, Hideyuki Tanaka, and Satomi Koorogi

Dr. Atsuko Chiba is a genius scientist by day, and a kick-ass dream warrior named Paprika by night. In this psychedelic sci-fi adventure anime, it will take the skills of both women to save the world. (Sony Pictures Classics)

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 Reader Andrea Gronvall

The intersections between sleep and waking, memory, cinema, and the Internet lead to a spectacular battle of titans who spring from the mind's darkest recesses.

Read Full Review >
91

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Gianni Truzzi

Despite the jumble, Kon's eye-popping, surreal mastery of the Japanese dream is awakening.

Read Full Review >
91

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

Fantasy leaks into reality.

Read Full Review >
90

Los Angeles Times John Anderson

Kon's best work yet.

Read Full Review >
90

Newsweek David Ansen

It happens to be one of the most wildly (and disturbingly) inventive animated films I've seen.

Read Full Review >
90

The New Yorker David Denby

The brilliant Paprika, directed by Satoshi Kon--a masterly example of Japanese anime, intended for adults--is partly hand drawn, and features multiple areas of visual activity layered at different distances from the picture plane.

Read Full Review >
90

The New York Times Manohla Dargis

A gorgeous riot of future-shock ideas and brightly animated imagery, the doors of perception never close.

Read Full Review >
88

Premiere Aaron Hillis

Paprika ain't no kiddie 'toon, even if its thumpin' techno-pop and bubble-gum thrills have the same splashy palette as an episode of "Pokémon" or "Dragon Ball Z."

Read Full Review >
88

Boston Globe Ty Burr

Someone walking cold into a movie theater showing Paprika might be excused for thinking the screen was having a Technicolor seizure. Fans of Japanese anime and filmmaker Satoshi Kon will simply feel dazzlingly at home.

Read Full Review >
88

New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman

Whatever it is you're looking for - comedy, horror, parades of singing frogs and dancing kitchen appliances - you'll find it in Satoshi Kon's anime adventure, a jaw-dropping feat of imagination.

Read Full Review >
88

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

While I liked the film's aesthetics and its futurist imaginings, its most important attraction is how it engages. Some movies massage you; others tickle you. This one jacks you into cyberspace, involving you psychically and physically.

Read Full Review >
83

The Onion (A.V. Club) Tasha Robinson

A film so joyfully insane that it feels like Kon is overcompensating.

Read Full Review >
80

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

Satoshi Kon, whose previous film was the remarkable "Tokyo Godfathers," uses the complex plot as a pretext for joyous psychedelia.

Read Full Review >
78

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

Schizophrenia never looked so good or so mesmerizing as it does here, and Paprika, while certainly not suitable for kids, manages to capture the childlike, helter-skelter chaos and curiosity of the human mind better than any other animated film.

Read Full Review >
75

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey

Paprika is a creatively dizzying and visually dazzling allegory about alternative realities.

Read Full Review >
75

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

It's not a film for children, and it's not even something children would like. It's challenging and disturbing and uncanny in the ways it captures the nature of dreams -- their odd logic, mutability and capacity to hint at deepest terrors.

Read Full Review >
75

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

We've gotten perhaps too used to the computerized wizardry of our own cartoon features; Kon, like Miyazaki shows us some older ways that can still transfix us.

Read Full Review >
75

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Fiercely provocative, Paprika shames Hollywood’s use of animation as a kiddie pacifier.

Read Full Review >
75

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

It's a great place to visit, even if you wouldn't want to live there.

Read Full Review >
75

New York Post Lou Lumenick

I can't claim to have followed the story line of Paprika any better than I did "Pirates of the Caribbean," but this mind-blowing, adult animated adventure from Japan is half the length and maybe five times as much fun.

Read Full Review >
70

Variety Leslie Felperin

With its brainy scientist heroine, and surreal, super-kitsch imagery, above-average Japanese anime sci-fi pic Paprika has a better chance than most Nipponese toons of breaking out of the specialty ghetto by appealing to femme auds as well as the genre's core constituency of fanboys.

Read Full Review >
70

Village Voice Rob Nelson

Paprika, based on a serialized novel by Yasutaka Tsutsui, isn't a movie that's meant to be understood so much as simply experienced--or maybe dreamed.

Read Full Review >
70

The Hollywood Reporter Richard James Havis

It is an intelligently written piece that only falters during the finale.

Read Full Review >
70

Slate Dana Stevens

One thing is for sure: The über-dream is both gorgeously animated, in Kon's shimmering, hyperreal style, and sickeningly scary.

Read Full Review >
70

LA Weekly Staff (Not credited)

This loopy anime from director Satoshi Kon ("Millennium Actress") isn't a movie that's meant to be understood so much as simply experienced -- or maybe dreamed.

Read Full Review >
70

Washington Post Desson Thomson

It's best appreciated by assuming something of a dream state ourselves and enjoying the giddy flow.

Read Full Review >

What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this movie is 8.0 (out of 10) based on 25 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

T M. gave it a10:
Absolutely amazing. best film on dreams I have ever seen, and one of the best films of the decade. need to see it again to delve further into the dream.

[Anonymous] gave it a10:
Inspiring, memorable and downright hilarious. It's a pretty polarizing film - some like it, some don't - but it's worth your money any way you look at it.

Troy K. gave it a7:
Truly in a class of his own. Great flick!

konceptz gave it a10:
The truth of this film, although a nightmare to some and a dream to others, is a reality which we can no longer ignore.

256kbps gave it a10:
Absolutely incredible. I will have to see it many more times to fully appreciate all the levels of visual and philosophical interaction that was going on throughout the entire movie. Seeing the parade of inanimate objects on its own is worth the cost of admittance.

moo gave it a6:
The animation was suberb as in any of Kon's movies, but the story and the characters are kind of dull after all. Not to mention the soundtrack got onto my nerves. Very fascinating and imaginative dreamscapes with lots of color and weird figures is what kept this movie above average for me. I really liked "Tokyo Godfathers" with its heart-warming story and lovely protagonists. In the end "Paprika" is just a weird dream. Not a bad one, not a such a good one either. But a better one!

Andrew K. gave it a7:
I don't normally like anime, and I didn't really think Tokyo Godfathers was all that great, but I really loved this film. I love anything that has to do with dreams, and this had plenty of surreal dream imagery to keep me interested. Little has been said in the reviews about the characters themselves. Paprika herself is adorable and her scientist counterpart, Atsuko, is interesting in that she refuses to let her playful side out of her when she is herself. The odd interaction between Atsuko and Paprika makes it hard to know where one begins and the other ends. The old man that she works for is good for a laugh (sorry I can't remember names...been a week or two). The cop character is interesting and a good hero figure that we believe in. The fat scientist who creates the device used to enter people's dreams is funny and endearing, but if there were any flaw with the movie, I'd have to say that it was in not establishing enough of a connection between him and Atsuko in the beginning. It would make more sense for what comes at the end. The villains in the film are wonderfully evil. The mastermind is a megalomaniac and his accomplice is demented in just the right, creepy ways. There were shades of Silence of the Lambs in the scene where he has Atsuko pinned down on the table (or maybe it was just the butterfly imagery that made me think of it). The dreams are so brilliantly insane as well as creepy. I wouldn't even say that it's that difficult to understand as almost everyone else is saying. There were only one or two moments where I was unsure what was going on, and I was willing to forgive that because it added to the surreal nature of the film. This was a great movie. Don't discount it because it's anime, if you're the type, like me, who often does that. One of the best films this year!

Read more user comments >

Popular on CBS sites: SEC Football | NFL | Video Game Cheats | iPhone | Video Game Reviews | Notebooks | Antivirus Software

About CBS Interactive | Jobs | Advertise

© 2009 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved. | Privacy Policy (UPDATED) | Terms of Use