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69
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67
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65
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64
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62
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61
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61
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58
Mist, The
57
Forbidden Kingdom, The
57
Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay
55
Street Kings
55
Nim's Island
55
Baby Mama
54
You Don't Mess with the Zohan
54
Get Smart
53
Sex and the City: The Movie
49
Hancock
48
National Treasure: Book of Secrets
47
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44
Ruins, The
41
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37
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37
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37
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36
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36
What Happens in Vegas...
35
Jumper
34
Happening, The
34
10,000 B.C.
33
Superhero Movie
31
Deception
24
Love Guru, The
22
Postal
xx
Hellboy II: The Golden Army
xx
Dark Knight, The
xx
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Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D
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84
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84
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83
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83
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83
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83
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83
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82
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81
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80
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80
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79
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79
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79
Visitor, The
78
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76
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76
Shotgun Stories
75
Young@Heart
74
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74
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73
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72
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72
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72
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72
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71
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71
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71
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70
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70
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70
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70
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69
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69
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69
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68
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68
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68
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67
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66
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66
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64
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64
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64
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64
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64
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63
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63
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63
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62
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62
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62
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62
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61
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61
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60
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60
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60
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59
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57
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56
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56
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56
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55
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55
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55
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55
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55
Without the King
54
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53
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52
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52
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52
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52
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51
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51
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51
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49
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47
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45
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38
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37
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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
|
Paprika
Sony Pictures Classics
MPAA 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)
| GENRE(S): |
Animation
|
Foreign
|
Horror
|
Mystery
|
Sci-fi
|
| WRITTEN BY: |
Seishi Minakami
Satoshi Kon
Yasutaka Tsutsui (novel)
|
| DIRECTED BY: |
Satoshi Kon
|
| RELEASE DATE: |
DVD: November 27, 2007
Theatrical: May 25, 2007
|
| RUNNING TIME: |
90 minutes, Color |
| ORIGIN: |
Japan |
| LANGUAGE(S): |
Japanese (with English subitles) |
Nominated, Golden Lion, 2006 Venice Film Festival

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.

91
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Gianni Truzzi
Despite the jumble, Kon's eye-popping, surreal mastery of the Japanese dream is awakening.

91
Entertainment Weekly
Lisa Schwarzbaum
Fantasy leaks into reality.

90
Los Angeles Times
John Anderson
Kon's best work yet.

90
Newsweek
David Ansen
It happens to be one of the most wildly (and disturbingly) inventive animated films I've seen.

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.

90
The New York Times
Manohla Dargis
A gorgeous riot of future-shock ideas and brightly animated imagery, the doors of perception never close.

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."

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.

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.

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.

83
The Onion (A.V. Club)
Tasha Robinson
A film so joyfully insane that it feels like Kon is overcompensating.

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.

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.

75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
Liam Lacey
Paprika is a creatively dizzying and visually dazzling allegory about alternative realities.

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.

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.

75
Rolling Stone
Peter Travers
Fiercely provocative, Paprika shames Hollywood’s use of animation as a kiddie pacifier.

75
TV Guide
Maitland McDonagh
It's a great place to visit, even if you wouldn't want to live there.

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.

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.

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.

70
The Hollywood Reporter
Richard James Havis
It is an intelligently written piece that only falters during the finale.

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.

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.

70
Washington Post
Desson Thomson
It's best appreciated by assuming something of a dream state ourselves and enjoying the giddy flow.


The average user rating for this movie is 7.9 (out of 10) based on 24 User Votes
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