Advanced Search >
Help Me Search

Movies

Weekend Box Office
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores
Best / Worst of the Decade

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

67 3 Idiots
47 44 Inch Chest
82 Ajami
71 American Radical: The Trials of Norman Finkelstein
73 Amreeka
75 Art of the Steal, The
43 Barefoot to Timbuktu
19 Bitch Slap
49 Blood Done Sign My Name
xx Bluebeard
24 Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day, The
76 Broken Embraces
52 Celine: Through the Eyes of the World
67 Children of Invention
53 Chloe
68 City Island
64 Cloud 9
65 Coco Before Chanel
84 Cove, The
83 Crazy Heart
21 Crazy on the Outside
51 Creation
xx Daddy Long Legs
81 Damned United, The
57 Defendor
61 Delta
68 Departures
64 District 13: Ultimatum
72 Easier with Practice
xx Eclipse, The
85 Education, An
61 Exploding Girl, The
70 Eyes Wide Open
24 Falling Awake
81 Fish Tank
56 For My Father
52 Formosa Betrayed
xx From Mexico with Love
43 Frozen
xx Ghost Town
77 Ghost Writer, The
69 Girl on the Train, The
75 Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The
47 Good Guy, The
76 Greenberg
35 Happy Tears
68 Harlan: In the Shadow of Jew Suess
20 Harlem Aria
76 IMAX: Hubble 3D
11 Killing Jar, The
52 Killing Kasztner
xx Kimjongilia
41 Last New Yorker, The
76 Last Station, The
47 Little Traitor, The
51 Loss of a Teardrop Diamond, The
71 Lourdes
73 Me and Orson Welles
77 Messenger, The
79 Mid-August Lunch
57 Missing Person, The
76 Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers, The
80 Mother
50 My Name is Khan
85 Neil Young Trunk Show
49 Nine
67 North Face
64 October Country
67 Off and Running
52 Paranoids, The
40 Phyllis and Harold
49 Pop Star on Ice
49 Private Lives of Pippa Lee, The
74 Prodigal Sons
xx Promised Lands (Re-release)
90 Prophet, A
76 Red Riding Trilogy, The
65 Runaways, The
32 Saint John of Las Vegas
83 Secret of Kells, The
69 September Issue, The
36 Serious Moonlight
57 Severe Clear
63 Shinjuku Incident, The
35 Shutterbug
77 Single Man, A
76 Still Bill
34 Stolen
xx Suicide Girls Must Die!
52 Tales from the Script
74 Terribly Happy
74 That Evening Sun
47 To Die for Tano
19 To Save a Life
63 Toe to Toe
69 Town Called Panic, A
54 Until the Light Takes Us
60 Videocracy
84 Vincere
66 Waiting for Armageddon
45 White on Rice
82 White Ribbon
xx White Stripes Under Great White Northern Lights, The
43 Women in Trouble
xx Word is Out
64 Yellow Handkerchief, The
64 Young Victoria, The

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Patch Adams

EMAILPRINTMCA/Universal Pictures

Patch Adams reviews
25
4.8 User Score:

Generally unfavorable reviews

Based on 21 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

Based on 21 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >

Movie Info

Genre(s): Comedy  |  Drama

Written by: Steve Oedekerk
Patch Adams (book Gesundheit: Good Health Is a Laughing Matter)
Maureen Mylander (book)

Directed by: Tom Shadyac

Release Date:
Theatrical: December 25, 1998
DVD: June 22, 1999

Running Time: 115 minutes, Color

Origin: USA

Summary

RATING: PG-13 for some strong language and crude humor

Starring Robin Williams, Daniel London, Monica Potter, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Bob Gunton, Josef Sommer, Irma P. Hall, and Frances Lee McCain

Robin Williams is Patch Adams - a doctor who believes in laughter as medicine and will do just about anything to make his patients laugh - even if it means risking his own career. (Universal)

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...

75

San Francisco Chronicle Peter Stack

A perfect vehicle for Robin Williams. He again plays the compassionate, manic clown that has been his main character throughout his movie career. And audiences love his wild end runs.

Read Full Review >
60

Variety Joe Leydon

Shamelessly sappy and emotionally manipulative, Patch Adams is an aggressively heartwarming comedy-drama that may be roasted by critics but embraced by ticketbuyers.

Read Full Review >
60

LA Weekly F. X. Feeney

Williams is a great clown, and Oedekirk and Shadyac give him room to really cut loose, and cure the movie. That’s as it should be.

Read Full Review >
60

Empire Darren Bignell

So the prognosis is generally positive, though there may be a touch too much sugar in this motion picture panacea, which is, in places, shamelessly sentimental to an extraordinarily manipulative degree.

Read Full Review >
50

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

The movie starts with insights about the need for more humane values in health care, then buries them under an avalanche of frivolities, vulgarities, and clichés.

Read Full Review >
50

San Francisco Examiner Edvins Beitiks

Could have been maudlin from start to finish. Instead, more than half the 154-minute film is riveting - filled with funny, touching bits that don't stoop to cheap sentimentality.

Read Full Review >
50

ReelViews James Berardinelli

The kind of film that will work for an audience that's just interested in having an emotional experience (with a happy ending) without caring how obviously or clumsily they are manipulated. I find this sort of sledgehammer film making to be offensive, but there are those who enjoy it.

Read Full Review >
40

The New York Times Elvis Mitchell

Low humor might count for more here if it weren't constantly overshadowed by the film's maudlin streak.

Read Full Review >
40

The Onion (A.V. Club) Nathan Rabin

The film begins to resemble the dramatic equivalent of a porno movie, with emotional orgasms spewing forth at a rapid clip. By the time Patch Adams reaches its narrative climax, it has long since shot its dramatic load.

Read Full Review >
40

Chicago Reader Lisa Alspector

The perfectly acceptable shtick executed by Williams--whose I-know-you-better-than-you-know-yourself seduction techniques ought to make him a hotter leading man--occasionally justifies the relentlessly light tone of this preachy 1998 comedy-drama.

Read Full Review >
40

Los Angeles Times Jack Mathews

Williams knows when material is working, and he knows the sound of an honestly aroused crowd. This ain't it!

Read Full Review >
38

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Made me want to spray the screen with Lysol. This movie is shameless. It's not merely a tearjerker. It extracts tears individually by liposuction, without anesthesia.

Read Full Review >
30

TV Guide Angel Cohn

Williams isn't really playing Adams: He's once again playing himself, and the act is getting tired.

Read Full Review >
30

Washington Post Rita Kempley

If laughter is the best medicine, Patch Adams is but a sugary, fitfully amusing placebo.

Read Full Review >
25

New York Daily News David Kehr

Patch Adams is either a brilliantly sly, straight-faced parody of the standard Robin Williams tearjerker or the soggiest movie of the season. [24 December 1998, p. 29]

25

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Ray Conlogue

Patch Adams is a flawed visionary, but surely he deserves better than this crass and manipulative movie.

Read Full Review >
20

The New Yorker David Denby

This shameless piece of sentimentality is indignantly on the side of feelings and spontaneity and against coldhearted technique, as if those were the only two choices in training doctors.

Read Full Review >
0

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

There should be a special room in Hell where the makers of films like Patch Adams are sent.

Read Full Review >
0

Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten

Audiences may find this pap brimming with heart and sympathy for the little guy, but as prescriptions go, Patch Adams is pure placebo.

Read Full Review >
0

Village Voice Dennis Lim

The year's most repugnant movie.

Read Full Review >
0

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

Oooh, this is toxic.

Read Full Review >

What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this movie is 4.8 (out of 10) based on 21 User Votes

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

Luke W gave it a9:
VERY underrated excellent movie.

Harry gave it a10:
Nominated for two Golden Globe awards including best Picture (musical or comedy), “Patch Adams” is by far, one of the most heartbreaking comedies or hilarious tragedies I have ever seen. After reading a few reviews of the site, I noticed that most critics bashed this film because it was against the medicine techniques. Well, to those naïve persons, I have to tell you that “Patch Adams” is based on the autobiography of the person of the same name. I rarely cry in a film and I cried in this one so that gives it even more credit. Plus, the performances are top notch, especially Robin William’s believable interpretation of Patch. All I’ll tell you, ignore the critics, go watch this film. Take it seriously and cry of emotion.

Gilbert Mulroneycakes FM gave it a1:
No. This is a very well made annoying film. I've often said that movies NEED to be manipulative, but they don't need to kick you in the crotch to make you cry. I'm really here to defend Robin Williams, who's a damn good actor and turns out a great performance in the irritating central role of a doomed movie. Not enough to save it, because his good performance pushes with the tide instead of against it. You want a good film with Robin Williams in a serious role, rent Good Will Hunting or...there is another one. Awakenings, that's it. Or, at a push, What Dreams May Come, similarly manipulative to this film, but with imagination and life to balance it out.

Brian G gave it a10:
A very heartwarming movie. Not to mention funny as hell, of course, since Robbin Williams is the main actor. Ignore the ciritics on this one, afterall, it's their job to be critical.

Frederick S. gave it a6:
Underrated but no masterpiece.

J Hawkins gave it a0:
Robin Williams singularly bastardizes the perfectly (worthwhile??) work of Patch Adams (well, maybe not...). At any rate, this film is unendurable, and appeals only to those of prurient taste.

Omar S. gave it a0:
Robin Williams is simply horrific in this leaden dud.

Read more user comments >

Popular on CBS sites: College Signing Day | March Madness | TV | iPhone | Cell Phones | Video Game Reviews | Free Music

About CBS Interactive | Jobs | Advertise

© 2010 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved. | Privacy Policy (UPDATED) | Terms of Use