CNET Networks Entertainment GameSpot | GameFAQs | SportsGamer | Metacritic | MP3.com | TV.com
Home | About Metacritic | About Metascores | What's New | Wireless Versions | Discussion Forums | Advertising Inquiries | Contact Us | RSS
Metacritic.com: We Deal With Criticism
     Help
> Switch to Advanced Search  
Film Video/DVD Music Games TV

Film

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

 

Wide Releases

sort by name sort by score

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

 

Limited Releases

sort by name sort by score

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
60 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
49 Dark Matter
35 Deal
62 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)
57 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
55 Mister Lonely
52 My Blueberry Nights
71 My Brother Is an Only Child
55 Noise
62 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
46 Previous Engagement, A
72 Priceless
17 Prom Night
69 Redbelt
79 Reprise
72 Roman de gare
48 Run, Fat Boy, Run
50 Sangre de mi sangre
85 Savages, The
24 Sex and Death 101
66 Shelter
75 Shotgun Stories
40 Sleepwalking
67 Snow Angels
67 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
57 Turn the River
72 Tuya's Marriage
83 U2 3D
59 Under the Same Moon
76 Unforeseen, The
66 Unsettled
90 Up the Yangtze
55 Vice
79 Visitor, The
64 Water Lilies
45 Where in the World Is Osama Bin Laden?
57 Without the King
75 Witnesses, The
63 XXY
67 Year My Parents Went on Vacation, The
75 Young@Heart
45 Zombie Strippers

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

 



Printer-Friendly Version Email This Page Discuss In Our Forums

Prestige, The
Newmarket Films

Prestige, The reviews
Critic Score
Metascore: 66 Metascore out of 100
User Score  
8.4 out of 10
based on 36 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
based on 142 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

MPAA RATING: PG-13 for violence and disturbing images

Starring Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Scarlett Johansson, David Bowie, Rebecca Hall, Andy Serkis, and Piper Perabo

Christopher Nolan directs this mysterious story of two magicians whose intense rivalry leads them on a life-long battle for supremacy full of obsession, deceit and jealousy with dangerous and deadly consequences. (Touchstone Pictures)


GENRE(S): Drama  |  Fantasy  |  Sci-fi  |  Suspense/Thriller  
WRITTEN BY: Jonathan Nolan
Christopher Nolan
Christopher Priest (novel)
 
DIRECTED BY: Christopher Nolan  
RELEASE DATE: DVD: February 20, 2007 
Theatrical: October 20, 2006 
RUNNING TIME: 128 minutes, Color 
ORIGIN: USA / UK 

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
Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman
To talk more about the movie's layers is to risk giving away too much. I'll say only that this film confirms Nolan's status as the director whose work I look forward to more than any other.
Read Full Review
88
TV Guide Maitland McDonagh
The film's prestige is a doozy, both dazzling and preposterous, but if you're watching closely -- as Cutter advises in the film's first few minutes -- it's flawlessly set up.
Read Full Review
88
Rolling Stone Peter Travers
Nolan directs the film exactly like a great trick, so you want to see it again the second it's over. I'd call that wicked clever.
Read Full Review
88
USA Today Claudia Puig
A visually stunning, startlingly clever sleight of hand that will have audiences pondering well after the lights go up.
Read Full Review
83
Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
The Prestige isn't art, but it reaps a lot of fun out of the question, How did they do that?
Read Full Review
80
The New York Times A.O. Scott
Stuffed with hard-working actors, sleek effects and stagy period details, The Prestige, directed by Christopher Nolan from a script he wrote with his brother Jonathan, is an intricate and elaborate machine designed for the simple purpose of diversion.
Read Full Review
80
Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan
The Prestige does more than focus on magicians. It is so in love with the romance, wonder and ability to fool of stage illusion that it becomes something of a magic trick in and of itself
Read Full Review
80
Washington Post Ann Hornaday
Bale and Jackman inject their reliable charisma into two otherwise very cold fish. Okay, I'll say it: If you see only one magic-at-the-turn-of-the-century movie this year, make it this one.
Read Full Review
80
Slate Dana Stevens
The Prestige is utterly without pretense. It doesn't want to explore epistemological questions about the nature of perception and memory; it just wants to mess with our heads. And as a wily, slightly sadistic chess game of a movie, it succeeds quite nicely.
Read Full Review
80
Newsweek David Ansen
Take the movie's first words to heart: watch closely. You'll be well rewarded.
Read Full Review
80
Time Richard Schickel
For all the film's murky misdirections, it is very enjoyable. That's because Nolan's recreation of the illusionists' backstage world is so marvelously detailed, including as it does revelations of how some of their best tricks are accomplished.
Read Full Review
80
Empire Dan Jolin
The Prestige traces the course of their bitter feud, as their respective acts of sabotage become ever more deadly.
Read Full Review
75
Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
Christopher Nolan's The Prestige has just about everything I require in a movie about magicians, except ... the Prestige.
Read Full Review
75
Portland Oregonian M. E. Russell
It's a gorgeous, strange little piece -- but I did find myself wishing it poked fewer aces out its sleeve after urging us to pay such close attention.
Read Full Review
75
Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez
Nolan, who has become an assured, stylish filmmaker in the span of only a few films, keeps the complicated plot spinning.
Read Full Review
75
Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer
Has its moments.
Read Full Review
75
Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach
In the end, there's enough movie magic in The Prestige to keep you guessing, even after the film's over.
Read Full Review
75
Boston Globe Ty Burr
It's like "The Illusionist" crossed with a really hard Sudoku.
Read Full Review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen
[Nolan is] back in the fine engineering business, crafting a story as intricately designed as a magician's lock, tightly packed with tumblers of deception and issuing a fun challenge to any volunteers in the audience: Just try to pick it.
Read Full Review
70
Village Voice Scott Foundas
The result is a lopsided yet absorbing movie in which the director is less drawn to his main characters than to those on the periphery.
Read Full Review
67
The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias
For all its surface dazzle, The Prestige shares with this year's earlier "The Illusionist" a certain core hollowness. Maybe that's a natural consequence of even the best magic shows: You can't help but feel duped.
Read Full Review
63
Premiere Ethan Alter
If The Prestige is something of a let down as a magic trick, it's more successful as a tale of obsession. The rivalry between the magicians is brutal and bloody and Bale and Jackman do their best work when they're plotting each other's downfall.
Read Full Review
63
New York Daily News Jack Mathews
By describing the structure of a great trick in a movie about a great trick, The Prestige makes a promise it can't keep. Its third act is about as convincing as a photo of a cow jumping over the moon.
Read Full Review
63
Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips
Many, I suspect, will fall for The Prestige and its blend of one-upsmanship and science fiction. I prefer "The Illusionist," the movie that got here first.
Read Full Review
63
New York Post Kyle Smith
On the M. Night Shyamalan scale of stupid endings, The Prestige isn't as bad as "The Village" but it's comparable to "Unbreakable."
Read Full Review
63
ReelViews James Berardinelli
There's plenty going on but never any real magic.
Read Full Review
58
Seattle Post-Intelligencer Paula Nechak
If you can forgive some woeful casting and a plot that is as creakingly thin as an old staircase, you can enjoy director Christopher Nolan's The Prestige.
Read Full Review
50
The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt
Audiences might enjoy this cinematic sleight of hand, but the key characters are such single-minded, calculating individuals that the real magic would be to find any heart in this tale.
Read Full Review
50
Film Threat Mark Bell
When all is said and done and you get the full explanation of what meant what and who did what to whom, it's not fulfilling at all. It's a magic trick that's all showmanship and craft, but lacking true whimsy, ultimately failing the audience.
Read Full Review
50
Chicago Reader J.R. Jones
"The Illusionist" also centers on a 19th-century magician, and the elegant contours of its story are even more impressive compared with Nolan's clutter of double and triple crosses.
Read Full Review
50
Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea
Jonathan and Christopher Nolan's adaptation of this novel by Christopher Priest offers three acts of exasperating muddle.
Read Full Review
50
Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek
The Prestige is a trick box with too many false bottoms. Ultimately, the last one simply gives way -- leaving us with a hole, and a little residual darkness, but not much else.
Read Full Review
50
New York Magazine David Edelstein
The tit-for-tat scenario ought to be wildly entertaining, but the magic is crude, the characters flyweight, and the story protracted and unpleasant.
Read Full Review
50
Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov
Truth itself is little more than a word in The Prestige, a film that both celebrates the wonder of being fooled and the foolishness of wanting just that.
Read Full Review
40
Variety Dennis Harvey
Clearly, director Nolan is aiming for something else. But the delight in sheer gamesmanship that marked his breakout "Memento" doesn't survive this project's gimmickry and aspirations toward "Les Miserables"-style epic passion.
Read Full Review
25
San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle
Thus, we find ourselves watching an ice-cold movie about competition that contains not a shred of rooting interest.
Read Full Review

What Our Users Said

Vote Now!The average user rating for this movie is 8.4 (out of 10) based on 142 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

[Anonymous] gave it a10:
This film is fantastic. Best of the Christopher Nolans movie.

Devon S. gave it a7:
Great special effects, and (too) many twists and turns make up for the many spots where this film could've ended.

Jaime La vie gave it a9:
I usually don't vote, nor comment on movies. This time though, I have to : what is this about "science-fiction" ruining the movie or "hollow ending" ? Some critics obviously need to see the movie twice, maybe then they will understand why it is called "the prestige". The whole movie is a delightful, most enjoyable magical trick. But as Cutter explains in the movie : "people don't see the truth because they don't want to". Congratulations !

Viktor N. gave it an8:
Quite a wonderful film ride, some may think this is a slow movie thats boring and pointless and with "plot holes" or whatever. I am not one of them. I really do like this film more than The Illusionist by a bit, it still thrills me to see Mr Bale and Mr Jackman hacking away at each other on screen. Easily one of the best films of 2006. On par with Children of Men and Pan's Labyrinth.

Bill A gave it a10:
This film is absolutely stunning and jaw dropping. Without no doubt Nolan truly does show his expertise in producing such a magnificent piece of work. Utterly, utterly amazing.

Michael H gave it a7:
Not nearly as tight as Momento.. tends to wander a little bit. Some fine acting and some interesting period pieces. The characters though are a little too promiscuous and shifting to hold our attention for long, they are like ciphers...maybe intentional but it somehow was not as neatly tied together as Momento.

Nick A. gave it a9:
Christopher Nolan has been on the brink of penetrating Hollywood’s elite silver circle of directors since his second feature-film, 'Memento,' which caught the attention of audiences and critics alike and became an instant cult classic. After the tremendous success that was 'Batman Begins,' he assured movie-fanatics across the nation that he was for real. 'The Prestige,' a marvelously directed era extravaganza with top-notch acting and a beguiling script, tells one of the fiercest tales of jealousy, obsession and loathsome rivalry. Christian Bale delivers a tantalizing performance as Alfred Borden, the stories superior magician that lacks the showmanship to be the greatest. Jackman’s performance is the perfect counterpoint as he plays the envious adversary who’s willing to do anything to uncover his foe’s methods. From a technical standpoint, this thriller is nearly faultless, and Nolan magically keeps his audience guessing until the final shot. 'The Prestige' is a riveting suspense-drama that will have even the most avid movie-goers in wonderment at its outcome! Are you watching closely?

Read more user comments...

Discuss this movie in our forums

Return to top of page
Home | FILM | DVD/VIDEO | MUSIC | GAMES | TV | Forums | About Metacritic metacritic.com

About CNET Networks | Jobs | Advertise | Partnerships                                Visit other CNET Networks sites:

Copyright ©2007 CNET Networks, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Privacy Policy | Terms of Use