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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
65
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
63
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
80
Reprise
71
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
68
Surfwise
xx
Tashan
82
Taxi to the Dark Side
57
Teeth
56
Then She Found Me
55
Tracey Fragments, The
55
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
97
4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days
92
Diving Bell and the Butterfly, The
90
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
Reprise
80
Band's Visit, The
79
Visitor, The
78
Counterfeiters, The
76
Unforeseen, The
76
Stuff and Dough
75
Young@Heart
75
Shotgun Stories
75
Witnesses, The
73
Duchess of Langeais, The
72
Priceless
72
Tuya's Marriage
72
Life of Reilly, The
71
Standard Operating Procedure
71
Roman de gare
71
My Brother Is an Only Child
71
Blindsight
70
Caramel
69
Redbelt
69
Chicago 10
68
Surfwise
68
Honeydripper
67
Snow Angels
67
Praying with Lior
67
Jellyfish
67
Year My Parents Went on Vacation, The
67
Son of Rambow
66
George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead
66
Unsettled
66
Shelter
65
Battle for Haditha
65
Married Life
64
Water Lilies
63
XXY
63
Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
63
OSS 117: Cairo - Nest of Spies
63
Blind Mountain
62
Planet B-Boy
62
Dhamma Brothers, The
61
Girls Rock!
60
Body of War
59
Under the Same Moon
58
First Saturday in May, The
58
Fall, The
58
Hats Off
58
Bra Boys
57
Flawless
57
Teeth
57
Fugitive Pieces
57
Without the King
57
Grand, The
56
Then She Found Me
55
Vice
55
Turn the River
55
Tracey Fragments, The
55
Mister Lonely
55
Noise
55
Pathology
55
Glass: A Portrait of Philip in Twelve Parts
54
Cashback
52
My Blueberry Nights
50
Sangre de mi sangre
50
Look
49
Dark Matter
48
Run, Fat Boy, Run
48
Penelope
47
Bella
47
Boarding Gate
46
CJ7
46
Previous Engagement, A
45
Where in the World Is Osama Bin Laden?
45
Zombie Strippers
44
Frontier(s)
44
Chaos Theory
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
Plumm Summer, A
xx
Kiss the Bride
xx
Jack and Jill vs. the World
xx
From Within
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
|
Quills
Fox Searchlight Pictures
FILM:
MPAA RATING: R for strong sexual content including dialogue, violence and language
Starring
Geoffrey Rush,
Kate Winslet,
Joaquin Phoenix,
and
Michael Caine
Quills boldly enters the debate surrounding the Marquis De Sade by imagining his final days as a blistering black comedy thriller, a battle between lust and love - and between the brutality of censorship and the unpredictable consequences of free expression. (Fox Searchlight)
| GENRE(S): |
Drama
|
| WRITTEN BY: |
Doug Wright (also play)
|
| DIRECTED BY: |
Philip Kaufman
|
| RELEASE DATE: |
DVD: May 8, 2001
Video: May 8, 2001
Theatrical: November 22, 2000
|
| RUNNING TIME: |
123 minutes, Color |
| ORIGIN: |
USA |
Received three 2001 Oscar nominations, including Best Actor (Rush).

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 Tribune
Michael Wilmington
Kaufman's startling Quills gives us an anatomy of fear, images both silken swift and molten hot, scenes that disrupt and inflame the imagination.

90
Rolling Stone
Peter Travers
A savage comedy of sexual extremes; the barbed laughs draw blood.
90
Washington Post
Stephen Hunter
Profane, sacrilegious, pornographic, sadistic and Sade-istic, titillating and the most honorable movie of the year.

90
Salon.com
Stephanie Zacharek
It's an unapologetic dazzler, which is why it's never overwhelmed by its themes.

88
USA Today
Mike Clark
Uniformly robust acting puts still more feathers in the caps of Rush, Winslet and Caine.

88
Boston Globe
Jay Carr
A witty yet fiery and, in the best sense, provocative play of ideas about freedom of expression.

88
Chicago Sun-Times
Roger Ebert
Finds a tone that remains more entertaining than depressing, more absorbing than alarming.

88
Miami Herald
Rene Rodriguez
This playful, immensely entertaining movie knows that art is in the eye of the beholder.

80
LA Weekly
John Patterson
Remarkable energy and wit, and is probably the most purely enjoyable entry in Kaufman's suboeuvre of literary excursions.

80
Film.com
Peter Brunette
The dialogue is sparkingly witty, and Phoenix and Winslet are excellent in what are, after all, meant to be fairly one-dimensional roles.

80
Slate
David Edelstein
What the film does have is coruscating anger, impish wit, and a breathtaking style.

80
The New York Times
A.O. Scott
Occasionally becomes pretentious and shrill -- sometimes Mr. Wright isn't aware that his material is so good that he doesn't need to comment on his characters.

80
Village Voice
J. Hoberman
Kaufman's earnestly overblown celebration of the Marquis de Sade.

80
Mr. Showbiz
Kevin Maynard
A literate, dialogue-driven treat delivered by a cast that truly savors the script's wicked wit.

80
Chicago Reader
Jonathan Rosenbaum
Ridiculous enough to be hilarious, but this didn't prevent me from thoroughly enjoying Philip Kaufman's silly romp.

75
New York Daily News
Jack Mathews
The things you can look forward to, however, are the humor, intellectual musing, emotional tumult, superb acting and challenging adult questions.

75
San Francisco Chronicle
Peter Stack
Rush is amazing throughout this absorbing, provocative film.

70
Washington Post
Desson Thomson
Rush is too sinfully good for the drama he's in.

70
Variety
Todd McCarthy
Lacks an edge of danger or excitement that might have brought the subject alive in more than a cerebral way.

70
Newsweek
David Ansen
Ultimately, Quills descends into overwrought melodrama. But at its bright and bawdy best, it bubbles with subversive wit.

70
Film.com
Gemma Files
Quills -- like the Marquis himself--is a posey, pungent, ultra-theatrical yet weirdly seductive mess which wants to have its cake, eat it too and discuss the whole concept and context of its meal (constantly, contradictorily) while it does so.

67
Austin Chronicle
Marjorie Baumgarten
A stunningly impassioned and articulate study of a writer's life and the censorial demons that can strangle that voice.

67
Entertainment Weekly
Owen Gleiberman
Quills bleaches the danger -- and fascination -- out of De Sade, turning him into a kind of mad saint of ''Masterpiece Theatre'' porn.

63
Philadelphia Inquirer
Desmond Ryan
It's a work that preaches to the choir, and the song has been more subtly sung in better movies.

60
Dallas Observer
Gregory Weinkauf
Quills is bound to titillate some, but for most it's likely to summon little more than a few Oscars and appreciative yawns.

60
TV Guide
Maitland McDonagh
Censorship, madness, social rebellion and the power of art.

50
Christian Science Monitor
David Sterritt
The acting is passionate, but the film would be more effective if it presented a more thoroughgoing lesson in the raging horrors that swept through European culture during the era of the French Revolution.

50
Baltimore Sun
Chris Kaltenbach
One gets the feeling Kaufman was so intent on putting fury and fanaticism on-screen, he forgot about having it serve any greater purpose. Which makes Quills the film equivalent of one of de Sade's novels: artifice, without art.

30
Time
Richard Schickel
This is soft-gore porn, obvious in its strategies, witless in the play of its ideas, absurdist only in its pretense to seriousness.

25
New York Post
Jonathan Foreman
Resembles a period version of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" - played dead straight.

20
Los Angeles Times
Kenneth Turan
Soon becomes a sadistic experience in its own right. Experiencing this pretentious wallow -- overwritten, under-thought and overdone -- is a very sophisticated form of torture.


The average user rating for this movie is 7.5 (out of 10) based on 15 User Votes
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