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Religulous
Mixed or average reviews
Based on 31 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 117 votes
Read user comments
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Movie Info
Genre(s): Documentary
Written by:
Directed by: Larry Charles
Release Date:
Theatrical: October 3, 2008
DVD: February 17, 2009
Running Time: 101 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Language(s): English | Hebrew | Arabic | Persian | Spanish
Summary
RATING: R for some language and sexual material
Starring Bill Maher, Jose Luis De Jesus Miranda, Steve Berg, and Andrew Newberg
Religulous follows political humorist and author Bill Maher as he travels around the globe interviewing people about God and religion. Known for his astute analytical skills, irreverent wit and commitment to never pulling a punch, Maher brings his characteristic honesty to an unusual spiritual journey. (Lionsgate)
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database Official Studio Site
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...
Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
He's a bombs-away provocateur, and in Religulous, Maher's blasphemous detonation of all things holy and scriptural, he doesn't really pretend to play fair. He's like Lenny Bruce with an inquiring mind and a video camera.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
You may very well hate it, but at least you've been informed. Perhaps you could enjoy the material about other religions, and tune out when yours is being discussed. That's only human nature.
Read Full Review >Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow
The results are often as surprising as they are funny.
Read Full Review >Empire Helen O'Hara
It's a rare film that can simultaneously crack you up and send a chill down your spine. Worth seeing -- even for believers.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Joe Neumaier
What he does do finally in this funny, refreshing movie is assert how unrestrained religiosity could guarantee the "end days" many of his subjects admit to looking forward to.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten
Though fashioned as popular entertainment with laughs, light moments, and mostly humorous segments, Religulous is as serious as a disapproving Jehovah about its mission to upend our rote allegiance to blind religious faith.
Read Full Review >USA Today Claudia Puig
Those with a taste for irreverent humor and clear-eyed analysis will find it funny, enlightening and disturbing.
Read Full Review >New York Post Kyle Smith
Maher's sense of humor deserts him in the end, though, when in an apocalyptic montage of fire and hate (bin Laden, Pat Robertson), he suggests all religions are equally bent on destruction of the Earth. It's fatuous to suggest that the Iraq war was launched because of religion or that belief in the Book of Revelation is the same as organizing terrorist attacks.
Read Full Review >Rolling Stone Peter Travers
Maher can be a smartass, but his attempts to apply reason to religion are more a challenge than a threat.
Read Full Review >Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold
Stylistically, Religulous is very much like a Michael Moore documentary, in that most of the scenes have a comic structure, end with a punch line and are designed to make Maher-the-interviewer look sane and rational while his subject comes off as a complete fool.
Read Full Review >Variety Robert Koehler
To the film's credit, Maher never engages in Michael Moore-style gotcha tactics, but rather asks questions that raise more questions, in the form of a Socratic dialogue. To believers expecting a blind hatchet job, this will prove both thought-provoking and a bit disarming; skeptics may be surprised (as Maher is) by the occasionally smart replies to his queries.
Read Full Review >New York Magazine David Edelstein
As he delivered his climactic sermon in the Israeli desert, I murmured, "Amen, brother." Religulous is a religious experience.
Read Full Review >Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer
Was Maher afraid he might muddy his clownish jape if he actually brought into the mix a learned theologian?
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips
It's a fairly entertaining bash, with a travelogue vibe established by director Larry Charles ("Borat"). It’s also smug as all hell.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey
While even believers can support Maher's skepticism, when he denounces the faithful in sweeping absolutes at film's end, he sounds as absolutely certain as those he has mocked for the previous 100 minutes.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle
Maher makes Michael Moore look incredibly likable in comparison.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader J.R. Jones
A major disappointment because here, unlike on "Real Time," Maher aims for laughs instead of insight--and aims low.
Read Full Review >Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
For the most part Mr. Maher is an equal-opportunity denigrator, but it's worth noting that humor fails him when the subject is Muslim fundamentalism. It's hard to make light of what frightens us.
Read Full Review >The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt
By focusing so narrowly on religious fundamentalists and bigots while ignoring any spiritual dimension to religion, the film is not only being disingenuous but limits its audience to non-believers.
Read Full Review >ReelViews James Berardinelli
The problem with the movie, whose title compresses "religious" and "ridiculous" into a single word, isn't that it milks more than one sacred cow but that it does so with minimal subtlety and intelligence.
Read Full Review >Village Voice J. Hoberman
Bill Maher's one-man stand-up attack on religious fundamentalism is a dog that has more bark than bite--a skeptical, secular-humanist hounding of the hypocrites, amusingly annotated with sarcastic subtitles and clips from cheesy biblical spectacles.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Stephen Holden
Much of Mr. Maher's film is extremely funny in a similarly irreverent, offhanded way. Some true believers -- at least those who have a sense of humor about their faith -- may even be amused. But most will not.
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez
The bulk of Religulous is a passionate but misguided attempt by Maher to stimulate the 16 percent of the American population who deem themselves non-religious into standing up and being counted.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen
More rant than rollick, it's just ain't funny enough.
Read Full Review >Premiere Eric Kohn
The lack of insightful commentary keeps the spotlight focused on Maher. That's not restraint; it's a missed opportunity.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Wesley Morris
The film has a habit of cutting away from interviews for Maher's commentary during the drive to the next location. You can see him trying to work the car for a laugh.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan
Though he claims to be a seeker, someone who "has to find out" why believers believe, Maher sets out not after answers but cheap laughs that preach, so to speak, to the converted.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Neely Tucker
One of the rules of satire is that you can't mock things you don't understand, and Religulous starts developing fault lines when it becomes clear that Maher's view of religious faith is based on a sophomoric reading of the Scriptures and that he doesn't understand that some thoughtful people actually do believe in some sort of spiritual life.
Read Full Review >Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir
His scattershot and ad hominem attacks against many different forms of religious hypocrisy don't add up to a coherent critique, and he's not qualified to provide one.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 7.6 (out of 10) based on 117 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
josh f gave it a3:
This movie is unfortunate. it was mildly entertaining and i like bill maher, as well as religious debates, so i gave it a 3. i am liberal and love michael moore movies, but this movie was done in bad taste. micael moore far outdoes bill majer in every aspect. bill maher's interviews were spineless attacks on people that were not intellectually strong in their beliefs (which is sad, don't get me wrong), i don't think bill maher would be able to come off as such a "winner" if he were arguing with religious intellectuals. the ending was also pretty dumb. i prefer documentaries to reveal facts and figures and let the viewers decide for themselves what they are going to believe, but instead, bill maher tells his viewers what to believe. it seems like a cheap ploy and I'm disappointed.
mitchell t gave it a10:
Once you become an intelligent person and realise religion is completely disingenous and false, it becomes impossible to provide "insightful commentary" and "try to understand". If you want a clinical academic dissection of religion, read The God Delusion. If you want to be shown why religion is completely laughable and funny ("Ridiculous"), this is the one to watch. The funniest and most outrageous film since Borat.
joe k. gave it a9:
This movie should be required viewing for all humans. If you find this movie insulting, then you are just the type of brainwashed moron this movie is criticizing. If you can really focus and comprehend what Maher is saying, then there is some hope for you.
Daniel Z gave it an8:
If you judge this movie as a comedy, it succeeds immensely. Maher's smugness and condescending attitude, combined with clever editing techniques, are key in garnering a truckload of hearty laughs from the viewer. However, its problems lie in the fact that it's blatantly and shamelessly biased towards a atheist perspective, which will no doubt alienate both believers and serious viewers. This is, in no way, an in-depth analysis on faith or organised religion because it's merely a vehicle for Maher's nonchalant take on Christianity, Judaism and Islam (he seems to think all other religions are minority groups). Maher's 'final thought' is that doubt itself is his religion, and should be everyone who possess an intelligent and inquisitive mind.
Titanium Dragon gave it a5:
While occaisionally amusing, the movie suffers greatly from inaccuracy. There is no "gay gene", as he claims; the claims of the scientist cited are heavily criticized, as are the claims of the "god gene". While it certainly is true that genetics affect them, the idea that we've "found them" is wrong. These inaccuracies continue throughout the movie - many of the comparisons of Jesus with Horus are just plain old wrong, and many others are controversial. While true that some parts of Jesus's story have incredibly strong resemblances to other things from the same time period, and many are certainly because they have the same mythic sources, he greatly stretched it. Other things included also stretched the truth or were simply wrong. Moreover, many parts simply weren't entertaining, such as the part at the beginning with the truckers. More or less, it had snippets of interesting stuff in it, and it was funny at times, but his ranting, the unfunny parts, and the inaccuracies hurt the film. Religion does contain a lot of ridiculous stuff, but Maher didn't do a very good job on exposing it. The good about this movie: Some of the random clips, particularly the Adam and Eve stuff, were hilarious. Some of the music choices were amusing. Some of the interviews were very funny. Overall, the interviews with the Catholics were the most interesting part, and oddly probably the most sympathetic because the people he was interviewing were actually educated. They were, in the end, the only people in the entire movie who didn't end up looking like morons - including Bill Maher.
Marc gave it a0:
B Bill Mahr continues to be as insulting as possible. I would enjoy him more if he would stop looking down on and alienating others.
Mike D gave it a4:
I'll give it a 3, and that is due to the humor, but seriously man Mahr is out with an agenda and all of the film editing done favors him. It does not show when the people actually made him shut up and think about his shallow questions. He in no way is a legitamate source for these kinds of documentaries because he has credibility in any religion. He basically does what most churches do these days by leaving out certain topics and choosing what to share and when in order to brainwash people (who do no investigating on their own) in sharing his beliefs.
