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
49
2012
53
Alice in Wonderland
41
Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel
84
Avatar![]()
69
Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans
53
Blind Side
53
Book of Eli, The
31
Bounty Hunter, The
43
Brooklyn's Finest
55
Christmas Carol, A
31
Cop Out
55
Crazies, The
57
Daybreakers
43
Dear John
64
Diary of a Wimpy Kid
27
Did You Hear About the Morgans?
55
Edge of Darkness
45
Extraordinary Measures
83
Fantastic Mr. Fox![]()
42
From Paris with Love
61
Green Zone
65
Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, The
74
Invictus
57
It's Complicated
34
Law Abiding Citizen
33
Leap Year
32
Legion
42
Lovely Bones, The
54
Men Who Stare At Goats, The
34
Ninja Assassin
19
Old Dogs
39
Our Family Wedding
47
Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief
39
Planet 51
79
Precious: Based on the Novel by Sapphire
73
Princess & the Frog, The
69
Redbelt
40
Remember Me
29
Repo Men
64
Road, The
57
Sherlock Holmes
47
She's Out of My League
63
Shutter Island
27
Spy Next Door, The
36
Tooth Fairy
44
Twilight Saga: New Moon, The
83
Up in the Air![]()
34
Valentine's Day
25
When in Rome
71
Where the Wild Things Are
43
Wolfman, The
63
Youth in Revolt
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
Limited Releases
Now In Theaters
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
24
Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day, The
76
Broken Embraces
52
Celine: Through the Eyes of the World
67
Children of Invention
65
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
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
73
Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The
47
Good Guy, The
78
Greenberg
35
Happy Tears
68
Harlan: In the Shadow of Jew Suess
20
Harlem Aria
xx
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
80
Mid-August Lunch
57
Missing Person, The
76
Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers, The
79
Mother
50
My Name is Khan
88
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)
89
Prophet, A![]()
76
Red Riding Trilogy, The
63
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
xx
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.
Roger Dodger
EMAILPRINTArtisan Entertainment

Generally favorable reviews
Based on 33 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 9 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Drama
Written by: Dylan Kidd
Directed by: Dylan Kidd
Release Date:
Theatrical: October 25, 2002
DVD: March 18, 2003
Running Time: 104 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: R for sexual content and language
Starring Campbell Scott, Jesse Eisenberg, Isabella Rossellini, Elizabeth Berkley, Jennifer Beals, Ben Shenkman, Mina Badie, and Chris Stack
In this coming-of-age tale, a teen boy from the Midwest (Eisenberg) spends a Friday night out on the town in New York City with his womanizing advertising executive uncle (Campbell).
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...
Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan
It is Scott's work as the savagely articulate Roger, a tireless would-be seducer, bottomlessly self-confident and oblivious to rejection, that is the film's glistening and provocative centerpiece.
Read Full Review >Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt
Funny, sad, and skeptical in about equal measures, it announces writer-director Dylan Kidd as a filmmaker with a bright future.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Stephen Holden
One of the juiciest male characters to pop up in an independent film this year.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Ann Hornaday
Takes both its characters and the audience to the depths, but it's a journey Kidd redeems with wit and fluency and, ultimately, a deeply persistent humanism.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Desson Thomson
Kidd, a first-time writer and director, has created a sophisticated but intriguingly toxic comedy of manners.
Read Full Review >Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow
Experiencing this film is like hurtling down a verbal slalom.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Mark Caro
Revives the art of smart, scathing movie conversation as it skewers Manhattan's singles scene while providing a goodly number of laughs. Like its subject, the movie may have its prickly moments, but it's awfully fun to watch.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Ty Burr
Mines laughs from the ways in which its antihero's reductive philosophy consistently goes kerflooey in his face, but there's a weary sadness to it as well.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
A little too programmed in its despair, but it coasts along on the jagged music of the modern lothario's song.
Read Full Review >The New Yorker Anthony Lane
There are times when the movie's entertainment value verges on the scandalous. [4 November 2002, p. 110]
Salon.com Jeff Stark
There's a maddening ambiguity at the core of writer-director Dylan Kidd's remarkably cynical, and bracingly intelligent, debut movie. It's the kind of thing that is just nasty enough to start arguments in cafes and bars.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader Hank Sartin
Kidd has a great ear for dialogue, and he throws in a few unexpected twists. But the real fun is watching an established pro and a newcomer run with the script.
Read Full Review >New York Magazine Peter Rainer
The dramatic arc of Roger Dodger may be banal, but Kidd manages some marvelous moments.
Read Full Review >Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
All three performances are excellent, in their different ways.
Dallas Observer Bill Gallo
Rookie writer-director Dylan Kidd, late of NYU film school, knows how to get the best out of jittery, handheld camera shots, and he knows how to go for the jugular. Roger is the bleakest comic portrait of misogynist self-delusion we've seen in a long time.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Maitland McDonagh
Campbell Scott's fiendishly mercurial performance as razor-tongued womanizer Roger is a revelation but it's only one of this nimble film's pleasures.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey
An unusually smartly written and performed American independent film.
Read Full Review >Rolling Stone Peter Travers
Campbell Scott swings at one of the year's juiciest roles and knocks it out of the park.
Read Full Review >USA Today Mike Clark
The final third is slower until a somewhat contrived finale that's still the funniest thing in the movie.
Read Full Review >ReelViews James Berardinelli
A delight for anyone who loves to absorb dialogue. The movie is almost all talk and no action, and possesses the "feel" (although not the pedigree) of a stage production translated to the screen.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
The movie, written and directed by Dylan Kidd, depends on its dialogue, and like a film by David Mamet or Neil LaBute has characters who use speech like an instrument. The screenplay would be entertaining just to read, as so very few are.
Read Full Review >New York Post Lou Lumenick
Thanks to Scott's charismatic Roger and Eisenberg's sweet nephew, Roger Dodger is one of the most compelling variations on "In the Company of Men."
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Noel Murray
Flags as it heads toward a moralistic ending, complete with a couple of contrived (albeit charged) sexual encounters, but it's heartening that it soars as long as it does.
Read Full Review >LA Weekly Ella Taylor
I was with Roger Dodger all the way until its vile hero had an 11th-hour burst of insight that defied all belief. I didn't buy it, but I do want his therapist's phone number.
Variety Ronnie Scheib
fFts into that weird, dialogue-heavy quasi-genre that includes "In the Company of Men" and "The Business of Strangers" where high-stakes sexual power games mix with cutthroat office politics.
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Connie Ogle
In the end, Roger Dodger doesn't really add up to much. Guys can be jerks when they're lonely, or even when they're not. It's not news. But Kidd's version of this truth shows he's a writer worth watching.
Read Full Review >Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman
Starts as a tart little lemon drop of a movie and ends up as a bitter pill. I'm glad to have seen it, for I appreciated Campbell Scott's dominant performance and Jesse Eisenberg's breakthrough. But I hope writer-director Dylan Kidd mixes less acid into the next drink he pours.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Jack Mathews
The result is a long night of confrontations that feel heavily rehearsed and unlikely. There are some good moments, but I didn't believe any of this.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten
The movie's third act begins a baffling and not-very-believable character turnabout.
Read Full Review >Village Voice Michael Atkinson
First-timer Dylan Kidd's film isn't Molièrian in its misanthropy, but rather as boneheaded as an hour of talk-radio hobgoblin Tom Leikis.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 9.3 (out of 10) based on 9 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Richard gave it a 10:
I really enjoyed this film. Sure, it doesn't reinvent the male anxiety film wheel, and maybe the final reel's change of heart is slightly left fieldish. None of that changes the sharpness of the dialogue and the wonderful cast that gets to deliver it. The extended scene with Eisenberg, Scott, Beals and Berkley is a joy. Isabella Rossellini especially impresses in a small role. Eisenberg is a real find, and Scott imbues his hostility with an interesting self-awareness. Why that guy isn't a bigger star is beyond me. Well-judged all around and more than worth your time.
Chad S. gave it a 9:
Campbell Scott is so good here, we let it slide when the script gets soft and shows us that Roger actually has a heart of gold. It would've felt tacked on if Scott wasn't so brilliant. He bails Dylan Kidd out, who has a real flair for dialogue, but may have a weakness for happy endings. We'll see what he does next time out. His most impressive accomplishment? Getting career performances out of Elizabeth Berkley and Jennifer Beals. The scene they share with Scott and his nephew at the park is absolutely perfect. Berkley skirts direct-to-video status for at least two more years.
Bronxville FilmFan gave it a 9:
The script is caustic, and hysterical--Dylan Kidd's observations on gender and sexual politics are incredibly provocative and exciting. Hats off, too, to Campbell Scott, who is nothing less than BRILLIANT as the titular character. He deserves every single accolade he gets during awards season, and more!
Mikey G. gave it a 9:
Excellent, excellent flick. Campbell Scott definitely needs to get some award for his performance here. The material might be too edgy for the Oscars, but at least an Independent Spirit Award or something. The movie is bitingly funny and speaks truth in many different ways and levels. Considering the subject matter, it's surprising there's not much nudity. However, the little bit shown is done well and has a purpose. Excellent movie, but don't go see it on a date. You'll never win the arguments that will ensue.
Brewcut gave it a 9:
Very sharp and funny with surprising depth. In a just world, Campbell Scott gets an Oscar (or at least a nom) for bringing heart to an essentially heartless cad. The women are especially smart and grounded characters, and 16 yr old nephew Nick holds out hope for a kinder, gentler style of manhood...but there are a lot of alpha guys like Roger out there. You just don't see them portrayed so honestly in movies.
Michael F. gave it a 10:
EXCELLENT! Funny as hell and smart as a whip! Scott is AMAZING! The direction is brilliant, reminiscent of Cassavetes. I really felt like I was THERE. That's EXACTLY what it feels like to be at a party, exactly! Scott's tricks are brilliant!
Alexander R. gave it a 9:
Surprisingly good. Campbell Scott was fantastic as the bitter, single guy that is out to exploit single women. Eisenberg was relatively weak in the film and somewhat of a mis-cast.
