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
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
55
Christmas Carol, A
57
Daybreakers
43
Dear John
27
Did You Hear About the Morgans?
55
Edge of Darkness
45
Extraordinary Measures
83
Fantastic Mr. Fox![]()
42
From Paris with Love
65
Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, The
74
Invictus
57
It's Complicated
34
Law Abiding Citizen
33
Leap Year
33
Legion
42
Lovely Bones, The
54
Men Who Stare At Goats, The
34
Ninja Assassin
19
Old Dogs
xx
Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief
39
Planet 51
79
Precious: Based on the Novel by Sapphire
73
Princess & the Frog, The
64
Road, The
57
Sherlock Holmes
27
Spy Next Door, The
36
Tooth Fairy
44
Twilight Saga: New Moon, The
83
Up in the Air![]()
43
Valentine's Day
25
When in Rome
71
Where the Wild Things Are
xx
WolfMan, The
63
Youth in Revolt
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
Limited Releases
Now In Theaters
46
44 Inch Chest
83
Ajami![]()
73
Amreeka
xx
Barefoot to Timbuktu
19
Bitch Slap
24
Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day, The
76
Broken Embraces
64
Cloud 9
65
Coco Before Chanel
84
Cove, The![]()
84
Crazy Heart![]()
21
Crazy on the Outside
48
Creation
xx
Daddy Long Legs
81
Damned United, The![]()
68
Departures
62
District 13: Ultimatum
85
Education, An![]()
71
Eyes Wide Open
24
Falling Awake
81
Fish Tank![]()
56
For My Father
xx
From Mexico with Love
43
Frozen
68
Girl on the Train, The
52
Killing Kasztner
74
Last Station, The
43
Little Traitor, The
51
Loss of a Teardrop Diamond, The
73
Me and Orson Welles
76
Messenger, The
57
Missing Person, The
67
Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers, The
xx
My Name is Khan
49
Nine
63
North Face
59
October Country
67
Off and Running
52
Paranoids, The
49
Pop Star on Ice
49
Private Lives of Pippa Lee, The
xx
Promised Lands (Re-release)
69
Red Riding Trilogy, The
29
Saint John of Las Vegas
69
September Issue, The
36
Serious Moonlight
63
Shinjuku Incident, The
77
Single Man, A
xx
Still Bill
76
Terribly Happy
74
That Evening Sun
19
To Save a Life
68
Town Called Panic, A
59
Until the Light Takes Us
57
Videocracy
65
Waiting for Armageddon
82
White Ribbon![]()
43
Women in Trouble
xx
Word is Out
64
Young Victoria, The
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
Savages, The
EMAILPRINTFox Searchlight Pictures

Universal acclaim
Based on 37 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 55 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Comedy | Drama
Written by: Tamara Jenkins
Directed by: Tamara Jenkins
Release Date:
Theatrical: November 28, 2007
DVD: April 22, 2008
Running Time: 113 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: R for some sexuality and language
Starring Laura Linney, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Philip Bosco
The Savages is an irreverent look at family, love and mortality as seen through the lens of one of modern life’s most bewildering and challenging experiences: when adult siblings find themselves plucked from their everyday, self-centered lives to care for an estranged elderly parent. (Fox Searchlight)
Also On Metacritic
FILM: Slums of Beverly Hills
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database View The Trailer 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 Lisa Schwarzbaum
The Savages is terrific -- a movie of uncommon appreciation for the nature and nurture that go into making us who we are, a perfectly calibrated drama both compassionate and unsentimental.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Carina Chocano
A brutal encounter with mortality told with uncommon humanity, wit and humor.
Read Full Review >Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow
This movie provides no phony catharsis or closure; it develops a vision of people growing in spurts from their most terrible mistakes.
Read Full Review >Time Richard Schickel
I wouldn't call the film inspirational -- it is too well observed to succumb to easy sentiment -- but its realism is patiently engaging and subtly insinuating. And Linney and Hoffman are extraordinary.
Read Full Review >Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir
What makes the movie memorable is the precision of its tone, its finely calibrated combination of bitterness and warmth. Of course the acting is tremendous, and you'd expect nothing less.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Ann Hornaday
Bringing a tough, astringent wit to a subject too often wrapped in the cozy blanket of sentimentality or cute humor, Tamara Jenkins takes a frank look at the indignities of aging in The Savages, a black comedy that invites viewers to laugh or at least smile ruefully at the dying of the light.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Manohla Dargis
Tamara Jenkins’s The Savages, is a beautifully nuanced tragicomedy about two floundering souls.
Read Full Review >The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt
It is more sad-funny than funny-funny, but Jenkins has enough empathy and wit to realize that even the sad parts are, somehow, funny.
Read Full Review >Variety Todd McCarthy
Jenkins brings a rigor, intelligence and eye for the slightly absurd to the proceedings that is instantly disarming.
Read Full Review >New York Magazine David Edelstein
The Savages is a delightful movie--the perfect companion piece (and antidote) to the year’s other superb convalescent-dementia picture, "Away From Her."
Read Full Review >Newsweek David Ansen
It sounds grimmer than it plays, thanks to Jenkins's sardonic, deadpan humor and the superb cast, who invest these damaged characters with rich, flawed, hilarious humanity. This bittersweet X-ray of American family dynamics may not be a Hallmark-card notion of a holiday movie, but it's one any son or daughter can take to heart.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten
Jenkins' superlative work proves her first film was no fluke; let's hope it doesn't take another nine years to hear from her again.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey
A movie of absurdist humor, brutal realism and dementia.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Jessica Reaves
A bracingly honest, funny movie about death and family that skillfully sidesteps the usual pitfalls of sentimentality and mawkishness. It’s what you might call an awards season miracle.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Ty Burr
Smartly written and beautifully played, The Savages is about that point in life where you look around and realize that where you are is probably as far as you're going to get. In spite of this, the movie's a comedy, dry and humane.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
Both Linney and Hoffman are so specific in creating these characters that we see them as people, not elements in a plot. Hoffman in particular shows how many disguises he has within his seemingly immutable presence; would you know it is the same actor here and in two other films this season, "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead" and "Charlie Wilson's War"?
Read Full Review >Rolling Stone Peter Travers
With the help of acting giants, Jenkins turns The Savages into a twisted, bittersweet pleasure.
Read Full Review >USA Today Claudia Puig
While the film is heart-wrenchingly sad, it also is mordantly funny, uncomfortably prickly and above all, unflinching in its depiction of a believable sibling relationship.
Read Full Review >Premiere Glenn Kenny
I generally resist calling any actor's work "brave" or "fearless" or any such thing, but Bosco's work here made me reconsider that self-imposed ban. It's incredible, harrowing, precise stuff.
Read Full Review >Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman
The Tony-winning Bosco, one of the great stage actors of the last 50 years, does a lot with a little in his restricted role; he's haughty, almost dignified by his angry silence. Linney and Hoffman stay pitch-perfect in their noisy desperation and sullen withdrawal.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias
The frequent outbursts of comedy help alleviate a tone that's appropriately muted and sad, and Jenkins should be credited for refusing to tack smiley-faces onto a tough, possibly lose-lose situation.
Read Full Review >Seattle Post-Intelligencer Paula Nechak
A darkly funny journey about life ticking by and the change to make wrongs right.
Read Full Review >Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
I can't begin to count the ways in which The Savages pleased me, but the very best of them is the way Tamara Jenkins's comedy stays tough while sneakily turning tender.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader J.R. Jones
Disappointment, delusion, dementia, death--did I mention this is a comedy?
Read Full Review >Film Threat Jamie Tipps
The interaction between Hoffman and Linney makes following their characters from their winter of hard experience to a spring of renewed hope well worth the while.
Read Full Review >Village Voice Ella Taylor
The movie is dotted with moments of grace and whacked-out humor that got me on board for this damaged duo's liberation.
Read Full Review >Empire Andrew Male
A richly nuanced American comedy, with two acting talents working at their absolute peak.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Maitland McDonagh
The Savages is funny in the if-you-didn't-laugh-you'd-cry way and superbly acted by all involved, including the supporting cast of home-care attendants, nurses, hospital administrators, intake personnel and nursing-home staff.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Jack Mathews
The Savages is a TV movie made for the big screen - and it needs the larger venue to accommodate the huge performances of its stars, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Laura Linney.
Read Full Review >ReelViews James Berardinelli
These are fascinating, three-dimensional individuals brought into the foreground by a pair of today's finest actors.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey
Suffused with clever lines, characters with neurotic tics and a pervasive, jocular black humour, The Savages is more about craft than art, but the craft, especially in the writing and acting, is at a high level.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle
The right mix of humor and horror and with not even a shred of sentimentality.
Read Full Review >Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer
As thin and jokey as this movie often is, I prefer it to the serioso treatment that usually encrusts this type of material. At its best, The Savages captures the lunacy that comes with coping with sorrow.
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy
The film has a dreary, worn quality; much of it is set in winter in Buffalo, N.Y., after all. You know before long that the best you can hope for is that these folks won't kill each other or themselves.
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez
The Savages is ultimately about two siblings, both around 40, in the midst of learning it's never too late to start embracing life, no matter how rotten a hand you were dealt in the past.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 7.4 (out of 10) based on 55 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Matthew B gave it a5:
Mediocre, predictable, god-awfully sincere writing almost drowns three fine actors.
Michael C. gave it an8:
Painful to watch at times; sobering. Wonderfully acted. A terrific story.
Adam V. gave it a10:
One of my favorite movies..it's a comedy that actually has emotion..(which is something some of the film community lacks nowadays) ..Laura Linney and Phillip Seymour Hoffman give tremendous preformences and their chemistry on the screen just works...Philip Bosco is also a breath of fresh air as their hostile father put into a retirement home...i just love this movie
Tony B. gave it a7:
It had several points to make and made them well. Laura Linney, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Philip Bosco were superb.
Walt S gave it an8:
The first two-thirds or so of "The Savages" is mesmerizing. Unforgettable. The last third or so, Tamara Jenkins makes things too easy for herself, which ends up bringing the film a little back down to earth. Philip Bosco's performance is one of the best that I have ever seen in my life. Highly recommended. Be sure to note that this is much more of a "drama" than a "comedy."
Jane H gave it a2:
A little too real life. Boring and forgettable everyday life. What was the point? I can't believe I stayed awake through the whole one note lull of a sleeper.
Linea L. gave it a10:
I found it interesting that the film did not take the easy path of spelling out all the gory details of the father's abusive past. Rather, we experience the sometimes-stressed but enduring bond between brother and sister, and observe that they retain enough humanity to (a) make their way in life and (b) find some mercy for their father despite everything. One complaint: Yet another crappy wig in a movie! What, Linney can't dye her hair brown for a few months?
