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Scarface

Generally favorable reviews
Based on 9 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 19 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Crime | Drama
Written by: Oliver Stone
Directed by: Brian De Palma
Release Date:
Theatrical: December 9, 1983
DVD: March 31, 1998
Running Time: 170 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: R
Starring Al Pacino, Steven Bauer, Michelle Pfeiffer, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Robert Loggia, and F. Murray Abraham
Cuban immigrant Tony Montana (Pacino) builds a Miami drug empire in the 1980s.
Also On Metacritic
FILM: Femme Fatale Mission to Mars Mission: Impossible Redacted Snake Eyes The Black Dahlia
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...
Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
Scarface is one of those special movies, like "The Godfather," that is willing to take a flawed, evil man and allow him to be human.
Read Full Review >Empire Andy Gill
Perfomances are excellent, and despite its moralistic conclusion, the film has since become de rigueur viewing for crack barons, who know a good shoot-em-up when they see one.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Staff (Not Credited)
A beautiful, at times poetic exercise in excess from Brian De Palma.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Vincent Canby
Scarface is the most stylish and provocative - and maybe the most vicious - serious film about the American underworld since Francis Ford Coppola's "Godfather."
Read Full Review >Time Richard Corliss
It is a serious, often hilarious peek under the rock where nightmares strut in $800 suits and Armageddon lies around the next twist of treason.
Read Full Review >Variety Staff (Not Credited)
Scarface is a grandiose modern morality play, excessive, broad and operatic at times.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Jay Scott
Scarface is a B- movie with singularly silly psychological pretensions: its neo-primitivism is to the complex moral cosmos of Francis Coppola's "Godfather" saga as Disney is to Dickens. [09 Dec 1983]
Boston Globe Jay Carr
It plays like a crude "Godfather" parody, the sort that might amuse as a 10-minute sketch on "Saturday Night Live," but curdles and collapses as a 143-minute film. [09 Dec 1983]
Chicago Reader Dave Kehr
Brian De Palma dedicates this 1983 feature to Howard Hawks and Ben Hecht, authors of the 1932 original, though I doubt they would find much honor in his gory inflation of their crisp, 90-minute comic nightmare into a klumbering, self-important, arrhythmic downer of nearly three hours.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 8.7 (out of 10) based on 19 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Korin gave it a10:
Scarface was a good movie to watch, I watched it like 2 times after the first time I saw it, that's how good it was to me. I think I might watch it again, since it's such a great movie.
gabe r gave it a10:
How can somebody give this movie less than an 8? this movie is one of the greatest I have ever seen. It may be a little hard to follow at times and the end sucks, but Everything else in the movie makes that forgivable. Pure Genius
Kevin C gave it a10:
This movie truly is a cinematic masterpiece. This movie shows Al Pacino at his best. This shoot-em-up classic shows the rise and fall of a true "Bad Guy" .
Jim S gave it a3:
The best C movie ever made. This film and most people that enjoy it don't seem to notice that it is a parody. I can't for the life of me figure out why anyone takes it seriously or would want an airbrushed t-shirt proclaiming their love for it.
Mr W gave it a10:
Everybody's fave criminal. The ultimate gangster film!!! Totaling 143 minutes in length you still crave for more!!!
nathan l gave it a7:
This movie has a generic story that does little to distinguish itself from other rise to power stories, but there are some great monents and al pacino does a great job.
Pawan "Genius" gave it a10:
Scarface, what a movie, what a film, deserves to be the best(excluding The Godfather series). Pacino has acted ever so well in this damn movie. Immense action, drama, violence! Hats off to this great masterpiece.
