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Scarface
Universal Pictures

Scarface reviews
Critic Score
Metascore: 65 Metascore out of 100
User Score  
8.5 out of 10
based on 9 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
based on 17 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

MPAA 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.


GENRE(S): Crime  |  Drama  
WRITTEN BY: Oliver Stone  
DIRECTED BY: Brian De Palma  
RELEASE DATE: DVD: March 31, 1998 
Theatrical: December 9, 1983 
RUNNING TIME: 170 minutes, Color 
ORIGIN: USA 

Golden Globe nominations for Best Original Score - Motion Picture, Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Drama (Al Pacino), Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture (Steven Bauer).

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...

100
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
100
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.
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100
TV Guide Staff (Not Credited)
A beautiful, at times poetic exercise in excess from Brian De Palma.
Read Full Review
90
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."
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80
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.
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80
Variety Staff (Not Credited)
Scarface is a grandiose modern morality play, excessive, broad and operatic at times.
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63
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]
25
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]
20
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.
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What Our Users Said

Vote Now!The average user rating for this movie is 8.5 (out of 10) based on 17 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Kris P. gave it a10:
This movie is a genius one because the main character is the bad guy, but the audience can still relate to him and see him as human.It is a love story,an action movie,a mystery crime kinda movie,and even in some parts it's even funny, all of which are great essences of this one of a kind movie.

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