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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

67
$9.99
75
24 City
66
Adoration
74
Afghan Star
48
Alien Trespass
56
American Violet
82
Anvil! The Story of Anvil
57
Away We Go
81
Beaches of Agnes, The
62
Big Man Japan
28
Big Shot-Caller, The
78
Boys: The Sherman Brothers' Story, The
55
Brothers Bloom, The
82
Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country
xx
Call of the Wild
63
Cheri
62
Cherry Blossoms
63
Dead Snow
65
Departures
18
Downloading Nancy
58
Easy Virtue
70
End of the Line, The
77
Every Little Step
64
Examined Life
80
Food, Inc.
38
Gigantic
56
Girl from Monaco, The
67
Girlfriend Experience, The
87
Gomorrah
89
Goodbye Solo
63
Great Buck Howard, The
79
Harvard Beats Yale 29-29
xx
Home
82
Hunger
91
Hurt Locker, The
16
I Hate Valentine's Day
81
Il Divo
54
Is Anybody There?
71
Jerichow
58
Julia
74
Lemon Tree
36
Life is Hot in Cracktown
40
Limits of Control, The
42
Little Ashes
64
Lymelife
50
Management
57
Merry Gentleman, The
66
Moon
35
New York
62
Not Forgotten
xx
Offshore
78
O'Horten
64
Outrage
40
Paris 36
54
Pontypool
71
Pressure Cooker
52
Quiet Chaos
83
Revanche
67
Rudo y Cursi
86
Seraphine
65
Sex Positive
70
Shall We Kiss?
77
Sin Nombre
59
Sleep Dealer
74
Song of Sparrows, The
54
Stoning of Soraya M., The
82
Sugar
84
Summer Hours
61
Sunshine Cleaning
28
Surveillance
42
Tennessee
63
Tetro
64
Throw Down Your Heart
80
Tokyo Sonata
63
Tokyo!
70
Tony Manero
74
Treeless Mountain
88
Tulpan
74
Two Lovers
83
Tyson
83
U2 3D
60
Under Our Skin
69
Unmistaken Child
69
Valentino: The Last Emperor
22
What Goes Up
45
Whatever Works
57
Youssou Ndour: I Bring What I Love
91
Hurt Locker, The
89
Goodbye Solo
88
Tulpan
87
Gomorrah
86
Seraphine
84
Summer Hours
83
U2 3D
83
Revanche
83
Tyson
82
Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country
82
Sugar
82
Hunger
82
Anvil! The Story of Anvil
81
Il Divo
81
Beaches of Agnes, The
80
Food, Inc.
80
Tokyo Sonata
79
Harvard Beats Yale 29-29
78
Boys: The Sherman Brothers' Story, The
78
O'Horten
77
Every Little Step
77
Sin Nombre
75
24 City
74
Treeless Mountain
74
Afghan Star
74
Two Lovers
74
Song of Sparrows, The
74
Lemon Tree
71
Pressure Cooker
71
Jerichow
70
Shall We Kiss?
70
Tony Manero
70
End of the Line, The
69
Valentino: The Last Emperor
69
Unmistaken Child
67
$9.99
67
Rudo y Cursi
67
Girlfriend Experience, The
66
Adoration
66
Moon
65
Sex Positive
65
Departures
64
Outrage
64
Examined Life
64
Throw Down Your Heart
64
Lymelife
63
Tokyo!
63
Cheri
63
Dead Snow
63
Tetro
63
Great Buck Howard, The
62
Cherry Blossoms
62
Big Man Japan
62
Not Forgotten
61
Sunshine Cleaning
60
Under Our Skin
59
Sleep Dealer
58
Julia
58
Easy Virtue
57
Away We Go
57
Merry Gentleman, The
57
Youssou Ndour: I Bring What I Love
56
Girl from Monaco, The
56
American Violet
55
Brothers Bloom, The
54
Is Anybody There?
54
Pontypool
54
Stoning of Soraya M., The
52
Quiet Chaos
50
Management
48
Alien Trespass
45
Whatever Works
42
Little Ashes
42
Tennessee
40
Limits of Control, The
40
Paris 36
38
Gigantic
36
Life is Hot in Cracktown
35
New York
28
Big Shot-Caller, The
28
Surveillance
22
What Goes Up
18
Downloading Nancy
16
I Hate Valentine's Day
xx
Call of the Wild
xx
Home
xx
Offshore
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
|
Secretary
Lions Gate Films Inc.
FILM:
MPAA RATING: R for strong sexuality, some nudity, depiction of behavioral disorders, and language
Starring
James Spader,
Maggie Gyllenhaal,
Jeremy Davies,
Patrick Bauchau,
Stephen McHattie,
Oz Perkins,
Jessica Tuck,
and
Amy Locane and Lesley Ann Warren
A powerful and unique love story that toys with our expectations of love, sexuality and intimacy. (Lions Gate)
| GENRE(S): |
Drama
|
| WRITTEN BY: |
Erin Cressida Wilson (also story adaptation)
Steven Shainberg (story adaptation)
Mary Gaitskill (short story)
|
| DIRECTED BY: |
Steven Shainberg
|
| RELEASE DATE: |
DVD: April 1, 2003
Video: April 1, 2003
Theatrical: September 20, 2002
|
| RUNNING TIME: |
104 minutes, Color |
| ORIGIN: |
USA |
Special Jury Prize for Originality, 2002 Sundance Film Festival

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...
91
Entertainment Weekly
Staff (Not Credited)
There's a word for an actress who can go from nervous to winsome to raunchy to romantic in a heartbeat and get you to adore her the whole time. The word is star.

90
Slate
David Edelstein
Most love stories are bland and generalized. This one takes you deep inside the dance.

89
Austin Chronicle
Marjorie Baumgarten
Secretary is a testament to the importance of tonality in telling a story.
88
ReelViews
James Berardinelli
Has enough genuine laughs to eliminate the potential twitters and snickers, and it treats Edward and Lee as people. We end up caring about what happens to these two individuals, even as we smile and laugh at their antics.

83
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
William Arnold
Secretary is one of the best of a growing strain of daring films -- "Bliss," "The Lifestyle," "Satin Rouge" -- that argue that any sexual relationship that doesn't hurt anyone and works for its participants is a relationship that is worthy of our respect.

80
The New York Times
Stephen Holden
A wholesome self-help fable about the unlocking of shame and its magical transformation into pleasure and personal liberation.

80
Los Angeles Times
Manohla Dargis
For all the dolorous trim, Secretary is a genial romance that maintains a surprisingly buoyant tone throughout, notwithstanding some of the writers' sporadic dips into pop Freudianism.

80
Chicago Reader
Ted Shen
Wicked little black comedy.

80
LA Weekly
Graham Robinson
Secretary's treatment of female sexuality is as matter-of-fact as its handling of self-mutilation, and the key to both is Gyllenhaal's remarkable performance.

80
Wall Street Journal
Joe Morgenstern
Lee's journey of the body and soul is something else. Maggie Gyllenhaal makes it strangely touching, a revelation.
80
Rolling Stone
Peter Travers
A film of startling humor and feeling. For that, director Steven Shainberg, who co-wrote the script with Erin Cressida Wilson, owes much to two remarkable performances.

80
Village Voice
J. Hoberman
The unnecessarily emphatic ending suggests that Secretary's makers are a bit anxious to demonstrate they've whipped a potentially grotesque, spanks-for-the-memories scenario into the season's most romantic love story -- which is, in fact, what they've done.

80
Salon.com
Stephanie Zacharek
It's a liberating, kindhearted picture, one whose ending brings with it the feeling that something has finally been shaken free. How comfortable you feel with that is completely up to you.

80
Variety
Todd McCarthy
In a very demanding role demanding a vast emotional range from clueless innocent to confident role player and emotional adventurer, Gyllenhaal is outstanding.

80
Newsweek
David Ansen
Manages to be simultaneously subversive and sweet.
80
Washington Post
Richard Leiby
Initially cold and perverse to its core, the film transmutes into something warm and uplifting. Normal, even.

75
USA Today
Mike Clark
Even without the surprise of seeing Spader going for laughs and getting them, Secretary is just too original to be ignored.

75
Chicago Sun-Times
Roger Ebert
Approaches the tricky subject of sadomasochism with a stealthy tread, avoiding the dangers of making it either too offensive, or too funny.

75
Boston Globe
Ty Burr
Love hurts in Secretary -- but not too much. It's not impossible to imagine adventurous young couples seeing this movie and rushing home to try out the handcuffs and paddles.

75
New York Daily News
Jami Bernard
The daring, funny and quirkily erotic Secretary examines power exchanges between consenting adults in a way that other movies have not managed without turning off swaths of the squeamish.

75
Philadelphia Inquirer
Steven Rea
Pulls off a neat trick: It's a poignant, sweet-natured love story in which what most of us would call kinky sex - domination, submission, some enthusiastic spanking - is featured prominently, but not pruriently.

75
New York Post
Megan Lehmann
Against all odds, director Steven Shainberg has managed to craft an oddly compassionate -- and often very funny -- tale of an emotionally symbiotic affair.

70
Film Threat
Merle Bertrand
Secretary, like the type of relationship it explores, is not for everybody. But it does what good films do best; that is to provoke us, push our buttons, make us think and maybe even entertain us in the process.

70
The Onion (A.V. Club)
Keith Phipps
There's something appealing about an unapologetic love story set in an office that's only a few clicks off from looking like a fetish dungeon, and Spader and Gyllenhaal make sure that the romance, kinks and all, carries the day.

63
Charlotte Observer
Lawrence Toppman
Director Steven Shainberg and writer Erin Cressida Wilson argue that everyone deserves the love that makes them happiest, and that these two will remain miserable until they stumble upon each other.

60
New York Magazine
Peter Rainer
Secretary is deeply conventional: Edward and Lee accept their bondage as the way to a more fulfilling life. It's the filmmakers who need to be spanked.

58
Portland Oregonian
Shawn Levy
Director Steven Shainberg makes something draggy out of something that wants to be light. It's got wit, but it's also earnest, and in proportion to those two traits it wins and loses you.
50
Baltimore Sun
Michael Sragow
What's hilarious about the build-up is that Secretary proves to be the softest, most middle-of-the-road movie that could have been made about this subject.

50
Film Threat
Clint Morris
A bizarre flick. It moves a little apprehensively between comedy, drama and then, erotic romance, with the central players' excellent performances (especially newcomer Gyllenhaal) suffering because of the films indecisions.

50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
Rick Groen
The movie isn't painfully bad, something to be "fully experienced"; it's just tediously bad, something to be fully forgotten.

50
Christian Science Monitor
David Sterritt
The movie works hard to be naughty, but its sub-David Lynch style doesn't quite click. Gyllenhaal is excellent and Spader effectively adds to his roster of creepy characters.

50
TV Guide
Ken Fox
Before it takes a sudden turn and devolves into a bizarre sort of romantic comedy, Steven Shainberg's adaptation of Mary Gaitskill's harrowing short story about dominance, submission and the twisted sexual dynamics of the work place is a brilliantly played, deeply unsettling experience.

40
The New Yorker
David Denby
Not meant to be realistic; it was shot by the director Steven Shainberg in a slow, dreamy neo-De Palma style and in candy colors, and Gyllenhaal has a Kewpie-doll silliness that almost makes the naughty parts of the movie fun. [23 Sept 2002, p. 98]
40
New Times (L.A.)
Jean Oppenheimer
The problem with Secretary isn't that it is offensive or unnerving -- although you get the idea the filmmakers hoped it might be at least one of those. The problem is that the story is slow-moving and dull.
38
Chicago Tribune
Michael Wilmington
Though I would agree it's original -- it's the first aboveground romance movie I've seen in which the heroine is repeatedly spanked, verbally tormented and tied to a chair by her lover--- it's not an experience I much enjoyed.

30
Time
Richard Schickel
Writer-director Shainberg seems to be aiming for a dark comedy, but mostly his movie is coy without being funny, ugly without being truly transgressive, stupid when it needs to be smart.

30
Washington Post
Desson Thomson
In a movie as unrewarding as this, there's really only one burning question: When does the spanking begin?

25
Miami Herald
Rene Rodriguez
The characters in Secretary never feel the least bit human. Their quirks, sexual and otherwise, are all on the surface. Inside, where it counts, nobody's home.

25
San Francisco Chronicle
Mick LaSalle
It provokes nothing but yawns, and the sex it explores is stuff everybody knows about and says, "So what?"


The average user rating for this movie is 8.8 (out of 10) based on 25 User Votes
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