Now Playing
Critics & Publications
Archives: A-Z Index
Advanced Search

Upcoming Release Calendar
Weekend Box Office
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores
How Metascores Are Calculated
Discuss Film In Our Forums

sort by name

sort by score

38 12 Rounds
48 17 Again
76 Adventureland
48 Angels & Demons
54 Battle for Terra
xx Bruno
80 Coraline
40 Dance Flick
83 Drag Me to Hell
72 Earth
45 Fast & Furious
61 Fighting
34 Ghosts of Girlfriends Past
72 Gran Torino
73 Hangover, The
47 Hannah Montana: The Movie
51 Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs
54 Imagine That
41 Knowing
32 Land of the Lost
56 Monsters vs. Aliens
34 My Life in Ruins
51 My Sister's Keeper
46 Next Day Air
42 Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian
54 Observe and Report
25 Obsessed
48 Proposal, The
70 Public Enemies
61 Soloist, The
83 Star Trek
64 State of Play
55 Taking of Pelham 1 2 3, The
52 Terminator Salvation
35 Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
77 Under the Sea 3D
88 Up
43 X-Men Origins: Wolverine
34 Year One

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

sort by name

sort by score

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

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Simone
New Line Cinema


6.0

based on 38 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 18 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

FILM:

MPAA RATING: PG-13 for some sensuality

Starring Al Pacino, Catherine Keener, Evan Rachel Wood, Rachel Roberts, Jay Mohr, and Tony Crane

When his lead actress walks off the set, a disillusioned film producer (Pacino) creates a digital star who becomes an overnight sensation.

GENRE(S):	Fantasy
WRITTEN BY:	Andrew Niccol
DIRECTED BY:	Andrew Niccol
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: January 21, 2003 Video: January 21, 2003 Theatrical: August 23, 2002
RUNNING TIME:	117 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	USA

Alternative spelling "S1m0ne"

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...

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

Hilariously inventive Hollywood satire.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Paula Nechak

Darkly funny.

Time Richard Schickel

Simone is a funny, smart, improbably successful satire on contemporary celebrity obsessions, the waning summer's most delirious comedy.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

Writer-director Niccol (who wrote and directed "Gattaca" and scripted "The Truman Show") uses disarming, but wicked lightness to damn the celebrity-worshiping culture and Hollywood's beyond-the-looking-glass filmmaking.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

As the man who made the monster and now has to live with it, Pacino's a blast.

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

For all its flaws, offers an enjoyable look at the machinations of moviedom and fame, and a look into a future where what is real and what isn't becomes scarily blurred.

LA Weekly Lisa Kennedy

Niccol gives audiences a very amusing puzzle about authenticity, fraud, and the uses and abuses of technology. That is a fine and funny feat. The very folks responsible for our obsession with celebrity will likely love it. And in loving it, they will no doubt let themselves off the hook.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

The best scenes play like "Frankenstein" revisited, with a comically bedraggled Pacino cast as the mad scientist trying to protect his runaway creation from a rabid public.

Film Threat Michael Dequina

With Simone, Niccol makes what seems like a preposterous idea not only fresh and entertaining, but most of all reveals said idea to be not at all far removed from reality--as any good satire should.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

The movie pretends to warn against such shallowness -- but flaunts its arousal at how exciting such a controllable world is for those with access to the software.

USA Today Claudia Puig

A worthy, if flawed, piece of entertainment.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

The result is gorgeous, if ultimately shallow -- much like Simone herself.

New York Magazine Peter Rainer

Writer-director Andrew Niccol throws around a lot of intriguing ideas in this film, and even though his ambitions are more expansive than his talent, he's managed to come up with something that credibly resembles the shape of things to come, Hollywood-style.

New Times (L.A.) Robert Wilonsky

That's not to say Simone doesn't offer a good time. Shove aside its self-righteous agenda and it's a deft kick, a light comedy whenever it's not trying to play heavy. And it's bolstered by Al Pacino in a lively performance.

The New Yorker David Denby

I don't believe that anyone will have much trouble seeing what's wrong with the picture, but it's one of those bad movies that you remember with a smile a year later. [9 September 2002, p. 162]

Variety Scott Foundas

Attempts to delve beneath the surface of Hollywood's rampant narcissism and fascination with technology, but ultimately feels like just one more in the long line of films this year about the business of making movies.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

It's a strange, uneven film, hilarious in moments and tin-eared in others, alternately subtle and hammer-handed, acid and dull, as schizophrenic as "Signs" and probably, like that film, best enjoyed in discrete chunks rather than as a whole that needs to be digested equally all at once.

Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir

It's not merely that these subjects have already been satirized to the point of ultimate tedium; more importantly, Simone just isn't very funny.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

If this is satire, it's the smug and self-congratulatory kind that lets the audience completely off the hook. Effective satire, the Swiftian brand, seduces us first and then implicates us in the seduction -- we become a target too. But this stuff never gets past the initial step -- it's toothless, as innocuous as the puffery it pretends to skewer.

Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach

It's also unclear just what Niccol wanted this film to be: a satire? a spoof? a black comedy? a pointed social commentary? Perhaps all of the above - way too many hats for a movie this slight to wear.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

A ravishing crock. Like its title character, a computer-generated movie star programmed to resemble a cross between Grace Kelly, Audrey Hepburn, Lauren Bacall and Kim Basinger, it's beautiful but empty, gorgeous but spurious.

Wall Street Journal Collin Levey

But for what it is, the film supplies enough laughs to bury most nagging existential questions.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Writer-director Andrew Niccol -- gets this Hollywood satire off to a rousing start. But the middle flattens, despite Pacino firing on all cylinders. And the end just nose-dives into something silly and, worse, sentimental.

Chicago Reader Hank Sartin

The film never quite achieves the sharp edge satire demands, largely because director Andrew Niccol, who was so good at managing tone in "Gattaca," can't decide whether to go with nasty or hilariously farcical.

New York Post Jonathan Foreman

Staggers between flaccid satire and what is supposed to be madcap farce.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

Because it's Pacino, though, Simone is never quite boring.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

It's fitfully funny but never really takes off. Out of the corners of our eyes we glimpse the missed opportunities for some real satirical digging.

The New York Times A.O. Scott

Because the material gives off such a delicious vibe, even though the movie itself feels a little old, you want to like Simone. It would be easier if it were a more forceful comedy. But Mr. Niccol's style is that of reticence -- as a director, he's a little coquettish.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

The film is too light and juvenile to be viewed as some sort of darkly subversive satire in which the director is laughing at those of us who take it all semi-seriously.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

Some movies need a suspension of disbelief. Simone requires a suspension bridge. And as fast as you try to build it, the movie keeps tearing it down.

Film Threat Rick Kisonak

Recycles a great many motifs from "Truman" but never comes close to putting on as good a show.

Slate David Edelstein

The premise cries out for take-no-prisoners, Terry-Southern-style sick humor; it gets instead a lot of clunky, self-congratulatory in-jokes, and Pacino is left to ham in a vacuum.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

What it is, distressingly, is a mess - a ragbag of promising ideas and failed narrative, of good acting and plain old bad filmmaking.

Village Voice J. Hoberman

Niccol has no gift for comedy. His ongoing exploration of modern celebrity results in an industry satire that's less funny than half-empty and hyper-designed.

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

Each plot twist trumps its predecessor into ludicrousness.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

Torpedoed by its own overarching idealism -- the film targets the new star system, the media, the studios, digital technology, and pretty much everything else you might care to think of -- and not enough script to back it all up.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

Moves at a lumbering pace, peppered with ungainly gags and dramatic moments with little emotional power. The ironic commentary on show-biz superficiality is sabotaged by Niccol's failure to make his own story seem real.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

Such a tedious Hollywood farce, so unpleasantly glib and relentlessly shallow, that Pacino's excessive performance is not even the worst thing about it.

The average user rating for this movie is 6.0 (out of 10) based on 18 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Alexxa F. gave it an 8:
This film was hilarious. Not to mention that most of the people were beautiful. In these ridiculous times of Britney Spears etc, this film fit right in.

Tyler C. gave it a 9:
I don't know why nobody seemed to really like this film. I know that the Simone voice was fakey but honestly I can see where the media can take something and make a big deal out of it. Take Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie. Their marriage was just as artificial as Simone and people still talk about it. Pacino is great in everything he does. I was just very entertained.

Yoon C. gave it a 5:
Good comic performance by Pacino and nice cameo by Ryder but the movie is predicated on the notion that all of humanity--from studio execs to mass audience--are really dumb and gullible. Would have worked better as nonsense comedy but strains toward satire and doesn't quite make it.

Bunny Crill gave it a 1:
Give it a point for an original idea. Stop there. If you find yourself tied to a la-Z-boy with it playing at least beg to fast-forward through the dull and entirely predictable Pachino-Simone scenes. Ugh!

Mike D. gave it a 3:
This was a bad movie...predicatable and unfunny at that.

David gave it a 9:
This movie is awesome. Pacino's great in this movie and I'm falling for Rachel Roberts... Definitely worth your time & money. I'm waiting for the DVD :-)

Matt R. gave it a 10:
Wonderful, quirky film that actually has a brain! Yes, it is funny in many parts, but the metafiction angle is where this work really shines. Truly a "postmodern" marvel in that it is conscious of its own artificiality, Simone is much better than heavy-handed, saccharine drivel like "Signs".

Simone New Line Cinema

Simone
New Line Cinema