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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

97
4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days
83
Alexandra
43
Anamorph
35
Babysitters, The
32
Backseat
80
Band's Visit, The
62
Battle for Haditha
47
Bella
63
Blind Mountain
71
Blindsight
47
Boarding Gate
63
Body of War
58
Bra Boys
70
Caramel
54
Cashback
44
Chaos Theory
32
Chapter 27
69
Chicago 10
82
Chop Shop
46
CJ7
78
Counterfeiters, The
30
Cover
48
Dark Matter
35
Deal
61
Dhamma Brothers, The
92
Diving Bell and the Butterfly, The
73
Duchess of Langeais, The
20
Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed
58
Fall, The
43
Favor, The
58
First Saturday in May, The
57
Flawless
87
Flight of the Red Balloon, The
xx
From Within
44
Frontier(s)
59
Fugitive Pieces
41
Funny Games
66
George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead
61
Girls Rock!
55
Glass: A Portrait of Philip in Twelve Parts
57
Grand, The
58
Hats Off
68
Honeydripper
xx
Jack and Jill vs. the World
67
Jellyfish
xx
Kiss the Bride
37
Life Before Her Eyes, The
72
Life of Reilly, The
50
Look
65
Married Life
35
Meet Bill
63
Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
54
Mister Lonely
52
My Blueberry Nights
71
My Brother Is an Only Child
49
Noise
61
OSS 117: Cairo - Nest of Spies
83
Paranoid Park
55
Pathology
48
Penelope
90
Persepolis
62
Planet B-Boy
xx
Plumm Summer, A
67
Praying with Lior
44
Previous Engagement, A
72
Priceless
17
Prom Night
69
Redbelt
72
Roman de gare
48
Run, Fat Boy, Run
85
Savages, The
24
Sex and Death 101
66
Shelter
75
Shotgun Stories
40
Sleepwalking
67
Snow Angels
64
Son of Rambow
71
Standard Operating Procedure
76
Stuff and Dough
64
Surfwise
xx
Tashan
82
Taxi to the Dark Side
57
Teeth
56
Then She Found Me
55
Tracey Fragments, The
56
Turn the River
72
Tuya's Marriage
83
U2 3D
59
Under the Same Moon
76
Unforeseen, The
xx
Unsettled
91
Up the Yangtze
55
Vice
79
Visitor, The
64
Water Lilies
45
Where in the World Is Osama Bin Laden?
57
Without the King
74
Witnesses, The
63
XXY
67
Year My Parents Went on Vacation, The
75
Young@Heart
45
Zombie Strippers
97
4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days
92
Diving Bell and the Butterfly, The
91
Up the Yangtze
90
Persepolis
87
Flight of the Red Balloon, The
85
Savages, The
83
Paranoid Park
83
Alexandra
83
U2 3D
82
Chop Shop
82
Taxi to the Dark Side
80
Band's Visit, The
79
Visitor, The
78
Counterfeiters, The
76
Unforeseen, The
76
Stuff and Dough
75
Young@Heart
75
Shotgun Stories
74
Witnesses, The
73
Duchess of Langeais, The
72
Roman de gare
72
Priceless
72
Tuya's Marriage
72
Life of Reilly, The
71
My Brother Is an Only Child
71
Blindsight
71
Standard Operating Procedure
70
Caramel
69
Redbelt
69
Chicago 10
68
Honeydripper
67
Snow Angels
67
Praying with Lior
67
Year My Parents Went on Vacation, The
67
Jellyfish
66
George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead
66
Shelter
65
Married Life
64
Surfwise
64
Son of Rambow
64
Water Lilies
63
XXY
63
Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
63
Body of War
63
Blind Mountain
62
Planet B-Boy
62
Battle for Haditha
61
Dhamma Brothers, The
61
OSS 117: Cairo - Nest of Spies
61
Girls Rock!
59
Under the Same Moon
59
Fugitive Pieces
58
First Saturday in May, The
58
Fall, The
58
Hats Off
58
Bra Boys
57
Flawless
57
Teeth
57
Without the King
57
Grand, The
56
Turn the River
56
Then She Found Me
55
Vice
55
Tracey Fragments, The
55
Pathology
55
Glass: A Portrait of Philip in Twelve Parts
54
Cashback
54
Mister Lonely
52
My Blueberry Nights
50
Look
49
Noise
48
Run, Fat Boy, Run
48
Dark Matter
48
Penelope
47
Bella
47
Boarding Gate
46
CJ7
45
Where in the World Is Osama Bin Laden?
45
Zombie Strippers
44
Frontier(s)
44
Chaos Theory
44
Previous Engagement, A
43
Anamorph
43
Favor, The
41
Funny Games
40
Sleepwalking
37
Life Before Her Eyes, The
35
Meet Bill
35
Babysitters, The
35
Deal
32
Backseat
32
Chapter 27
30
Cover
24
Sex and Death 101
20
Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed
17
Prom Night
xx
Tashan
xx
Unsettled
xx
Plumm Summer, A
xx
Kiss the Bride
xx
Jack and Jill vs. the World
xx
From Within
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
|
Squid and the Whale, The
Samuel Goldwyn Films
FILM:
MPAA RATING: R for strong sexual content, graphic dialogue and language
Starring
Jeff Daniels,
Laura Linney,
Jesse Eisenberg,
Owen Kline,
Halley Feiffer,
William Baldwin,
Anna Paquin,
and
Alexandra Daddario
The Squid and the Whale captures with extraordinary immediacy the inner workings of the Berkman family in 1986 Brooklyn.
| GENRE(S): |
Drama
|
| WRITTEN BY: |
Noah Baumbach
|
| DIRECTED BY: |
Noah Baumbach
|
| RELEASE DATE: |
DVD: March 21, 2006
Theatrical: October 5, 2005
|
| RUNNING TIME: |
88 minutes, Color |
| ORIGIN: |
USA |
Director's Award (Dramatic) and Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award, 2005 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...
100
Premiere
Glenn Kenny
It's a rare film that can be convincingly tender, bitterly funny, and ruthlessly cutting over the course of fewer than 90 minutes. The Squid and the Whale not only manages this, it also contains moments that sock you with all three qualities at the same time.

100
Dallas Observer
Robert Wilonsky
Treacherously funny and wrenchingly sad.

100
Chicago Tribune
Allison Benedikt
Steering clear of phony melodrama and indie pretense, Baumbach captures a crisis in one family's life that, though it shakes the foundation, leaves all four Berkmans drifting toward highs and lows unknown, each of them only dimly aware that, no matter what the movies tell us, we never really come of age.

100
Charlotte Observer
Lawrence Toppman
Squid keeps you on your toes, but payoffs will have you smiling - maybe in rueful recognition of the truth - in scene after scene.

91
Portland Oregonian
M. E. Russell
Isn't easy to watch, but it's beautifully written and acted, with a sharp eye for the small embarrassments of divorce.

91
Baltimore Sun
Michael Sragow
Bitterly funny about divorce, it's even sharper and more original about intellectuals and their discontent.

91
Christian Science Monitor
Peter Rainer
Baumbach captures the ways in which children takes sides in a war they can't even begin to comprehend.

91
Entertainment Weekly
Lisa Schwarzbaum
In hovering, The Squid and the Whale becomes its own realistic display of family entropy, as cautionary as it is educational.

90
Time
Richard Corliss
The Squid and the Whale is domestic tragedy recollected as comedy: a film whose catalog of deceits and embarrassments, and of love pratfalling over itself, makes it as (excruciatingly) painful as it is (exhilaratingly) funny.

90
The New York Times
Dana Stevens
Both sharply comical and piercingly sad. Mr. Baumbach surveys the members of the flawed, collapsing Berkman family with sympathy but without mercy, noting their individual and collective failures and imperfections with relentless precision.

90
Los Angeles Times
Kenneth Turan
Acutely observed, faultlessly acted, graced with piercing emotion and unsparing honesty, it will make you laugh because you can't bear to cry.

90
The New Yorker
David Denby
A satirical comedy--ruthless and heartbreaking, but a comedy nonetheless. The movie is also about disintegration and the possibility of rebirth. In other words, it’s a small miracle.

89
Austin Chronicle
Kimberley Jones
It packs a hefty emotional wallop.

88
Boston Globe
Ty Burr
This is one cinematic novella that stays with you for quite a while.

88
Chicago Sun-Times
Roger Ebert
All I know is, it is better to be the whale than the squid. Whales inspire major novels.

88
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
Rick Groen
If the kids give the movie its momentum, its fascination comes from a more static source -- the father.

88
Philadelphia Inquirer
Carrie Rickey
Insightful, funny-sad memoir of divorce, intellectual style and emotional rebirth.

88
USA Today
Claudia Puig
The young actors' performances are particularly haunting.

88
Rolling Stone
Peter Travers
Without jerking tears or reducing the acid content of his wit, Baumbach's humane movie gets under your skin.

88
New York Daily News
Jami Bernard
A great divorce movie. It's also one of the canniest comedies ever made about a certain kind of literary pretension.

88
New York Post
Kyle Smith
With its dry wit and all-star household, Baumbach's movie resembles Wes Anderson's "The Royal Tenenbaums" without the heavy whimsy.

83
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Paula Nechak
Daniels gives a career-best performance.

80
Washington Post
Desson Thomson
This story doesn't just belong to them anymore. This richly observed, sometimes heartbreaking movie has become ours, too.

80
The Onion (A.V. Club)
Nathan Rabin
It's an unflinchingly raw and honest look at a family splitting apart, and it seldom strikes an unconvincing or inauthentic note. Though it surveys rocky adolescent emotional terrain from the safe distance of adulthood, The Squid And The Whale still resonates with the sting of a fresh wound.

80
Village Voice
J. Hoberman
Tender, cruel, and very funny, Baumbach's fourth feature turns family history into a sort of urban myth.

80
Film Threat
Pete Vonder Haar
Baumbach crams an impressive amount of characterization and humor into 82 minutes.

80
LA Weekly
Paul Malcolm
Baumbach weds his verbal gifts to a fresh visual acuity that brings layers of rich detail to a portrait of a family coping, poorly, with self-inflicted change.

80
Chicago Reader
Jonathan Rosenbaum
The implied critique of progressive, bohemian parenting is devastating--wise and nuanced, with the painful hilarity of truth.

80
Empire
Adam Smith
Painful, funny and beautifully acted, by Jeff Daniels particularly, who gives a career-best performance.

75
ReelViews
James Berardinelli
Jeff Daniels, an actor who is often relegated to inoffensive supporting roles, surprises with the power and intensity of his performance.

75
San Francisco Chronicle
Mick LaSalle
An entertaining and perceptive film with one big problem.

70
The New Republic
Stanley Kauffmann
All four of the roles are written with pungency. There is even an implication that the two adults realize the triteness of the situation and that they--the characters, not Baumbach--want to speak from inner sources, not from a script. Baumbach pulls this off with some sting and wit.

70
Salon.com
Stephanie Zacharek
Has so much going for it -- including intelligent performances that mesh beautifully, and a keen understanding of how seemingly small moments can rattle the foundations of families -- that you walk away from it feeling it should add up to more.

70
Slate
David Edelstein
The hole in the film isn't a reflection on Linney's performance. It's as if Baumbach, his hands full of oily whale blubber, didn't want to deal with an exploding sac of squid ink. And who can blame him, really?

70
Variety
Scott Foundas
Pic makes up in strong performances and wry observation what it sometimes lacks in narrative drive. Result is a perceptive (and unexpectedly moving) portrait of lives in crisis.

50
TV Guide
Maitland McDonagh
The title refers to a diorama at New York City's American Museum of Natural History that depicts a whale and a giant squid locked in mortal combat.

40
Wall Street Journal
Joe Morgenstern
The absence of any nuance in the father's character bespeaks the filmmaker's unwillingness to trust his audience. Making the movie may have been therapeutic for him, but I can't say the same about watching it.

The average user rating for this movie is 7.3 (out of 10) based on 240 User Votes
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