Advanced Search >
Help Me Search

Movies

Weekend Box Office
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores

Wide Releases
Now In Theaters

sort by namesort by score

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Limited Releases
Now In Theaters

sort by namesort by score

58 (Untitled)
96 35 Shots of Rum
56 Adam
39 Adventures of Power
66 Afterschool
73 Amreeka
49 Antichrist
76 Baader Meinhof Complex, The
86 Beaches of Agnes, The
71 Big Fan
65 Black Dynamite
76 Bliss
26 Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day, The
44 Brief Interviews with Hideous Men
81 Bright Star
76 Broken Embraces
70 Bronson
62 Cloud 9
65 Coco Before Chanel
69 Cold Souls
60 Collapse
82 Cove, The
75 Crude
82 Damned United, The
53 Dare
50 Defamation
67 Departures
70 Earth Days
85 Education, An
55 Endgame
88 Fantastic Mr. Fox
31 Fix
49 Food Beware: The French Organic Revolution
80 Food, Inc.
xx From Mexico with Love
28 Gentlemen Broncos
72 Good Hair
89 Goodbye Solo
63 Horse Boy, The
74 House of the Devil, The
xx How to Seduce Difficult Women
26 I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell
70 It Might Get Loud
46 Killing Kasztner
43 Little Traitor, The
34 Looking for Palladin
80 Lorna's Silence
46 Love Hurts
84 Maid, The
45 Mammoth
75 Messenger, The
55 Missing Person, The
59 More Than a Game
34 Motherhood
62 My One and Only
48 New York, I Love You
66 No Impact Man
26 Oh My God
68 Paranormal Activity
68 Paris
79 Precious: Based on the Novel by Sapphire
73 Red Cliff
69 September Issue, The
79 Serious Man, A
65 Skin
41 Splinterheads
42 Staten Island
50 Stoning of Soraya M., The
58 Storm
82 Sun, The
49 Ten9Eight: Shoot for the Moon
73 That Evening Sun
61 Trucker
49 Turning Green
83 U2 3D
45 Uncertainty
67 Visual Acoustics
32 War on Kids
67 Way We Get By, The
65 Wedding Song, The
xx White on Rice
59 William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe
74 Woman in Berlin, A
43 Women in Trouble
69 Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Tideland

EMAILPRINTThinkFilm

Tideland reviews
26
6.2 User Score:

Generally unfavorable reviews

Based on 23 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

Based on 28 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >

Movie Info

Genre(s): Drama  |  Fantasy

Written by: Terry Gilliam
Tony Grisoni
Mitch Cullin (novel)

Directed by: Terry Gilliam

Release Date:
Theatrical: October 13, 2006
DVD: February 27, 2007

Running Time: 122 minutes, Color

Origin: Canada / UK

Summary

RATING: R for bizarre and disturbing content, including drug use, sexuality, and gruesome situations - all involving a child, and for some language

Starring Jeff Bridges, Jodelle Ferland, Brendan Fletcher, Jennifer Tilly, and Janet McTeer

Tideland celebrates the resiliency of childhood and the power of the imagination as only Terry Gilliam could conceive it. (ThinkFilm)

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...

75

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

It's crazy, dangerous and sometimes gorgeous: a feast of nuttiness that takes you, for a while, over the edge.

Read Full Review >
70

LA Weekly Tom Charity

This Southern Gothic Alice in Wonderland is not for the faint-hearted, to be sure, yet amid the swaying chaff there are moments of piercing grace and beauty when we'e reminded of the lost, lonely child at the heart of this tale. If nothing else, it's liberating to see one of cinema's unrepentant fantasists going out on a limb like this and cutting loose.

Read Full Review >
63

TV Guide Ken Fox

By turns fascinating and intolerable.

Read Full Review >
58

The Onion (A.V. Club) Noel Murray

It's no "trip through the dark to appreciate the light." It's a nightmare from start to finish.

Read Full Review >
50

Los Angeles Times Sam Adams

Tideland is equally evocative of the pastoral mystery of an Andrew Wyeth painting and the looming menace of "Psycho." The disparity is fitting, because as Tideland unfolds, it's difficult to tell if you're watching a fantasy or a horror movie, or one superimposed on the other.

Read Full Review >
50

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Jennie Punter

Tideland is the easiest of Gilliam's films to follow, yet the most disturbing to watch.

Read Full Review >
40

Village Voice J. Hoberman

Gilliam has suffered more than his share of butchered projects, but with this exercise in kamikaze auteurism, he appears to have made exactly the mess he wanted.

Read Full Review >
38

ReelViews James Berardinelli

Tideland is, by turns, a complete bore and a creepy experience. And I don't mean "creepy" in a positive sense.

Read Full Review >
38

New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman

A murky swamp of a movie, Terry Gilliam's defiantly surreal Tideland finds every good idea drowning in an excess of indulgence.

Read Full Review >
38

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

A mix of "Alice in Wonderland" and William S. Burroughs, "Psycho" and the psychotic. It's pretty much a squirmy experience all around.

Read Full Review >
30

The Hollywood Reporter Michael Rechtshaffen

A misconceived washout of a darkly gothic story of madness, addiction and child abuse made all the more unpleasant by Gilliam's trademark intense visual style.

Read Full Review >
30

Variety Leslie Felperin

Dragged down by a sputtering script and torpid pacing. Way too disturbing for kids and too weird for most grown-ups.

Read Full Review >
25

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

Borderline unwatchable, although, as is true of all Gilliam movies, it certainly is different.

Read Full Review >
25

Boston Globe Ty Burr

The results are dull, of all things. The movie itself feels like an overstuffed burrito,

Read Full Review >
25

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Bill White

When the little girl tells her decapititated doll, "It's not just a bad dream," she is right. It's just a bad movie.

Read Full Review >
20

The New York Times A.O. Scott

The worst that can be said of the first two-thirds of Tideland is that it is tiresome. Toward the end it becomes creepy, and not in a good way.

Read Full Review >
11

Austin Chronicle Josh Rosenblatt

When they’re used to tell a story as dreary, unfocused, and exhausting as Tideland, the director’s trademark dreamscapes and disorienting camera angles feel like so much artless window dressing.

Read Full Review >
10

Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir

The misanthropic nadir of the director's crash-and-burn career.

Read Full Review >
10

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

Enter this diseased Lewis Carroll universe at your own risk.

Read Full Review >
0

Washington Post Ann Hornaday

Rarely has an act of such cinematic cruelty as Tideland been perpetrated on filmgoers.

Read Full Review >
0

San Francisco Chronicle Ruthe Stein

Immediately shoots to the top of the list of the year's worst movies.

Read Full Review >
0

New York Post Kyle Smith

It's trashy and disgusting - and those are the best parts. Mostly it's just an endless, pointless drone with characters like bacteria and dialogue like an untuned radio.

Read Full Review >
0

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

Dour, absurdist, gruesomely awful.

Read Full Review >

What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this movie is 6.2 (out of 10) based on 28 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Holger W. gave it a10:
This film is just a masterpiece for those who open their eyes, their minds and hearts....and step out of this superficial living to see...really see.

Ali C. gave it a9:
Beautiful-I'd want all my friends to watch it. It stands out from the dumb trend following movies A 9 only because a greater discovery would have been nice.

Jay gave it a9:
Nice surprise, as I forgot about this and rented it. Great performances and Gilliam masters another fantasty world come to life. Bridges is great in small role(when isn't he) and Jodelle Ferland just shines as the lead and makes this movie her own. Brave. Very brave.

Thomas W gave it a7:
Maybe everybody expected another "Brazil"..., something similar in visual style (me too!). I had differences while viewing "Tideland", was bored sometimes. I think it happens in her mind, the fantastic landscapes we wanted to see are in the head of that child, and that means you have to feel into her. Thats for sure far away from normal movie consumption, and so many people failed. The story itself is comparable to "Brazil", I think, it points into another world..

Paul gave it a10:
In my opinion Tideland is a really great movie. It might not be Gilliam's best one but surely one of the most interesting and eclectic movies I watched in the last years. It misses some of the qualities cinema visitors might want - such as strong excitement, a happy end or something. But that would just distract us from the interesting points of Tideland.

Jay K gave it a9:
I can't believe how underrated this movie is. The lack of respect this movie gets is really a crime. This film is extremely brave, interesting, well-written, well-acted, well-shot, and well-directed. I was captivated the whole way through. If the back of the case appeals to you, please do give this film a shot.

Vince gave it a4:
Love Gilliam's works, and the plot itself at a glance was certainly more then interesting enough to grab my attention and make me rent it. But this somehow turned out to be a really, really boring movie. Disappointing.

Read more user comments >

Popular on CBS sites: SEC Football | NFL | Video Game Cheats | iPhone | Video Game Reviews | Notebooks | Antivirus Software

About CBS Interactive | Jobs | Advertise

© 2009 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved. | Privacy Policy (UPDATED) | Terms of Use