Movies
Weekend Box Office
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores
Wide Releases
Now In Theaters
76
(500) Days of Summer
49
2012
60
9
17
All About Steve
37
Amelia
53
Astro Boy
70
Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans
52
Blind Side
47
Box, The
61
Capitalism: A Love Story
55
Christmas Carol, A
43
Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant
66
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
23
Couples Retreat
39
Fame
30
Final Destination, The
34
Fourth Kind, The
41
G-Force
46
Halloween II
73
Hangover, The
78
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
66
Informant!, The
69
Inglourious Basterds
58
Invention of Lying, The
47
Jennifer's Body
66
Julie & Julia
34
Law Abiding Citizen
54
Men Who Stare At Goats, The
67
Michael Jackson's This Is It
28
Pandorum
58
Pirate Radio
39
Planet 51
30
Saw VI
53
Shorts
33
Stepfather, The
45
Surrogates
46
Twilight Saga: New Moon, The
71
Where the Wild Things Are
67
Whip It
28
Whiteout
73
Zombieland
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
Limited Releases
Now In Theaters
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.
Waterboy, The
EMAILPRINTBuena Vista Pictures

Mixed or average reviews
Based on 21 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 18 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Comedy
Written by:
Tim Herlihy
Adam Sandler
Directed by: Frank Coraci
Release Date:
Theatrical: November 6, 1998
DVD: June 3, 2003
Running Time: 90 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: PG-13 for language and some crude sexual humor
Starring Adam Sandler, Kathy Bates, Fairuza Balk, Henry Winkler, Jerry Reed, Larry Gilliard Jr., Blake Clark, and Peter Dante
Just an oddball mama's boy from the back bayous of Louisiana, Bobby Boucher (Sandler) never wanted anything more than to quench the thirst of the dehydrated athletes who treat him like dirt! But when Coach Klein (Winkler) makes the call that allows Bobby to finally stand up for himself, it unleashes a torrent of bottled-up frustration ... and exposes a talent for tackling that transforms him from a meek "water distribution engineer" into the hardest hitter ever to roam the gridiron! (Buena Vista Entertainment)
Also On Metacritic
FILM: Around the World in 80 Days Click The Wedding Singer
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database Official Studio Site
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...
ReelViews James Berardinelli
Arguably Sandler's most enjoyable motion picture to date, but it's still far from a masterpiece.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Rita Kempley
The Perrier of dumb-and-dumber movies, an effervescent idiot's delight that burbles from the wellspring of silliness inside star Adam Sandler's head.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Elvis Mitchell
This escapist comedy is so cheerfully outlandish that it's hard to resist, and so good-hearted that it's genuinely endearing.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Ken Fox
No one does deranged quite like Kathy Bates (the film's running gag involving Bates and the delicacies of Cajun cuisine is hilarious).
Read Full Review >Variety Glenn Lovell
This yahoos-on-the-bayou farce is neither inventive nor outrageous enough.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov
It's not "Billy Madison," quite, but The Waterboy is still pure Sandler. If you like that sort of thing.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) John Haslett Cuff
As a satire on the only true religion of the American South -- football -- The Waterboy is a delight.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Peter Stack
An unabashed wallow in the moronic humor of Adam Sandler.
Read Full Review >USA Today Susan Wloszczyna
As funny as it can be, this underdawg comedy isn't much more than Sandler's golf-oriented "Happy Gilmore" with a Cajun accent. [6 November 1998, p. 10E]
Washington Post Michael O'Sullivan
Another film about . . . a cretinous, grating loser.
Read Full Review >Empire Caroline Westbrook
Perfectly watchable, undemanding fun, but you can't help thinking that a slightly darker tone would have gone a very long way.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader Lisa Alspector
Geek-triumphs-after-all comedies can be charming, but in this one the triumphing begins so early it's hard to feel for the geek.
Read Full Review >LA Weekly Manohla Dargis
Of course it's dumb, but every 10 minutes or so, it's also pretty funny.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times John Anderson
Follows a leadenly predictable path that will be more than familiar to anyone who's seen a recent sports movie, or any Sandler movie.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Joshua Klein
A mess of bad timing, bad jokes, and bad ideas so lame that even Sandler's idiot man-child mugging can't enliven the proceedings.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News David Kehr
Working a lisping Southern accent that sounds like Truman Capote on Seconal, Sandler plays Bobby Boucher, a swamp-dwelling Cajun. [6 November 1998, p. 56]
Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
Sandler is making a tactical error when he creates a character whose manner and voice has the effect of fingernails on a blackboard, and then expects us to hang in there for a whole movie.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 9.1 (out of 10) based on 18 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
[Anonymous] gave it a10:
I rarely enjoy stupid movies, I watch a film looking at it from a critics perspective, but this film broke me from that, I laughed from the beginning to end its genius.
[Anonymous] gave it a10:
Adam Sandler in this movie is friggin' awesome
Roma M gave it a10:
Brilliant movie! Must be one of the best Adam Sandlers film for sure! Don't listen to critics,this movie is really really funny!
Sam M. gave it a10:
Forget the critics, this is an awesome comedy. Sandler at his best!
Steve gave it a2:
predictable tripe. i can't recall any time that i laughed - not because the jokes weren't funny; just because the punchline was just so obvious.
Bit Burn gave it a9:
Forget the critics, this is an awesome comedy. Sandler at his best!
[Anonymous] gave it an8:
Now this is comedy. The Medulla oblongata part was genius.
