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Being John Malkovich
Metascore
90 out of 100

Universal acclaim - based on 36 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 36 out of 36
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 36
  3. Negative: 0 out of 36
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  1. Chicago Sun-Times
    Reviewed by: Roger Ebert
    100
    Either Being John Malkovich gets nominated for best picture, or the members of the Academy need portals into their brains.
  2. New York Daily News
    Reviewed by: Jami Bernard
    100
    Gloriously inventive, delightfully nutty comic treasure is unlike anything you've ever seen. It's lunatic.
  3. New York Post
    Reviewed by: Lou Lumenick
    100
    Being John Malkovich, which contains not a frame of extraneous footage, is more than a must-see movie: It's a must-see-more-than-once event.
    All this critic's reviews
  4. San Francisco Examiner
    Reviewed by: Wesley Morris
    100
    It's the film we leave most movie theaters wishing we'd seen instead.
  5. Boston Globe
    Reviewed by: Jay Carr
    100
    But then Being John Malkovich is a brilliant juggling act, too, brilliantly brought off.
  6. Baltimore Sun
    Reviewed by: Ann Hornaday
    100
    This smart, fanciful and brilliantly staged comedy takes a truly one-of-a-kind premise and makes it, of all things, a weirdly profound meditation on consciousness, identity, fame, gender and reality.
    All this critic's reviews
  7. Austin Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Marjorie Baumgarten
    100
    A wildly inventive, unrelenting thrill that amazes us with its visual and intellectual treats and dazzles us with its ongoing ingenuity.
  8. Entertainment Weekly
    Reviewed by: Owen Gleiberman
    100
    The most excitingly original movie of the year.
  9. Dallas Observer
    Reviewed by: Gregory Weinkauf
    100
    Smart people will relish its temerariousness, average people will smile awkwardly and comment that it's "kinda different," and dimly lit people may mistake it for the Elmo movie and drool quietly in the back rows. It's a movie for everyone.
  10. Film.com
    Reviewed by: Robert Horton
    100
    Absolutely, see the movie.
  11. Film.com
    Reviewed by: John Hartl
    100
    Breathlessly imaginative.
  12. Film.com
    Reviewed by: Elizabeth Weitzman
    100
    If we're allowed just a couple of truly singular discoveries in twelve months, it's a good year; when one of them is a film as exhilarating as Spike Jonze's feature debut, it's a banner year.
  13. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: Janet Maslin
    100
    Irresistable, nimble and very funny.
  14. Variety
    Reviewed by: David Rooney
    100
    Devilishly inventive and so far out there it's almost off the scale.
  15. L.A. Weekly
    Reviewed by: F. X. Feeney
    90
    It's a cheerfully deranged stunt, executed in a spirit of infectious lunacy that powers the resulting film to its strongest laughs, and weirdest depths.
  16. Rolling Stone
    Reviewed by: Peter Travers
    90
    The crazy-ass imagination at work in Being John Malkovich hits you like a blast of pure oxygen...this movie of constant astonishments will make you laugh hard and long.
    All this critic's reviews
  17. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Kenneth Turan
    90
    A clever and outrageous piece of whimsical fantasy that is unique, unpredictable and more than a little strange.
  18. Newsweek
    Reviewed by: David Ansen
    90
    I don't know how a movie this original got made today, but thank God for wonderful aberrations.
    All this critic's reviews
  19. Time
    Reviewed by: Richard Corliss
    90
    Weird, beguiling premise.
  20. Washington Post
    Reviewed by: Desson Thomson
    90
    So full of creativity, so subversive, so alive.
  21. TNT RoughCut
    Reviewed by: Christopher Brandon
    90
    Unfortunately, no awards committee is hip enough to praise this strange masterpiece.
    All this critic's reviews
  22. Mr. Showbiz
    Reviewed by: Michael Atkinson
    89
    An ingenious, incredibly entertaining, Rorschach-blot meta-comedy based on a spec script (by first-timer Charlie Kaufman) that is completely unlike anything anyone has ever seen before.
    All this critic's reviews
  23. Philadelphia Inquirer
    Reviewed by: Steven Rea
    88
    So jaw-droppingly out there, so bracingly bizarre, and, much of the time, so fall-over-funny that even its flaws don't matter. Easily the oddest movie of the year, it is also one of the best.
    All this critic's reviews
  24. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Edward Guthmann
    88
    It's tremendously entertaining, and probably worthy of repeat viewings.
  25. Charlotte Observer
    Reviewed by: Lawrence Toppman
    88
    It's among the most inventive, screwily funny and consistently surprising movies I've seen in years.
  26. Salon.com
    Reviewed by: Andrew O'Hehir
    80
    It's a gleeful, nitrous-oxide high.
  27. Village Voice
    Reviewed by: J. Hoberman
    80
    The most offbeat studio comedy since "Rushmore."
  28. Film.com
    Reviewed by: Gemma Files
    80
    Surreal to the point of poeticism, amusing and tragic by turns.
  29. Slate
    Reviewed by: David Edelstein
    80
    Everything I've ever dreamed of in a crazy comedy. It's close to pure farce, yet its laughs are grounded in loneliness, impotence, self-loathing, and that most discomfiting of vices to dramatize: envy. The action is surreal, the emotions are violently real.
  30. Chicago Reader
    Reviewed by: Jonathan Rosenbaum
    80
    This outrageous comic fantasy may not sustain its brilliance throughout all of its 112 minutes, but it keeps cooking for so much of that time that I don't have many complaints.
  31. Chicago Tribune
    Reviewed by: Michael Wilmington
    75
    Weird to the max, smart, sneaky as a Wall Street pickpocket and revved up with cruel wit and brazen imagination, Being John Malkovich is a dark movie comedy that you couldn't forget if you tried.
    All this critic's reviews
  32. Christian Science Monitor
    Reviewed by: David Sterritt
    75
    (Jonze and Kaufman's) work is so bold, funny, and original that it's hard to believe they aren't wide-screen veterans.
  33. Miami Herald
    Reviewed by: Rene Rodriguez
    75
    This is the most impressive directorial debut since"Reservoir Dogs." Being John Malkovich is weird, all right-- the best kind of weird, the kind you haven't seen before.
  34. Seattle Post-Intelligencer
    Reviewed by: William Arnold
    75
    It's essentially a one-joke situation, but screenwriter Charlie Kaufman and first-time director Spike Jonze definitely make the most of it.
  35. TV Guide
    Reviewed by: Maitland McDonagh
    70
    Bizarre, utterly original and truly indescribable comedy...You just have to see it for yourself.
  36. USA Today
    Reviewed by: Mike Clark
    63
    The story keeps reinventing itself (some of the later plot twists are among the funniest), but a little goes a long way at 112 minutes - maybe 25 minutes more than this sporadically pointed conceit really needs.
    All this critic's reviews
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User Reviews

All reviews »
User Score
8.2 out of 10

Universal acclaim- based on 93 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 34 out of 41
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 41
  3. Negative: 6 out of 41
  1. Halfwelshman
    10
    Being John Malkovich really is a film like no other. Director Spike Jonze and writer Charlie Kaufman's vision for the film is so complete, so unique and off-the-wall, it makes for an utterly spellbinding viewing experience. The performances are all superb, and many a far cry from the respective cast member's usual roles.John Cusack makes a very engaging, if highly unlikeable protagonist as Craig Schwatz, an ambitious but morally bereft puppeteer, who finds a mysterious portal into the head of John Malkovich. Malkovich, quite amusingly, gives one of the best performances of his career, playing a parody of himself, who is unwittingly used by a whole host of people for entertainment, entrepreneurial ventures and for a far more sinister purpose. Cameron Diaz, Catherine Keener and Orson Bean are all excellent too as Craig's unfulfilled, animal-loving wife, his sexually deviant co-worker and his ancient and looney boss respectively. Being John Malkovich delivers on all fronts, from the cast playing a weird and wonderful array of characters to Spike Jonze's tight and controlled direction, Lance Acord's cinematography perfectly capturing the simple, yet effective visuals, Carter Burwell's fantastic score and especially Charlie Kaufman's slick, sharp and side-splittingly funny script. It's surreal, dark, well-written and simply hilarious. It's also superbly odd, bordering on lunacy, but in a good way. There's nothing else like it, and there likely never will be. By the end of Being John Malkovich, you've certainly been on a journey - you're not certain where you've been, or what it all means, but by God you had a good time.… Full Review »
  2. hoops2448
    9
    Being John Malkovich is the work of a clearly twisted individual (Director Spike Jonze) but its hard to deny that Jonze is unbelievably talented as he balances multiple plot threads and complex characters while managing to infuse the film with a hilarious satirical element. The film follows a professional puppeteer (John Cusack) as he is forced to take a position as a file clerk in an oddly shaped office building at his animal loving wife’s (The unexpectedly impressive Cameron Diaz) insistence. While there he meets the woman of his dreams (Katherine Keener) a conniving, manipulative borderline sociopathic executive. At the same time he finds a door in his office that acts as a portal into John Malkovich’s mind. The plot is rich and complex and the writing (by Adaptation’s Charlie Kaufman) allows us to feel sympathy and compassion for these thoroughly unlikable characters. You understand their motivations and their actions even if you would never ever do them yourself. The satirical nature of the story and the writing helps in that their actions are so undeniably funny that you can’t help but enjoy what they are doing even if they are doing things like locking their friends in cages. The cast give some rich performances with Diaz and Cusack being the best of the bunch in that they bring these tragic characters to life in a way no other actor could. Malkovich is another stand out in that he portrays two different characters without dipping into the other. His helplessness is comical thanks to both his portrayal and the writing. It’s a stunning film that only gets better with age although my one problem with it is that it never gets better than its opening scene which is a perfect indicator of the film ahead in that it is both tragic and beautiful in equal measures, oh and the scenes done almost entirely with puppets. Enjoy.… Full Review »
  3. Greatbeallo
    9
    Watched this movie again last night after not seeing it for years. It really is a fantastic film. Charlie Kauffman never fails to come up with bizarre and intriguing scripts, and Spike Jonze is also on his A-game. This movie starts off on a strange note, and it continues to spiral into a twilight zone of hilarious proportions. I don't even like Cameron Diaz, but I thought she was very good in her role, and I loved the rest of the cast as well. If you are looking for a film that is unlike any other film you have ever seen, or ever will see, then this film matches that criteria. It's a lot of fun, but also has some interesting things to say about real life issues.… Full Review »
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