Blue Velvet
Metascore
75 out of 100

Generally favorable reviews - based on 14 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 9 out of 14
  2. Mixed: 3 out of 14
  3. Negative: 2 out of 14
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  1. ReelViews
    Reviewed by: James Berardinelli
    100
    Blue Velvet is David Lynch in peak form, and represents (to date) his most accomplished motion picture. It is a work of fascinating scope and power that rivals any of the most subversive films to reach the screens during the '80s.
  2. Village Voice
    Reviewed by: Guy Maddin
    100
    The last real earthquake to hit cinema was David Lynch's "Blue Velvet" -- I'm sure directors throughout the film world felt the earth move beneath their feet and couldn't sleep the night of their first encounter with it back in 1986. (Review of 20th Anniversary Re-Release)
  3. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Sheila Benson
    100
    The most brilliantly disturbing film ever to have its roots in small-town American life. [19 September 1986, Calendar, p.6-1]
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  4. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: Elvis Mitchell
    100
    As fascinating as it is freakish. It confirms Mr. Lynch's stature as an innovator, a superb technician, and someone best not encountered in a dak alley. [19 September 1986]
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  5. L.A. Weekly
    Reviewed by: Scott Foundas
    90
    What dazzles still about David Lynch's Blue Velvet is its total authority: Not a single false gesture. No shock delivered solely for its own sake.
  6. Chicago Tribune
    Reviewed by: Gene Siskel
    88
    One powerful, mesmerizing thriller, a masterful exercise in controlling an audience's attention. [19 September 1986, Friday, p.A]
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  7. Film.com
    Reviewed by: John Hartl
    80
    An exhilarating piece of popular entertainment.
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  8. Variety
    Reviewed by: Staff (Not credited)
    80
    Hopper creates a flabbergasting portrait of unrepentent, irredeemable evil.
  9. Austin Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Marjorie Baumgarten
    67
    You either think it's dementedly wild at heart or a lost highway to nowhere.
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  10. Time
    Reviewed by: Richard Corliss
    60
    Lynch and his film will surely be reviled, but as an experiment in expanding cinema's dramatic and technical vocabulary, Blue Velvet demands respect. [Sept. 22, 1986]
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  11. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Gerald Nachman
    50
    Dark, menacing and sexual, with satanic overtones, like a Black Sabbath song, with many moments of genuine fright and harsh eroticism. [19 September 1986, Daily Notebook, p.76]
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  12. Chicago Reader
    Reviewed by: Pat Graham
    50
    It's mostly fascinating, though the unconverted may be in for a rough two hours.
  13. Washington Post
    Reviewed by: Paul Attanasio
    30
    Doesn't progress or deepen, it just gets weirder, and to no good end.
  14. Chicago Sun-Times
    Reviewed by: Roger Ebert
    25
    So strong, so shocking and yet so audacious that people walk out shaking their heads; they don't know quite what to make of it.

User Reviews

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User Score
7.9 out of 10

Generally favorable reviews- based on 105 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 36 out of 42
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 42
  3. Negative: 5 out of 42
  1. AJ
    10
    It's hard to find the words to describe the experience of watching Blue Velvet. The film is simply a masterpiece.
  2. RickM.
    10
    Excellent, well-constructed movie. People who say this film lacks depth are completely wrong. There is so much symbolism in this film its almost exhausting.… Full Review »
  3. Nesbitt10
    8
    "Blue Velvet" opens with images from the American Dream: perfect little houses with white picket fences, and impeccably manicured yards. A man collapses while watering his lawn, and the camera, after following him to the ground, burrows into it--parting the blades of grass to reveal a colony of swarming bugs. The message is clear perfection often hides deeply-rooted rot. Dreams can easily turn into nightmares. Corruption is everywhere, even in places that seem immune to it. These themes, and others about the pernicious influence of evil, are explored in some depth throughout "Blue Velvet".

    Returning home to visit his father who is in intensive care at the hospital, Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle MacLachlan), stumbles upon a human ear he finds in a field. With local police detective Williams showing little interest to investigate, Jeffrey and Sandy (Laura Dern), Detective Williams's daughter, decide to do their own investigation. But what Jeffrey and Sandy's investigation leads them to discover that a dark underworld exists in their hometown. Jeffrey becomes suspicious of nightclub singer Dorothy Vallens (Isabella Rossellini), who is involved with Frank Booth (Dennis Hopper), an unstable violent man. Dennis delivers a genuinely disturbing performance. There is a dark obsessiveness to "Blue Velvet" one that lingers long after the details of the film's mundane drug and kidnapping plot fade away. One is absorbed in the way that David Lynch draws Ivy League college kid Kyle MacLachlan down into a web of voyeurism, rape, sadomasochism and erotic tension. Perhaps the most fascinating thing about "Blue Velvet" is how it literally becomes a journey into darkness how as Kyle MacLachlan becomes drawn into the web.

    A truly eccentric and unsettling observation of the underlining, unspoken aspects behind the facade of any town, USA. "Blue Velvet" isn't a film for everyone. It has such an ominous, erotic nuance that disturbs, which has come to define his critically acclaimed work over the years. People who like straight forward storytelling where the journey from point A to point B is laid out for them won't be fans of "Blue Velvet". Much like Jeffrey, it's up to you to decide whether you fall into the former or the latter group.    … Full Review »
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