User Score
7.3 out of 10

Generally favorable reviews- based on 81 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 66 out of 81
  2. Negative: 6 out of 81

Review this movie

  1. Your Score
    10 out of 10
    Rate this:
    out of 10
  1. Submit
  2. Check Spelling
  3. Characters remaining: 5000 out of 5000

  1. CaseyA.
    Jun 15, 2001
    10
    I think your all a bunch of jealous idiots! This movie is very moving and it proves one thing........REALITY!! If you are mad because Helen Hunt didn't up and leave her husband when hanks returned you really should stick to watching Fox network sitcoms! Gosh I am sick of hearing stupid reviews from ignorant people that want the same damn movie over and over!
    • 1 of 1 users said yes
  2. OzzieM.
    Jul 22, 2001
    5
    Great backgrounds and effects. But the ending and the story really stunk. Not enough exploration was done on the on the real star of the movie...the island!
    • 0 of 0 users said yes
  3. ToddT.
    Sep 12, 2001
    9
    Am I the only one that loved the final act! The movie greatly surpassed my expectations, and I greatly prefer it to "Forest Gump".
    • 0 of 0 users said yes
  4. GlynnG.
    Sep 1, 2001
    6
    Why Helen Hunt? Her irritatingly bad performance took away from what was a great Tom Hanks performance.
    • 0 of 0 users said yes
  5. PaulW.
    May 4, 2006
    3
    very superficial. This guy spends 4 years alone in an island and the only things he learn is to fish. I find this unrealistic. In a situation like this anybody would need to find a reason to live, to go deep inside oneself. That is totally missing.
    • 0 of 1 users said yes
  6. EvanT
    May 11, 2009
    10
    what an awesome and riveting movie. Its been a long time since a flick help me in total captivity the entire time and gave me goose bumps. A genius movie. outstanding!
    • 0 of 0 users said yes
  7. DamianP.
    Jun 17, 2001
    2
    Someone said to me "not many actors could have pulled off that role". Well, Hanks didn't. I want my money back, my back side was in agony after sitting through all that drivel.
    • 0 of 0 users said yes
  8. ScottC.
    Jun 19, 2001
    2
    What a waste. Bad ending. Bad theme. Cast a whats the point!
    • 0 of 0 users said yes
  9. MattW.
    Aug 4, 2001
    10
    How many times have you been anxious to do or see something? Can you remember thinking 'it's taking forever for this thing to happen?' Now you look back and think of how great a time you had. This movie is like finding hope in the waiting period and it tells something about life. Whatever it is you are waiting for will come. You just need to be patient and wait till the time is right and take advatage of it because "You never know what the tide may bring." Expand
    • 0 of 0 users said yes
  10. CraigC.
    Sep 18, 2001
    10
    This Is One Of The Best Movies Ever,The Story Is Well Played Out, Its A Two Hour Movie However It Never Drags Out. Buy It!
    • 0 of 0 users said yes
  11. PatC.
    Jan 13, 2004
    7
    A modern American Robinson Crusoe, with his man Friday convincingly played by the contents of a parcel that absolutely positively washed ashore overnight. Doesn't have the zing of an epic, but otherwise is believable and absorbing. Life indeed is what happens while you are making other plans. Meanwhile, other people make plans while you continue to live. Good performance by Hanks. He had a ball on the island. Best supporting actor should have gone to Wilson for maintaining an appropriate facial expression and remembering his lines. Expand
    • 0 of 0 users said yes
  12. KevinV.
    Jan 5, 2004
    9
    One of my very favorite movies of the last 5 years, but not for everyone. Requires a viewer predisposed to examine his own values and the direction of his own life. A quiet meditation from a skilled filmmaker (Zemeckis) and actor (Hanks).
    • 0 of 0 users said yes
  13. BitBurn
    Mar 9, 2005
    10
    One of the best movies I've seen in the past 10 years! The storyline is remarkable. What struck me the most is that there was no background music at all when his plane went down and the time spent on his island. Then when he left, the music returned, as he was looking away! A very beautiful movie from start to finish. However, a warning for all you action-packed movies, this one is not for you. Expand
    • 0 of 0 users said yes
  14. Nikki
    Jul 14, 2001
    10
    It is surprisingly good...better than I thought it would be. A must-see.
    • 0 of 0 users said yes
  15. NedD.
    Sep 14, 2001
    4
    Great plane crash. I hope I haven't spoiled the only reason to see this movie. Unless watching Tom Hanks learn to eat a coconut is your idea of great entertainment.
    • 0 of 0 users said yes
  16. YoonMinC.
    Oct 27, 2003
    7
    A mainstream Hollywood production(big budget, big name director and actors)reaching for meaning and significance and barely making it to shore. Hanks plays a pushy workaholic American who flies around the global village for Fed Ex. He's blind to everything except his career and his love interest. Stranded alone on an island after the plane crash he's forced to readjust to a radically different kind of existence of surviving on bare necessities, of cyclical time, and in utter loneliness. He's forced to become a primitive and a mystic, succeeding reasonably well as former but not so much as latter, mostly babbling to an imaginary friend in the form of a volleyball. The movie has a somewhat pompous Biblical thrust where modern man is forced into a vast timeless conundrum. As years pass Hanks comes to resemble a prophet meditating in the wilderness. Sadly, the movie focuses far too much on Hank's physical struggle for survival and not enough on his mental struggle to maintain sanity or to attain some kind of peace(for that, there's the truly great Woman in the Dunes). Still, the movie's recalls some of the best moments of Contact--also by Zemeckis--where, too, the protagonist attains a measure of wisdom and humility only after undergoing a profoundly transformative adventure. Hanks hams it up a little in the final scenes but is otherwise immensely likable. Helen Hunt though no great beauty emanates spiritual beauty. Expand
    • 0 of 0 users said yes
  17. DarcyC
    Nov 24, 2007
    10
    This movie is one of the greatest. So emotional to me, the 2 hours past in no time. I love this movie.
    • 0 of 0 users said yes
  18. Nov 14, 2010
    10
    I love this movie, Tom Hanks was awesome! I think this movie ir very realistic, one of the best perfomance of Tom Hanks!! the storyline is just incredible, A must-see movie
  19. Feb 22, 2011
    9
    Really Good only 8 because of the visual effects when he crashed on the island
  20. Feb 9, 2011
    9
    What a great movie! It's brilliant. The idea, the acting, the dramatics. everything is fabulous. This movie shows in a very realistic way how a human being adjust and live in solitude. The deep feelings and emotions keeps you with high pulse till the end. After you've seen this movie you live different among your friends and just sometimes you scream 'Wilson!!!' when you are alone.....
  21. Aug 17, 2011
    7
    For me this one was a dissapointment. Don`t get me wrong. I fully agree with Hanks` Oscar nomination for this role. I guess he is the only thing holding this film from being a failure. The music is good, though it doesn`t go too well with what we`re watching. The effects and pictures are well made, though they do not contribute in any better way. I divide this film into chronological 3 pieces. The first one is good, mostly because there is realatively alot of happening and we see the planecrash. The second one I found to be boring. Here, as much as Hanks tried to keep me interested, it didn`t really work as there was not much content to it. We see how he tries to survive on the island, how he builds his home and what difficulties he faces. There is not enough psychology to the main character which would serve the movie well in this central time-piece. It seems that the director didn`t really have an idea how to portrait it. The third piece of the movie is going home, watching how time went by and how things changed. It is supposed to be sad inspite of a miracle that brought Chuck back. Also Helen Hunt didn`t get a chance to shine, as she plays it roughly average. A movie that is nice to see but doesn`t manage to execute too well. Expand
  22. Mar 23, 2011
    10
    Tom Hanks is mesmerising in Cast Away, but the overall high marks should go to director Robert Zemeckis, who, for me, is one of the insightful directors out there. The airplane crash scene, with the haunting noise of the swirling plane, the virtually realistic performance of the plane crew, especially Hanks' fright, is just an amazingly directed AND choreographed scene. Was it right for Helen Hunt's character to move on? Absolutely. Zemeckis has lent true validity to her character - she may have moved on, but she's still caring enough to keep every track of her boyfriend's voyage, from the time he got on the plane to the time he came back to the civilized world. I especially enjoyed the movie soundtrack theme during the "Wilson, I'm sorry" part - it was just apt. No overblowing orchestral music, just the right mix for a moving, serious film. We all have our fantasies - what if we were stranded alone on a remote island, without nothing to eat or drink? Hanks does it impeccably....it's totally understandable and reasonable for him to learn to break a coconut in half, sip water from a leaf, go exploring his new surrounding, or learn how to make fire. I was fascinated by how the story built up - and impressed by how Zemeckis keeps our eyes on the screen by simply focussing on Nolan, and not in how the world back home might have been reacting. The movie might be a fantasy-theme, but in no scene does it venture into the unknown, or the unrealistic - it is as normal as one would probably find themselves in, if one were alone in that environment. I recommend it very much - not in the least the penultimate scene when Nolan drives into his ex-girlfriend's house in a rainy evening. The characters do apt justice to their roles, how would you feel if the person whose dreams sustained you in that remote island for four years has now moved on, had a family of her own? Hanks and Hunt are just brilliant in their characters. Cast Away is a brilliant movie - watch it for positivity and optimism, not with scepticism or negativity - it is highly moving and uplifiting. I should know - it is one of my wife's favorite movies! Of course, there will always be questions asked about movie plots and directions, I can surely do without them! Expand
  23. Aug 25, 2011
    4
    Tom Hanks is an actor who almost never fails. And, to be honest, he does not fail in this. It is the movie around him that fails; a largely vapid drama, devoid of tension or insight into a horrifying situation, and simply interested in showing off Hanks' acting. We've seen Philadelphia, we don't need proof.
Metascore

Generally favorable reviews - based on 32 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 27 out of 32
  2. Negative: 1 out of 32
  1. The island phase of Hanks' performance is simply amazing.
  2. 70
    While "Robinson Crusoe" was a paean to the practical middle-class virtues that allowed its industrious hero (and the nation he represents) to re-create civilization out of nothingness, Cast Away is a far less triumphalist peek into the nothingness at the heart of civilization.
  3. Reviewed by: Frank Lovece
    70
    This is no film for the squeamish.