User Score
8.2 out of 10

Universal acclaim- based on 43 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 40 out of 43
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 43
  3. Negative: 3 out of 43

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  1. Feb 19, 2012
    9
    This movie is so great and unique! I am not particularly fond of Matthew Broderick, and he is really detestable in this movie, but he plays a douche bag to perfection. Reese Witherspoon is also on point. Seriously, this movie is an unusual treat. I can't really compare it to anything else I have seen.
  2. Aug 23, 2010
    10
    Rigged: Routines and Dreams in Alexander Payneâ
  3. [Anonymous]
    Dec 5, 2007
    9
    Great movie. Hilarious. I thought Kevin Kline was surprising good.
  4. KS
    Apr 26, 2007
    10
    This movie was great, and really gives a good view of the bigger picture-American elections and middle class society.
  5. GaborA.
    Feb 28, 2006
    9
    One of the best comedies...movies of all time. Hits the nail right on the head over and over.
  6. MargaretF.
    Aug 16, 2005
    0
    This is the most disgusting and vile pathetic excuse for a movie I have seen in a long time; Truly awful-Matthew Broderick is an anxious boring soulless teacher whilst Reece Witherspoon is utterly useless in her part as an conceited ambitious teenager. The hopeless plot and script struggles and dies long before the credits appear.
  7. JoeyK.
    Aug 8, 2005
    8
    This is a great, and very underrated movie. It's very funny, and very smart.
  8. J.RyanG.
    May 29, 2005
    10
    One of the most underrated films of all time, this is the modern standard for showing the interiors of American high schools and how the apathetic following through the motions can reach a fever pitch and make some people go crazy. One of the great movies about institutions of any variety and the people who feel (and may just be) trapped inside.
  9. ZsuzsaB
    Oct 10, 2004
    10
    Fantastic movie, which is able to show our real, sad world in a very funny way.
  10. BrandonE.
    Sep 4, 2004
    8
    Very interesting film...caught my attention and kept it the entire film..A+
  11. JonathanH.
    Apr 2, 2004
    10
    Shockingly smart teen movie that takes you to an unexpected place.
  12. YoonMinC.
    Sep 29, 2003
    7
    A movie so impressed with its cynical(yet oh-so-empathetic)understanding of human nature that you just wanna slap the writer-director. Yeah, yeah, beneath our respectable exteriors we are cretins, perverts, insecure jerks, vain jerkettes, etc. Some viewers might defend the film as forgiving and accepting humans for their flaws instead of simply pointing fingers. Yet, who is this filmmaker to judge or not judge, forgive or not forgive? Might he be admitting he's just as hypocritical as the rest of us? Whoopey! Election works best when depicting human impulses as neural elections, with our conflicting motivations vying for what we ultimately say and do. And as often as not, election and erection are not much far apart. Yet, overall, this is a conceited, overly clever, know-it-all movie. When it's over, one may feel humanity has been exposed of its hypocrisies and neuroses, but I say the revelations are all pretty trite and sell humanity short. But, terrific acting by everyone, enough to raise the movie to must-see status. Expand
  13. ConstanceM.
    Jul 7, 2003
    3
    I can't believe I sat through the whole movie! The guys who cut the previews that made this film look funny and those who were able to cast (aka bribe, threaten, and abduct them to Nebraska) Witherspoon and Broadrick deserve awards! A likeable plot concept ruined by raunchy jokes that WERE funny and skillfully pulled off in Animal House but NOT here. Special thanks to the bad hand at the directors helm, way to go buddy, way back to Nebraska. Expand
  14. DavidO.
    Oct 5, 2002
    10
    Great movie, but I felt that the movie could have just have easily been about the moral backsliding and loss of ethics in the world of student politics and cut out the explicit sexual material. However, the sex was much smarter than in the American Pie movies.
  15. RyanM.
    Aug 15, 2001
    10
    Great in every way, it's an amazing high school movie that brings a new meaning to originality.
  16. Claydoh
    Aug 1, 2001
    10
    Very funny.
  17. BlancoA.
    Apr 3, 2001
    9
    What a great edge this movie has. It came out about 6 months before "American Beauty," and it's better in my opinion.
  18. MichaelC.
    Feb 3, 2001
    9
    Anyone who said this movie was "dumb, dumb, dumb" is likely to be dumb dumb dumb themselves. This is a classical dark comedy everyone should see.
Metascore

Universal acclaim - based on 33 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 30 out of 33
  2. Negative: 0 out of 33
  1. 90
    Election is a bracingly intelligent adult comedy that shrewdly captures adolescence.
  2. The screenplay by Payne and Jim Taylor, based on the novel by Tom Perrotta, sees the lives of these suburban students and teachers through a prism of absurdity that refracts more truth than any straightforward telling.
  3. 100
    The satire of the season, a hilarious, razor-sharp indictment of the American Dream.