Metascore

Generally favorable reviews - based on 34 Critics What's this?

User Score

Generally favorable reviews- based on 147 Ratings

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 27 out of 34
  2. Negative: 1 out of 34
  1. 100
    The kind of film I instinctively respond to. Leave logic at the door. Do not expect subdued taste and restraint, but instead a kind of operatic ecstasy.
  2. 80
    Anderson strikes a near flawless balance between looseness and structure, and indulges the occasional flight of cinematic fancy without undermining the movie's emotional integrity.
  3. 60
    None of the characters in Magnolia feel as vividly imagined as the porn stars and filmmakers and hangers-on of "Boogie Nights."
  4. A three-hour-and-10-minute exercise in slight characterization, pointlessly showy editing and vapid plotting.

See all 34 Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 44 out of 60
  2. Negative: 13 out of 60
  1. A rare success with this film is that it is a Tom Cruise film I like. But to be honest,it's not really about him it's how the cinematography is so interwoven you can't remember where you went last and where you are going to go next. To think of a story like this takes time and dedication and to keep you hanging on for 3 Hours isn't a bad feat either. Collapse
  2. In Paul Thomas Anderson's "Magnolia" we get to follow a range of characters during one day as their fates are tied together. I can start by saying that I really liked this movie and its many characters, one of them brilliantly played by Tom Cruise who, according to me, should have won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor instead of Michael Caine. The fates of all the characters are tied together so beautifully and so elegantly by PTA that I think it's safe to say that he is nothing less than a master, one of the greatest artists of his generation. Despite "Magnolia's" brutal length, I didn't look at my watch a single time, much because of its soundtrack that gives the movie an admirable pace both Aimee Mann's songs and the composition by Jon Brion is magical. This is a film that every movielover out there should see. Expand
  3. 7
    Interesting interwoven tale of numerous lives although the Tom Cruise character dominates the movie. A superbly acted and directed movie which everybody should see. Expand
  4. BiffL.
    2
    Various blighted, phony, humorless characters strutting and fretting between ridiculous marginally intelligent speechifying, all of them so dishonest, lost and damned that the only salvation (or relief at least) possible would be a plague of equally phony frogs dropping from the sky. Reminded me of the Sam Kinison routine about the people starving in the desert. Like, if your life is really anything like that, why the fuck don't you MOVE? It made my 10 worst films of all time list, nearer the top than the bottom. Expand

See all 60 User Reviews

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