Metascore

Generally favorable reviews - based on 18 Critics What's this?

User Score

Generally favorable reviews- based on 71 Ratings

  • Starring: Dustin Hoffman, Tom Cruise
  • Summary: What begins with a cold-hearted attempt by one man to steal his autistic brother's inheritance evolves into a cross-country odyssey of love, family and self-discovery.
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 12 out of 18
  2. Negative: 2 out of 18
  1. Reviewed by: Mike Clark
    100
    There've been few screen moments more moving this year than Cruise's initial reaction to his brother's almost superhuman math prowess. [16 Dec 1988]
  2. Fortunately, the script by Ronald Bass and Barry Morrow isn't half bad, and both Barry Levinson's direction and the performances are agreeably restrained.
  3. In much the way that Raymond stays detached, the performance seems to exist outside the film but, instead of illuminating Rain Man, it upstages the work of everyone else involved. [16 Dec 1988, p.C12]
  4. Reviewed by: Hal Hinson
    30
    It's Hoffman's failure, though, that sinks the picture. He is working here with his usual meticulousness, but there's no relaxation in his performance, no sense that he has ever merged with his subject, that he has found Raymond's center and is simply acting out of it.

See all 18 Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 18 out of 22
  2. Negative: 0 out of 22
  1. 10
    Rain Man is heartwarming and a sad film. The acting is superb by both Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise. The characters validate each other's existances like no other pair in any movie, be it drama, romance or comedy. Expand
  2. SimonS.
    10
    I love this movie! So touching, so well made. Cruise and Hoffman feed well off each other, great chemistry.
  3. This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Well, now. To say the very least, RAIN MAN is absolutely brilliant. Dustin Hoffman delivers an fantastic performance as the autistic character Raymond Babbitt, a role for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1988. In fact, Hoffman's performance is so outstanding that in comparison to Colin Firth as King George VI and Tom Hanks as the titular character in FORREST GUMP (using examples of other Academy Award-winning disabled roles), Dustin Hoffman as Raymond Babbitt is definitely the superior one. Tom Cruise also does an acceptable job as Charlie Babbitt, a greedy, selfish man who lives his whole life unaware that Raymond is his brother. I didn't expect very much of this film, as it looked like it would be utterly irritating--and I will admit, I was irritated at some parts, such as the various times at which Raymond continuously recites lines from Abbott and Costello's comedy act, "Who's on First?"--but otherwise, RAIN MAN was an exceptionally great, thoroughly memorable motion picture. Expand
  4. 7
    this is a great movie i liked the story i liked the performances and i think it was the best performance of tom cruise i have seen so far which is a horrible thing cause from this movie you can see that he can actually act so i don't know why he have a messed up career with risky pointless movies just to fill his wallet maybe. and i don't know why people keeps criticizing Dustin hoffman i think he did a tremendous job in this movie he could not do it better. Expand

See all 22 User Reviews

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