New This Week
Critics & Publications
Archives: A-Z Index
Advanced Search

Upcoming Release Calendar
Awards & Bests By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores
How Metascores Are Calculated
Discuss Film In Our Forums

sort by name

sort by score

xx Beer for My Horses
xx Christmas on Mars: A Fantastical Film Freakout Featuring the Flaming Lips
62 Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, The
48 Death Defying Acts
33 Elite Squad
80 Encounters at the End of the World
20 Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed
86 Flight of the Red Balloon, The
36 Fly Me to the Moon
42 Fred Claus
54 Get Smart
73 Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson
49 Hancock
25 Hell Ride
78 Hellboy II: The Golden Army
44 Henry Poole is Here
61 Incredible Hulk, The
57 Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D
xx Kiss the Bride
63 Kit Kittredge: An American Girl
73 Kung Fu Panda
xx Lower Learning
63 Man Named Pearl, A
43 Meet Dave
52 Milarepa
62 Mister Foe
53 Mister Lonely
61 On the Rumba River
32 Perfect Holiday, The
63 Planet B-Boy
72 Priceless
63 Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2, The
36 Space Chimps
35 Star Wars: The Clone Wars
51 Step Brothers
81 Still Life
57 Stone Angel, The
47 Strangers, The
55 Sukiyaki Western Django
63 This Christmas
71 To the Limit
72 Transsiberian
71 Tropic Thunder
93 WALL-E
64 Wanted
xx Whaledreamers
54 What We Do Is Secret
66 When Did You Last See Your Father?
47 X-Files: I Want to Believe, The
45 Zombie Strippers

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Across the Universe
Columbia Pictures


7.4

based on 29 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 155 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

FILM:

Frida
Titus

MPAA RATING: PG-13 for some drug content, nudity, sexuality, violence and language

Starring Evan Rachel Wood, Jim Sturgess, Joe Anderson, Dana Fuchs, Eddie Izzard, Martin Luther, T.V. Carpio, and Bono

Across the Universe is a love story set against the backdrop of the 1960s amid the turbulent years of antiwar protest, mind exploration, and rock and roll. The film moves from the dockyards of Liverpool and the creative psychedelia of Greenwich Village to the riot-torn streets of Detroit and the killing fields of Vietnam. The star-crossed lovers, Jude and Lucy are swept up into the emerging antiwar-counterculture movements. They are also joined by a small group of friends and musicians, with "Dr. Robert" and "Mr. Kite" as their guides. Tumultuous forces outside their control ultimately tear the young lovers apart, forcing Jude and Lucy--against all odds--to find their own way back to each other. (Columbia Pictures)

GENRE(S):	Drama \| Musical \| Romance
WRITTEN BY:	Julie Taymor (story) Dick Clement (& story) Ian La Frenais (& story)
DIRECTED BY:	Julie Taymor
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: February 5, 2008 Theatrical: September 14, 2007
RUNNING TIME:	131 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	USA

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Here is a bold, beautiful, visually enchanting musical where we walk INTO the theater humming the songs.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

This much is inarguable: In the more than two flamboyant hours of Across the Universe, Julie Taymor doesn't cheat us for a single second.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

The film is a strange, nostalgic, suitably outrageous ode to a very real revolution in consciousness.

The New York Times Stephen Holden

Somewhere around its midpoint, Across the Universe captured my heart, and I realized that falling in love with a movie is like falling in love with another person. Imperfections, however glaring, become endearing quirks once you’ve tumbled.

Empire Ian Nathan

A load of kids singing Beatles tunes? You better believe it.

San Francisco Chronicle Peter Hartlaub

While the songs are recycled, Across the Universe stands out just by existing.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

Across the Universe can't achieve the transcendence and exhilaration musicals strive for, but it often generates a singular kind of magic you've never experienced before.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

It's a funny thing: On the one hand, you fault Taymor for going out of her way to create some of the more disposable sequences. On the other, you can forgive her: Who wouldn't get carried away given the opportunity she has been given here to play with one of the world's greatest song catalogs?

Chicago Tribune Jessica Reaves

If you're a Beatles fan who's not offended by people taking serious liberties with the arrangements of your favorite songs, the unrepentantly exuberant and seriously tuneful Across the Universe is pretty much a sure thing.

Variety Justin Chang

All you need is love -- for the Beatles, for psychedelic visuals, for ideas about being young in the ‘60s -- to fully enjoy Across the Universe.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Tasha Robinson

It's all very clever and thought-through, but all the allusions don't much bolster the bland central romance or the paper-thin treatment of '60s social issues.

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

Taymor's flower-powery phantasmagoria is ambitious but ultimately tiresome.

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

A bizarre counterculture jukebox musical.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

To call it trippy would be an understatement. Your head might explode. Just don't accuse Taymor of playing it safe.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

And yes, that is Salma Hayek in the chorus line of sexily sinister nurses, perhaps repaying Taymor for lending her dramatic credibility with "Frida."

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

Julie Taymor says the idea for her Across the Universe was "to create an original musical using only the songs of the Beatles." That's like saying you're going to create a new element using only gold.

New York Post Kyle Smith

An interesting failure, not a fascinating one.

USA Today Claudia Puig

While style trumps substance, something in the way this '60s tribute moves attracts us.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

Disarming, discombobulating and disappointing.

Film Threat Mark Bell

The film does not know what it is, tonally changing within and between structural acts.

Village Voice Ella Taylor

Across the Universe, which filters the cultural revolt through a blizzard of early Beatles songs, ends up both reductive and smugly condescending to a presumptively know-nothing audience.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

Elements of Across the Universe are shockingly awful and the film lasts at least 30 minutes past the bearable stage. But if you like the Beatles and the idea of hearing about 20 covers of their work fills you with a perverse joy, this may be the movie for you.

The Hollywood Reporter Stephen Farber

Julie Taymor's visual gifts are very much in evidence in Across the Universe, an ambitious, only partly successful attempt to reinvigorate the musical genre.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

Goofy, pompous, annoyingly boomer-myopic Fab Four musical.

Washington Post Ann Hornaday

A yawn and most unforgivably features some appalling arrangements of the Beatles' best-loved songs.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

Hobbled by its vaguely insulting comic-book version of the '60s and by a humorlessness that can only come from talented people convinced they're creating work for the ages.

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

If a bullet hadn't killed John Lennon, this Beatles-scored musical might have.

Premiere Glenn Kenny

Director Julie Taymor's gargantuan all-Beatles-songs musical is that rarest of animals, the perfect disaster that fulfills expectations by defying them.

Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten

Across the Universe will have ardent defenders, but in the long run, it will do nothing to infuse life into the current mini-revival of movie musicals and is as soft-headed as the wishful refrain “All You Need Is Love.” Maybe that works in real life but not in the movies, sister.

The average user rating for this movie is 7.4 (out of 10) based on 155 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Aaron M gave it a2:
It's easy to tell that the only purpose of the "movie" is to play as many songs as possible. The storyline played out like... well, a terrible movie. I give it a 2 because the Beatles have some good songs, although some are butchered in this 2 hour music video.

Chet R. gave it a9:
The inspiration and subtlety will grow on viewers and it will emerge as a classic viewed by generations.

Eda G. gave it a9:
I found it pretty complete, a musical with GOOD music - I mean, anything better than Beatles?! Great plot, surprising, there's a love, historical facts, the society is realistically depicted... it was a long time I did not enjoy a movie so much!!

David F. gave it a9:
No movie could capture the political, cultural and historical events of the late sixties but this one makes an excellent attempt.

Vivian L. gave it a0:
Really bad Beatles karaoke movie with possibly the flimsiest plot and characters i have ever seen.

Erik M. gave it a9:
Loved it, the only thing holding it back was it was too short and too many songs were left out, but then again if it included all my favorite songs it would have been 6 hours long.

Sarina K. gave it a10:
My mouth is permanently open to you small-minded critics. Across The Universe is without a doubt extremely out there and different but that's what makes it so special. When was the last time you saw such a creative and well-thought through film? I must have seen this movie at least 20 times and each time I get something new out of it. Whether it's the outstanding symbolism portrayed or a new connection found through the dialogue, Across The Universe is a one-of-a-kind movie that whether you want to believe or not, is going down in history. If you were true Beatles fans you'd understand the magnitude Julie Taymor has for songs such as "I want you." How brilliant to think of the old Uncle Sam saying in that way? And then to twist it into a "want" of sexual desire. Lighten up, alright? You're too up tight. This is a movie to let loose to and teach you that life's going to have it's up's and down's but you have to just go with it or you won't survive. This movie has a place in my heart, and always will. I hope some of you ignorant fools who think otherwise revise your thoughts and way of life; you must be living a dull, cruel one now.

Across the Universe Columbia Pictures

Across the Universe
Columbia Pictures