After Hours

EMAIL PRINTWarner Bros. Pictures

8.5 User Score:

Universal acclaim

Based on 8 critic reviews
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Based on 7 votes
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Movie Info

Genre(s): Comedy | Suspense/Thriller

Written by: Joseph Minion

Directed by: Martin Scorsese

Release Date:
Theatrical: September 13, 1985
DVD: August 17, 2004

Running Time: 97 minutes, Color

Origin: USA

Summary

RATING: Rated R for profanity and sexual situations

Starring Griffin Dunne, Rosanna Arquette, Verna Bloom, Tommy Chong, Cheech Marin, Teri Garr, John Heard, and Linda Fiorentino

A Manhattan Yuppie's night out becomes a comic nightmare. (Warner Bros.)

Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database Official Studio Site

What The Critics Said

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

After Hours is a brilliant film that is so original, so particular, that we are uncertain from moment to moment exactly how to respond to it. The style of the film creates, in us, the same feeling that the events in the film create in the hero. Interesting.

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100

TV Guide Staff (Not Credited)

A wickedly funny black comedy that follows the increasingly bizarre series of events that befall hapless word-processer Griffin Dunne after he ventures out of his apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan and goes downtown in search of carnal pleasures.

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100

Chicago Reader Dave Kehr

Martin Scorsese transforms a debilitating convention of 80s comedy--absurd underreaction to increasingly bizarre and threatening situations--into a rich, wincingly funny metaphysical farce. A lonely computer programmer is lured from the workday security of midtown Manhattan to an expressionistic late-night SoHo by the vague promise of casual sex with a mysterious blond.

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100

Empire Ian Nathan

Martin Scorsese’s take on NYC puts a hip spin on Joe Minion’s cleverly constructed nightmare.

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100

Wall Street Journal Julie Salamon

This unpredictable and hilarious paranoid fantasy is a contemporary, urban "Wizard of Oz," peopled by punk artists and Yuppie vigilantes instead of wicked witches and Munchkins. [5 Sep 1985, p.1]

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

After Hours is a caffeinated black comedy with an emphasis on speed. With a small crew and a tight shooting schedule, Scorsese transformed limited means into a staccato burst of creative energy, playing up the extreme paranoia and frustration of a data processor stranded in Soho.

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Variety Staff (Not Credited)

The cinema of paranoia and persecution reaches an apogee in After Hours, a nightmarish black comedy from Martin Scorsese. Anxiety-ridden picture would have been pretty funny if it didn't play like a confirmation of everyone's worst fears about contemporary urban life.

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The New York Times Vincent Canby

After Hours is not, ultimately, a satisfying film, but it's often vigorously unsettling.

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What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this movie is 8.5 (out of 10) based on 7 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Michael D. gave it a10:
Brilliant black comedy that condenses one man's nightmarish evening into a series of bizarre encounters with the after hours crowd of Soho. While it might play on people's fears of urban life, much like the Out of Towners did in the 70's, it is more a commentary on the contrast between the button down, workaday life led by many New Yorkers and the late night, artsy subculture.