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American Pie
Universal Pictures

American Pie reviews
Critic Score
Metascore: 58 Metascore out of 100
User Score  
7.0 out of 10
based on 30 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
based on 23 votes
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MPAA RATING: R for strong sexuality, crude sexual dialogue, language and drinking, all involving teens

Starring Jason Biggs, Eugene Levy, Chris Klein, Thomas Ian Nicholas, Seann William Scott, Shannon Elizabeth, Alyson Hannigan, and Natasha Lyonne

Four high school friends enter into a pact to lose their virginity before graduation, encountering apple pies and other embarrassing speedbumps along the way.


GENRE(S): Comedy  
WRITTEN BY: Adam Herz  
DIRECTED BY: Paul Weitz  
RELEASE DATE: DVD: December 21, 1999 
Video: December 21, 1999 
Theatrical: July 9, 1999 
RUNNING TIME: 95 minutes, Color 
ORIGIN: USA 

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
Dallas Observer Glenn Gaslin
It's painful, it's real, and it's probably the funniest thing you'll see this year...a teen sexploitation classic.
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100
San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle
In addition to being extremely funny, the film has a warm spirit and respect for the characters.
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88
New York Post Jonathan Foreman
Vulgar and lewd and raunchy like you wouldn't believe, and absolutely hilarious from beginning to end.
80
Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan
Unusual in its ability to mix bodily functions humor with a sincere and unlooked-for sense of decency.
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80
Mr. Showbiz Kevin Maynard
Pie has some nice surprises and is enjoyable in a smutty, sitcom way. It offers up the outrageousness of "There's Something About Mary" without wallowing in cruelty.
75
Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez
Guaranteed to beguile anyone who can remember the joy -- and agony -- of anticipating the first time.
75
Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
A lively, disposable hybrid of the sincere and the synthetic.
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75
USA Today Mike Clark
The presence of "Election's" Chris Klein as the male contingent's most sensitive member only emphasizes how much smarter that high school comedy was.
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75
New York Daily News Jack Mathews
The successful bits, along with an amiable cast of losers and their prom-night prey, make American Pie a winner.
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75
Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
It is not inspired, but it's cheerful and hard-working and sometimes funny, and--here's the important thing--it's not mean.
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75
Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey
Exceptionally funny, unexpectedly tender, and lewder than a teenage boy's dreams.
70
TV Guide Maitland McDonagh
Alternately sweet and raucous comedy.
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67
Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy
Distinct from others of its lowly stripe because of the credibly real-feeling performances by much of its youthful ensemble.
63
Chicago Tribune Marc Caro
Both funny and foul, alternately frank and full of it.
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60
TNT RoughCut M. Meghan McCarthy
What is refreshing about this film is that most of the characters seem like real people.
60
Variety Todd McCarthy
Cheesy homage to a level of horniness Austin Powers could only imagine will be a dream movie for many a teenage boy.
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60
Newsweek Jeff Giles
A surprisingly earnest and cautionary movie, careful to attract female viewers and not freak parents out too badly.
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60
LA Weekly John Patterson
The movie lover in you will recoil; your inner sophomore will rejoice.
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50
Salon.com Mary Elizabeth Williams
I'd appreciate toilet humor more if it weren't so often so unimaginative.
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50
San Francisco Examiner Wesley Morris
A limp excuse for a coming-of-age flick, more interested in sexploits than sex, more adept at gross-out than girls.
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50
Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov
A go-for-the-lowest-common-denominator grab bag of raunchy sex gags and freakish outbursts. The cool thing is that it works.
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50
Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum
Another giggly gross-out comedy for teenagers.
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50
Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman
The story was primitive, the characters unmemorable, the direction unsophisticated, the writing cliched, the photography and music drab, the pacing uneven, the acting varying from adroitly funny to exaggerated.
40
The New York Times Stephen Holden
Among this year's bumper crop of shallow teen-age movies, it is the shallowest and the most prurient.
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40
Village Voice Dennis Lim
Returns the teen movie to the uncomplicated glory days of "Porky's" and "Losin' It."
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38
Baltimore Sun Ann Hornaday
An uninteresting take on a tired formula that is only occasionally funny and usually pretty gross.
30
Film.com Robert Horton
The fact that isolated bits are amusing shouldn't keep us from strongly noting that this movie really is pretty awful -- not at all worthy of guilty pleasure status.
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30
Film.com Ernest Hardy
What really makes the film fall dead (although the preview audience I saw it with howled from beginning to end) are the actors and the way the characters have been scripted.
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25
Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold
Idiotic.
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25
Boston Globe Jim Sullivan
Gross and tasteless...this high-school romp mixes the gross and tasteless with sentimental mush.
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What Our Users Said

Vote Now!The average user rating for this movie is 7.0 (out of 10) based on 23 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

L C gave it a4:
It had it's moments, but even they were crude and irritating in some way. I'm not sure it deserves it's 58 metascore.

Me gave it a9:
a 58 metascore is a travesty. This is one of most realistic comedies of all time, and hilarious.

Abby H. gave it a 10:
This movie was very realistic. Boys drooling over girls (Stifler) and other boys waiting to just lose their virginity. Just like I said "Realistic". When I was in school, that's what all the boys were thinking about. I know that for a fact. But, only a few boys at my school were virgin. The basketball team with Buddy Johnson, Danny Sullivan and Billy Davis. those boys could get any girl they want. No doubt about that. But, the other boys at school were a lot like the ones in this movie.

B.J. S. gave it a 2:
Had a couple funny scenes but one could tell exactly what was going to happed before it did. A a film it was horrible. for something just to watch it could have been good if the writers would have put an ounce of energy into coming up with an original joke (or even one that was from Porky's). This whole series of movies was exactly the same. There were not any new ideas in any of them just the same old stuff. The only difference in each film was the location.

Andrew M. gave it an 8:
An original classic......well, not that original...and maybe not really a classic...but this is one of the best of its kind, no doubt! Good looking young actors (who can act!) in one funny scene after another; some are gross, some are clever, some are bewildering, but most are damn hilarious! It's a great script, chock-full of beautifully constructed, gutter-trash humour and sight gags, and you really don't mind one bit. After watching American Pie, just how exactly can one now hold a flute seriously!!

Gabor A. gave it a 1:
You will find your mouth opening more to let out vomit than laughter. Plotless with over blown, gross humor.

Yoon Min C. gave it a 2:
Has one genuinely funny scene--with the monkey(the animal). And, it's perceptive in showing how it's hardly better to have parents understand your sexual drives than not. But, this is really the latest rehashing of the dumb sex cumedies starting with Porky's.

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