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

48 21
80 Band's Visit, The
78 Before I Forget
64 Chronicle of an Escape
46 CJ7
68 Cool School, The
78 Counterfeiters, The
35 Deal
51 Doomsday
58 Felon
59 Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert Tour
57 Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay
27 How to Rob a Bank
55 Irina Palm
69 Last Winter, The
38 Life Before Her Eyes, The
65 Married Life
33 Miss Conception
63 Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
71 My Brother Is an Only Child
39 Never Back Down
55 Nim's Island
70 Outsourced
22 Postal
17 Prom Night
51 Promotion, The
77 Rape of Europa, The
69 Redbelt
xx Rogue
76 Shine a Light
57 Smart People
55 Street Kings
72 Surfwise
56 Then She Found Me
55 Turn the River
65 Water Lilies
36 What Happens in Vegas...
45 Where in the World Is Osama Bin Laden?
55 Without the King

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Basic Instinct
TriStar Pictures


7.0

based on 20 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 19 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

FILM:

Internet Movie Database

MPAA RATING: R

Starring Michael Douglas, Sharon Stone, Jeanne Tripplehorn, George Dzundza, Denis Arndt, Leilani Sarelle, Bruce A. Young, and Chelcie Ross

A brutal murder. A brilliant killer. A cop who can't resist the danger. Michael Douglas and Sharon Stone co-star in this thriller about a man who finds within himself an instinct more basic than survival. [Artisan]

GENRE(S):	Suspense/Thriller
WRITTEN BY:	Joe Eszterhas
DIRECTED BY:	Paul Verhoeven
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: September 18, 2001 Video: November 8, 1999 Theatrical: March 20, 1992
RUNNING TIME:	123 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...

Variety Staff (Not Credited)

Grade-A pulp fiction. This erotically charged thriller about the search for an ice-pick murderer in San Francisco rivets attention through its sleek style, attractive cast doing and thinking kinky things, and story, which is as weirdly implausible as it is intensely visceral.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

The film is for horny pups of all ages who relish the memory of reading stroke books under the covers with a flashlight. Verhoeven has spent $49 million to reproduce that dirty little thrill on the big screen.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

Beneath its heavy-breathing fripperies, though, Basic Instinct is mechanical and routine, a muddle of Hitchcockian red herrings and standard cop-thriller ballistics.

USA Today Mike Clark

The film never makes total sense, but at its best (the first half-hour), it comes closer to solidly junky titillation than the hapless Final Analysis. [20 Mar 1992, Life, p.1D]

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

Uninvolving. Even the sex is boring. Are these scenes supposed to be wildly erotic? If they are, they don't work. [20 Mar 1992, Daily Notebook, p.D1]

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

Despite (or maybe because of) his obligatory nods to Hitchcock, this is slick and entertaining enough to work quite effectively as thriller porn, even with two contradictory denouements to its mystery (take your pick--or rather, your ice pick).

Austin Chronicle Kathleen Maher

Verhoeven's film is fascinating, if stupid and stylish, if shallow. The story has to move along at a fair clip because otherwise we'd notice how nonsensical it all is. And there is very little to connect with emotionally.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

The film is like a crossword puzzle. It keeps your interest until you solve it. Then it's just a worthless scrap with the spaces filled in.

Time Richard Schickel

This reflects its fundamental flaw of arrogance, a smug faith in the ability of its own speed, smartness and luxe to wow the yokels. [23 Mar 1992, p.65]

TV Guide Staff (Non Credited)

The worst things about Basic Instinct, though, are the explicit "love" scenes. They're supposed to contribute to a heady equation in which sex, violence and psychology are fused; instead, they're gratuitous, exploitative, and entirely unerotic.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

A reminder of the difference between exhilaration and exhaustion, between tension and hysteria, between eroticism and exhibitionism. The line may be fine, but it is real enough to separate the great thrillers from the also-rans. And Basic Instinct is not a great thriller. [20 Mar 1992, Calendar, p.F-1]

Empire Mark Dinning

There’s still a guilty pleasure to be had in the ludicrous sex scenes (either we’re doing it very wrong, or Sharon Stone suffers from the most melodramatic orgasms known to womankind) and in Michael Douglas’ spectacular tank tops, of course.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

Verhoeven's lurid thriller has moments of welcome self-parody, but most of the action manages to be sensationalistic, homophobic, and tedious at the same time. [20 Mar 1992, Arts, p.12]

Washington Post Desson Thomson

What isn't so fascinating is this movie's absurdity of motivation. No one does anything that makes sense. No one seems real. When the actual perpetrator is uncovered, there is no enlightenment as to why the killing occurred.

The New York Times Elvis Mitchell

The $3 million reportedly paid for Mr. Eszterhas's screenplay did not buy a coherent ending.

Chicago Tribune Dave Kehr

Verhoeven does not explore the dark side, but merely exploits it, and that makes all the difference in the world. [20 Mar 1992, Friday, p.C]

Washington Post Rita Kempley

What we have here is a movie with not just one, but a family pack of psychos.

The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann

It's just one more dunk in the slime pit of exploitation. [13 Apr 1992, p.26]

The New Yorker Terrence Rafferty

A vicious, grindingly manipulative urban mystery that uses a thick atmosphere of S & M kinkiness to distract the audience from the story's thinness and inanity.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Jay Scott

A perverse, lame-brained thriller that is pornographic, misogynist and homophobic. If that makes it sound appealing, I should also add that it's silly, boring and intellectually insulting.

The average user rating for this movie is 7.0 (out of 10) based on 19 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Christian T gave it an8:
A masterpiece of trash cinema. Over the top in every aspect, overacted, overheated, with gross characters with no redeeming qualities; but still, it's great fun, AND the most important thing, it doesn't take itself seriously.

Simpo B. gave it a10:
Brilliantly crafted movie with beautiful cinematography and acting (except for Stone). This is a modern classic which deserves better credit than its reputation.

Paul gave it a10:
It's really attacting and thrilling! but there is still something i can't get to know. Who is the moder? the shrink? or Cathrine?

Tony B. gave it a2:
Glossy trash with not a believable minute in it, "Basic Instinct" attracted customers who should have spent their money more wisely. The dance hall scene, so over the top, is a scream!

PT gave it a9:
It is a sexual thriller and is no less valid than Body Heat was. It is a style you either do or do not like.. I think it is masterfully accomplished.

carlos a. gave it a10:
It's a really good movie!

Andrew M. gave it a 5:
Doesn't deserve to get out of the mid-range ratings... It does enough right to make it not bad, but doesn't do nearly enough to make it good! Some scenes are well shot - the director & cinematographer get it right. Others...are laughable and seem like they were filmed on amateur night! The film's premise and plot structure were good and oozed promise, but the execution just simply wasn't good enough. This is verified when the more you watch this film, the worse it seems to get.

Basic Instinct TriStar Pictures

Basic Instinct
TriStar Pictures