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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Being John Malkovich
USA Films


7.8

based on 36 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 42 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

BOOKS:

Rebels On The Backlot by Sharon Waxman

MPAA RATING: R for language and sexuality

Starring John Cusack, Cameron Diaz, Catherine Keener, Orson Bean, Mary Kay Place, John Malkovich, Charlie Sheen, and Sean Penn

An out-of-work puppeteer (Cusack) takes a filing clerk job on the cramped 7 ½ floor of an office building where he discovers a hidden tunnel allowing him to enter the mind and life of actor John Malkovich for 15 mintues before being ejected onto the New Jersey Turnpike.

GENRE(S):	Fantasy
WRITTEN BY:	Charlie Kaufman
DIRECTED BY:	Spike Jonze
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: May 2, 2000 Video: May 2, 2000 Theatrical: October 29, 1999
RUNNING TIME:	112 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

Baltimore Sun Ann Hornaday

This smart, fanciful and brilliantly staged comedy takes a truly one-of-a-kind premise and makes it, of all things, a weirdly profound meditation on consciousness, identity, fame, gender and reality.

100

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

The most excitingly original movie of the year.

100

Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten

A wildly inventive, unrelenting thrill that amazes us with its visual and intellectual treats and dazzles us with its ongoing ingenuity.

100

Film.com Robert Horton

Absolutely, see the movie.

100

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Either Being John Malkovich gets nominated for best picture, or the members of the Academy need portals into their brains.

100

Film.com John Hartl

Breathlessly imaginative.

100

New York Post Lou Lumenick

Being John Malkovich, which contains not a frame of extraneous footage, is more than a must-see movie: It's a must-see-more-than-once event.

100

Variety David Rooney

Devilishly inventive and so far out there it's almost off the scale.

100

Boston Globe Jay Carr

But then Being John Malkovich is a brilliant juggling act, too, brilliantly brought off.

100

San Francisco Examiner Wesley Morris

It's the film we leave most movie theaters wishing we'd seen instead.

100

Dallas Observer Gregory Weinkauf

Smart people will relish its temerariousness, average people will smile awkwardly and comment that it's "kinda different," and dimly lit people may mistake it for the Elmo movie and drool quietly in the back rows. It's a movie for everyone.

100

New York Daily News Jami Bernard

Gloriously inventive, delightfully nutty comic treasure is unlike anything you've ever seen. It's lunatic.

100

Film.com Elizabeth Weitzman

If we're allowed just a couple of truly singular discoveries in twelve months, it's a good year; when one of them is a film as exhilarating as Spike Jonze's feature debut, it's a banner year.

100

The New York Times Janet Maslin

Irresistable, nimble and very funny.

LA Weekly F. X. Feeney

It's a cheerfully deranged stunt, executed in a spirit of infectious lunacy that powers the resulting film to its strongest laughs, and weirdest depths.

Newsweek David Ansen

I don't know how a movie this original got made today, but thank God for wonderful aberrations.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

The crazy-ass imagination at work in Being John Malkovich hits you like a blast of pure oxygen...this movie of constant astonishments will make you laugh hard and long.

Time Richard Corliss

Weird, beguiling premise.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

A clever and outrageous piece of whimsical fantasy that is unique, unpredictable and more than a little strange.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

So full of creativity, so subversive, so alive.

TNT RoughCut Christopher Brandon

Unfortunately, no awards committee is hip enough to praise this strange masterpiece.

Mr. Showbiz Michael Atkinson

An ingenious, incredibly entertaining, Rorschach-blot meta-comedy based on a spec script (by first-timer Charlie Kaufman) that is completely unlike anything anyone has ever seen before.

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

So jaw-droppingly out there, so bracingly bizarre, and, much of the time, so fall-over-funny that even its flaws don't matter. Easily the oddest movie of the year, it is also one of the best.

San Francisco Chronicle Edward Guthmann

It's tremendously entertaining, and probably worthy of repeat viewings.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

It's among the most inventive, screwily funny and consistently surprising movies I've seen in years.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

This outrageous comic fantasy may not sustain its brilliance throughout all of its 112 minutes, but it keeps cooking for so much of that time that I don't have many complaints.

Film.com Gemma Files

Surreal to the point of poeticism, amusing and tragic by turns.

Village Voice J. Hoberman

The most offbeat studio comedy since "Rushmore."

Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir

It's a gleeful, nitrous-oxide high.

Slate David Edelstein

Everything I've ever dreamed of in a crazy comedy. It's close to pure farce, yet its laughs are grounded in loneliness, impotence, self-loathing, and that most discomfiting of vices to dramatize: envy. The action is surreal, the emotions are violently real.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

This is the most impressive directorial debut since"Reservoir Dogs." Being John Malkovich is weird, all right-- the best kind of weird, the kind you haven't seen before.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

It's essentially a one-joke situation, but screenwriter Charlie Kaufman and first-time director Spike Jonze definitely make the most of it.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

Weird to the max, smart, sneaky as a Wall Street pickpocket and revved up with cruel wit and brazen imagination, Being John Malkovich is a dark movie comedy that you couldn't forget if you tried.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

(Jonze and Kaufman's) work is so bold, funny, and original that it's hard to believe they aren't wide-screen veterans.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

Bizarre, utterly original and truly indescribable comedy...You just have to see it for yourself.

USA Today Mike Clark

The story keeps reinventing itself (some of the later plot twists are among the funniest), but a little goes a long way at 112 minutes - maybe 25 minutes more than this sporadically pointed conceit really needs.

The average user rating for this movie is 7.8 (out of 10) based on 42 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Derek B. gave it a0:
This was one of the silliest things i have ever watched! It doesn't make sense at all, i don't really know what to write! I'm dumbfounded by how silly this movie is

Jackson G. gave it an8:
An amazing mind-trip.

Mike gave it a7:
I thought Adaptation and Confessions of a Dangerous Mind both have it beat by a wide margin. Maybe I should see it again.

Tony Y. gave it a10:
Amazing, amazing film. Great acting, great direction, and an excellent screenplay. I don't understand people like Chris B. who give zeroes to movies that get mainly 9s and 10s. Even if you really dislike a movie, it still deserves points for effort. A genuine "0" movie would have to have absolutely no redeeming qualities whatsoever.

Felix Q. gave it a9:
This is a modern day classic. You have to be a certain type of person to enjoy the humor, and if you are you do so immensely. If this kind of comedy had been applied to a slightly more controlled plot or concept, it would've belly flopped. Instead, it takes an idea that's just so far out there and laughable, combines it with characters that are all completely unaware of their own short-comings and moronity, and pretends that it's a serious film. With all the irony flying around in this movie, it HAS to pretend to take itself seriously- as seriously as the characters take themselves. I think where this movie lost that final point for me was in the tone. Yes, it needed to be dark to pull it off, and yes, the mundane nature of the characters' lives had to be reflected somehow in the film itself, but after a comedy so ludicrous and dark one has to be able to feel giddy, not slightly morbid. Too much Donnie Darko, not enough Everything is Illuminated.

Erik H. gave it a10:
An entirely unique concept brought together by solid performance (particularly Diaz, Cusak, and Malkovich). A rare film treat that provides both laughs and contemplation. It doesn't have the traditional "happy ending" many viewers demand, but neither did "Hamlet" and I hear that got decent reviews.

Jared gave it a10:
What an incredible movie! Works both as a hilarious comedy and as a deep reflection on identity and the many ways that it shifts based on our own wants and needs. Simply brilliant.

Being John Malkovich USA Films

Being John Malkovich
USA Films