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Bull Durham
Generally favorable reviews
Based on 16 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 8 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Romance
Written by: Ron Shelton
Directed by: Ron Shelton
Release Date:
Theatrical: June 15, 1988
DVD: October 28, 1998
Running Time: 108 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: R
Starring Kevin Costner, Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins, Trey Wilson, and Robert Wuhl
A romantic love story set in the dirt and grit of minor league baseball. Sarandan is a groupie for the Carolina Durham Bulls who chooses a protege each season to school in the art of love. This season she picks the team's untameable pitcher but eventually abides her true passion, the team's catcher, Costner. (MGM)
Also On Metacritic
FILM: Dark Blue Hollywood Homicide Play It To the Bone Tin Cup
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database View The Trailer
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...
USA Today Mike Clark
Though his film is like no other baseball movie, it may remind you of Paul Newman's hockey comedy Slap Shot: a knowing look at sport's underbelly - punctuated by jelly-belly laughs. [15 June 1988]
Time Richard Corliss
Shelton has written the wittiest, busiest screenplay since Moonstruck, and his three stars do their very best screen work. [20 June 1988]
Los Angeles Times Sheila Benson
It's just that when a movie is this close, with so much of the sports flavor (co-producer Thom Mount is co-owner of the real Durham Bulls), you like to see it perfect. [15 June 1988]
Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum
The movie evokes Howard Hawks (in spirit if not to the letter) with its tight focus on a snug, obsessive world of insiders and camp followers where the exchanges between buddies and sexes have a euphoric stylishness and a giddy sense of ritual.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Hal Hinson
It eases up on you, lazy as a cloud, and carries you off in a mood of exquisite delight. To borrow W.P. Kinsella's phrase, it has the thrill of the grass.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
A treasure of a movie because it knows so much about baseball and so little about love.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Jay Scott
A loopy, loving nine innings full of comic curve balls, emotional home-runs and euphoric, summertime music.
Read Full Review >Film Threat Brad Laidman
The best movie ever made about baseball, and it's not even really that close... "Major League" was funny, but Bull Durham is funny, literate, romantic, and overwhelmingly adherent to the idiosyncracies of the game.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Desson Thomson
You may catch yourself trying to remember where you parked a little before the end.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Dave Kehr
Successfully avoids the grandiose mythmaking that has been the bane of the baseball movie from ''Pride of the Yankees'' to ''The Natural.'' Rather than a vapid national epic, it is a warm, droll, deftly cracked romantic comedy. [15 June 1988]
Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt
Even if baseball isn't your favorite sport, or if you don't like sports much at all, you'll find something to catch your attention in this smartly made (if unblushingly vulgar) new comedy. [7 July 1988]
Variety Staff (Not Credited)
A fanciful and funny bush league sports story where the only foul ball is its overuse of locker-room dialog.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Staff (Non Credited)
Featuring outstanding lead performances by Kevin Costner, Susan Sarandon, and Tim Robbins; a witty, literate script; and an insider's familiarity with life around minor league baseball--Bull Durham is both one of the best films ever made about the national pastime and a charming romantic comedy.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Elvis Mitchell
Dialogue that strains to be colorful, indiscriminately piled-on pop songs, plot developments that aren't followed through on, and minor aspects of motivation that are never known. [15 June 1988, p.C20]
The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann
What is outstandingly incredible are the high-flown pronouncements, including literary judgments, given suddenly to Costner. They make him sound like a dummy for Shelton the ventriloquist. [1 Aug 1988]
San Francisco Chronicle Gerald Nachman
In a word, bull - cruddy, foul-smelling and fly-specked, an excuse for a series of cheap sex scenes and single-entendre gags. [15 June 1988]
What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 8.0 (out of 10) based on 8 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
[Anonymous] gave it a 9:
An excellent sports film. Costner, Robbins and Sarandon are great!
Pat C. gave it a 6:
Clever little humdinger which is more enjoyable the less seriously one takes it. Remember, this is the minor leagues, so they should be easier to relate to. And though it has been recently stated by austute authorities on the subject, it is again worth pointing out that Sarandon and Robbins have no chemistry whatsoever.
liberal hater gave it a 0:
Sarandon and Robbins have no chemistry whatsoever.
