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Knocked Up
Universal Pictures

Knocked Up reviews
Critic Score
Metascore: 85 Metascore out of 100
User Score  
6.4 out of 10
based on 38 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
based on 354 votes
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MPAA RATING: R for sexual content, drug use and language

Starring Seth Rogen, Katherine Heigl, Paul Rudd, Leslie Mann, Jason Segel, Jay Baruchel, Jonah Hill, and Martin Starr

In this film about a one-night stand with unexpected consequences. Judd Apatow takes comic look at the best thing that will ever ruin your best-laid plans: parenthood. (Universal)


GENRE(S): Comedy  |  Drama  |  Romance  
WRITTEN BY: Judd Apatow  
DIRECTED BY: Judd Apatow  
RELEASE DATE: DVD: September 25, 2007 
Theatrical: June 1, 2007 
RUNNING TIME: 129 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
Village Voice Robert Wilonsky
Ultimately, what makes Knocked Up a terrific film--one of the year's best, easily--is its relaxed, shaggy vibe; if it feels improvised in places, that's because Apatow trusts his actors enough to let them make it up as they go, like the people they're playing.
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100
Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum
The very opposite of a storybook romance, and also the very model of a great comedy for our values-driven time.
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100
The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias
No one writes for ensembles better than Apatow, and his players are all skilled at giving his work a loose, improvisational feel.
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100
Newsweek David Ansen
Judd Apatow is making the freshest, most honest mainstream comedies in Hollywood.
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100
New York Post Kyle Smith
Ridiculous comedies can be fine, but the ones that matter creep up close to the truth. This one lives in it.
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100
The New York Times A.O. Scott
An instant classic, a comedy that captures the sexual confusion and moral ambivalence of our moment without straining, pandering or preaching.
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100
Variety Joe Leydon
Uproarious. Line for line, minute to minute, writer-director Judd Apatow's latest effort is more explosively funny, more frequently, than nearly any other major studio release in recent memory.
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90
Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
Judd Apatow's high-density, high-intensity comedy of bad (and good) manners is a cause for celebration -- the laugh lines are smart, and they come faster than you can process them.
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90
Time Richard Schickel
It's hard enough to find comedies like this at any time, so it's a small and welcome miracle to come upon one in the midst of a typical movie summer.
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90
Washington Post Ann Hornaday
Turns out to be not just rude, crude and outrageously funny but a deceptively sophisticated meditation on moral agency -- with pot jokes!
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90
The Hollywood Reporter John DeFore
Apatow's gleefully raunchy movies are, in an odd and charming way, extremely family-friendly.
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90
Film Threat Mark Bell
Believe the hype, Knocked Up is one of the funniest films of 2007. It's too early in the year to crown it the supreme funniest title, but save for something so funny your head explodes in the theater, I think it'll take the title by year's end. Seth Rogen, we web slackers salute you!
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88
Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips
Knocked Up is more verbally adroit than it is visually. But Apatow's awfully sharp as a chronicler of contemporary romantic anxieties.
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88
ReelViews James Berardinelli
Knocked Up could be one of the summer of 2007's sleeper hits. It certainly deserves the distinction.
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88
Rolling Stone Peter Travers
Rogen and Heigl step up to the plate with a tougher task from Coach Apatow: Nail every laugh and the emotions underlying them. No worries. They knock it out of the park.
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88
Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez
Knocked Up is filled with comic exchanges and bits of business that, while not essential to the central plot, keep the movie's comedic energy chugging (like Debbie's throwdown with a doorman at a popular nightclub who won't let her in because she's too old).
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88
New York Daily News Jack Mathews
What follows is an extreme case of reverse courtship, which begins at conception and works backward toward getting to know each other, and then moves forward to one of the funniest birthing scenes ever filmed.
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88
The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Kamal AL-Solaylee
Move over, Jim Carrey, and watch your back, Mike Myers. Your tenure as the most bankable comedians to call Canada not-quite home but still native land is about to come to an end. The new money is on one 25-year-old virgin – to top billing, that is – from Vancouver. His name is Seth Rogen and he's (literally) the poster boy for the best American comedy of the summer and, what the heck, of the decade so far.
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88
USA Today Claudia Puig
What makes the movie so winning are its endearing and relatable characters who spout believable dialogue and amusing banter, steeped in clever pop-culture references and sharp observations of human nature.
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83
Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold
All told, Knocked Up works more in spite of its low humor than because of it.
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83
Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy
Alas, while the verbiage bubbles, the plot slogs. You feel that there's a big pile of deleted scenes waiting to appear on the DVD -- and that a good bit of what's here should have joined it. Funny is good, but it requires sharp if it's to rise to true greatness.
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83
Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer
Sweep aside the gross-outs and you've got the family values comedy of the year.
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80
Slate Dana Stevens
It's one of those zeitgeist-tapping romantic comedies that feels like a generational marker, a "Tootsie" or "The Graduate" for the 21st century.
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80
New York Magazine David Edelstein
Knocked Up feels very NOW. The banter is bruisingly funny, the characters BRILLIANTLY childish, the portrait of our culture's narrowing gap between children and their elders hysterical--in all senses.
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80
LA Weekly Ella Taylor
Line for line, Knocked Up isn't quite as funny as "The 40-Year-Old Virgin," which got most of its laughs from the friction between prissy Carell and his sex-crazed stoner co-workers. But it is equally good as a nutty anthropology of marginal living and as an illustration of how much energy it takes to do nothing in a work-obsessed society.
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80
The New Yorker Anthony Lane
On the surface, Apatow's films are about sex--obsessively, exclusively, and exhaustively. (This one lasts more than two hours.) But that is a clever feint, for their true subject is age.
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80
Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek
A beautifully shaped piece of work: There are no slack patches, no gratuitous feel-good moments -- if you walk out of Knocked Up feeling good, that means you've earned it.
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80
Empire Ian Nathan
Knocked Up touches places most comedies wouldn't dare, some of them scarily biological, some of them scarily accurate. It's the sleeper hit of the summer, but don't worry: it's much better than that.
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75
Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey
Heigl, a double-dip of praline with caramel, is so beautiful that initially you don't notice her comic chops.
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75
San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle
Knocked Up has some rough edges, but it's a noteworthy film by a significant and blossoming talent.
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75
Premiere Glenn Kenny
More often than not laugh-out-loud hilarious.
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75
TV Guide Ken Fox
Apatow's clever comedy is a romance in reverse, and it works.
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75
Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach
The story line meanders and too many scenes drone on; Knocked Up is in serious need of a good editor. But the laughs are plentiful, and it's the rare movie these days where one doesn't feel guilty about finding the whole thing funny.
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75
Boston Globe Wesley Morris
Debbie gets away with being such a cauldron of extremes because the airy-voiced Mann is extremely good at playing them. She happens to be Apatow's wife (the kids in the movie are theirs), and with the possible exception of Téa Leoni , it's hard to imagine who else could get away with this combination of needling and affection.
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75
Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman
Most of the movie feels like a loose, sometimes improvised lark among friends.
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70
Los Angeles Times Carina Chocano
Funny, but its lacking at the core. Judd Apatow's comedy takes the guy's side of things, but how does the woman feel about all of this?
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70
Chicago Reader J.R. Jones
Funny, honest, and generous, this is mainstream American comedy at its best.
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50
Austin Chronicle Josh Rosenblatt
Like most of Apatow's work, Knocked Up walks a perilous line between sarcasm and sentimentality, and though it's extremely funny in bursts, the movie flirts once too often with schmaltz before toppling into melodrama in its third act. The fault lies as much with Apatow's casting as his writing.
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What Our Users Said

Vote Now!The average user rating for this movie is 6.4 (out of 10) based on 354 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Jane gave it a3:
I'm shocked that this movie got such great reviews from the critics. How much were the critics paid off?! This is a disgusting tasteless movie.

Cristina gave it a5:
Misogynistic crap. A schlubby male fantasy.

Jonathan J gave it a0:
It starts with a montage and only gets worse. The only real joke is people are actually paying to see this crap.

Michelle S gave it a10:
I have read a few very bad reviews, and apparently they were watching a different movie because this one is freaking hilarious! I have seen it over and over again, and still laugh just as hard every time. Seth and Katherine are so funny together and I think they make a cute couple. Yes, there were some gross funny parts and stupid funny parts, but I personally think that makes a comedy really funny, a variety of types of jokes. If you haven't seen it, give it a chance. And to those of you who gave it a zero or one, you must not have a sense of humor at all...I understand if you didn't love it, but it deserves more than that.

Mike S. gave it a1:
Most overrated movie in the past 10 years. Corny conservatism masquerading as corny pot head humor. People say they like it because they "identify" with the characters -- If that's true, the country, if not the world, is doomed. The whole film was basically a pro life, family values, sexist piece of garbage. I would let that go if the jokes were funny, but they weren't. Every single one had long been exhausted since my middle school days. And while the slacked themes were supposed to seem rebellious, they weren't ( I only say "supposed," because so many critics have lauded them as such). Pot is not edgy, nor is a website that shows boobs. Why not make the main character a heroine addict, but still funny? Why not have him and his mates make a hardcore porno site, but still be funny? Lame.

Andrew gave it a10:
I laughed so hard!!! Hey Jimmy K. How can this be a ripoff of a book that was relapsed 6 months before? DO you know what the screenwriting, Filming and post production time is? And then distribution? At least 2 years from start to finish. The lady that claimed that often sues people with vaugly similar ideas. She is a crackpot and the case was immediately thrown out. So STFU.

Peter A gave it a5:
I'm down the middle. Yeah, there were some laughs, but they were all centered around the beard bet. The premise isn't totally unbelievable, but I just didn't buy that she'd both want to keep the baby and stay with him. And I thought the writing flagged around the second trimester. I guess what annoys me most about Apatow is he's obviously a really smart, clever guy who can't quite purge all the sophomoric impulses from his movies...the pot-smoking and potty mouth stuff seems geared to 12-year-olds, who clearly aren't equipped to handle the grown-up issues here. But maybe that's why it made a ton of money -- he's figured out a way to appeal to a pretty broad demo without actually satisfying them.

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