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Moulin Rouge
20th Century Fox Film Corporation


8.9

based on 35 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 484 votes
Read user comments
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FILM:

MUSIC:

Moulin Rouge Soundtrack

MPAA RATING: PG-13 for sexual content

Starring Nicole Kidman, Ewan McGregor, John Leguizamo, Jim Broadbent, Richard Roxburgh, and Kylie Minogue

Against the backdrop of 19th Century Paris and the famed Montmartre cabaret, this is the story of the doomed love affair between Christian (McGregor), a young poet, and Satine (Kidman), a courtesan and performer at the Moulin Rouge.

GENRE(S):	Romance
WRITTEN BY:	Baz Luhrmann Craig Pearce
DIRECTED BY:	Baz Luhrmann
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: December 18, 2001 Video: December 18, 2001 Theatrical: May 18, 2001
RUNNING TIME:	126 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	USA

Received eight Oscar nominations in 2002, including Best Picture and Best Actress (for Nicole Kidman). Won Best Picture-Musical or Comedy, Best Actress (Kidman), and Best Original Score at the 59th Golden Globe Awards, out of a total of six nominations.

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

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

A landmark musical movie -- controversial, mercurial, even cheeky. It's the kind of film that wildly divides audiences and critics -- people tend to either love or hate it. I loved it.

Newsweek David Ansen

Luhrmann has raised the level of his game, deconstructing the Hollywood musical -- a genre all but left for dead -- and reassembling it with a potency that hasn’t been seen since “Cabaret.”

Washington Post Desson Thomson

It's a wonderful postmodern hug of a movie, and never once do you not know you're watching a movie.

New Times (L.A.) Gregory Weinkauf

This thing moves brilliantly, sparkling like nothing we've seen domestically since "The Wiz" or "Xanadu."

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

A crazed, lovestruck, wholly original (and yet amazingly referential) beast, part pop-culture wasteland, part glowing tribute, and part wild-eyed roller coaster (of love).

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

An audacious, snappy visual and emotional feast of dishes both familiar and fresh. It's the first really good movie of 2001.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

The movie is all color and music, sound and motion, kinetic energy, broad strokes, operatic excess.

Variety Todd McCarthy

A tour de force of artifice, a dazzling pastiche of musical and visual elements at the service of a blatantly artificial story.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

It's a mishmash of decoration, drapery and debauchery that's both deeply pleasurable and kitschy.

Time Richard Corliss

The film dances; the heart sings.

Film Threat Michael Dequina

What ultimately comes through is an undeniably imaginative work that is a glorious testament to the limitless and largely untapped possibilities of cinema.

New York Post Jonathan Foreman

A sometimes glorious, sometimes disastrous folly.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

Some will find it exhilarating fun.

San Francisco Chronicle Edward Guthmann

A movie so cheeky, aggressive and bursting with vitality that it can't help being annoying and exhilarating at the same time.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

It's impossible to watch this beautifully chaotic, excessive movie impassively. You'll either embrace what Luhrmann has done here or run out of the theater, holding your head.

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

You get faux feelings -- but faux of the highest, giddiest order.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

You can go with it or resist it, be exhilarated or worn out. But forgetting the experience is not one of your options.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

The grand becomes grandiose and the lyrical turns bombastic.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

A movie you can't readily get out of your head.

Washington Post Rita Kempley

McGregor, the movie's most engaging performer, is convincing enough to sell the mutual attraction. The "Trainspotting" star is usually playing some kind of freak, and this is a nice stretch for him.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

It doesn't, as they say, really work -- but it's enjoyable enough in spots to leave one feeling passably entertained.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

The result is a musical that substitutes irony for pop passion, misanthropic disjointedness for lyrical flow.

Film.com Peter Brunette

Consistently runs the danger of substituting cool but ultra-hyper, modern special effects for boring old human sentiment.

Mr. Showbiz Kevin Maynard

It's the kind of flourish that makes you smile -- that makes you believe in the power of movies.

The New York Times A.O. Scott

Simultaneously stirring and dispiriting.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

Diverting, energetic, and even reasonably satisfying, so long as you aren't looking for a real musical to take its place.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

Never boring, often excruciating and occasionally transcendent.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

It wants to be like no other movie you've ever seen. It's more like every movie you've ever seen.

LA Weekly Ella Taylor

Drowns in baroque mise en scène camp, frenetic musical numbers and a precious dialogue conceit that wears out its welcome very fast.

Boston Globe Jay Carr

The film musical is at the moment an even more devitalized art form than the Broadway musical. But Moulin Rouge doesn't revive it. It only rearranges the bones.

New York Magazine Peter Rainer

It's like being trapped inside a fever dream of Oscar-night production numbers.

Village Voice J. Hoberman

A voracious vacuum cleaner of a movie --hoovering up a hundred years' worth of junk with the same monotonously unmodulated hum.

USA Today Mike Clark

May be a spectacularly awful movie, but it's also spectacularly drenched in color, décor and other visual oh-la-la.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

The picture brims over with ideas - good ones, silly ones, maudlin ones, witty ones, absurd ones - and they bump up against each other like ingredients in a vast stewpot that never comes to a continuous boil.

Slate David Edelstein

Ends up leaving you starved for a single moment of unhyped emotion. You can barely see the characters for Luhrmann screaming.

The average user rating for this movie is 8.9 (out of 10) based on 484 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

CARL D gave it a10:
I saw it--several times. I luv it! I bought it-DVD...where is Blu-Ray version?....stunning visual work....filmmakers art masterpiece....Not for the artistically deprived !...which may explain some bewildered comments.

Kristi J. gave it a9:
Wonderful movie, just a little dizzying at times.

Vincent V. gave it a1:
Awful special effects, poor music, poor singing, poor acting, poor storyline... total suck.

Cİhat T. gave it a10:
The Best Thing You Will Ever Learn is to love and be loved in return... This movie will always be my best.

Steve E. gave it a0:
What on earth is all the fuss about? How can so many people give 10/10 to this load of rubbish? I would have given it -1 if I coukld! We turned it off after 30 minutes - never to re-visit - and regret wasting those 30 minutes and the price of the DVD. I wouldn't even give this unwatched trash to my worst friend.

Madison R. gave it a10:
My all time favorite movie! It allows the watcher to feel as though he or she is actually in the night club. The anachronistic music allows the audience member to really feel the emotions that were experienced during the time that the club was at it's early 20th century high points. The characters are well thought out and deep, and unlike many musicals, it seems believable that these people really would just break out into song together. Everyone should watch this movie several times, because it does take getting used to the hyper activity that is the Moulin Rouge.

[Anonymous] gave it an8:
Most definitely a film of shiny surfaces. This is not an in-depth analysis of character, and it is not trying to be; what it is is a brilliant film makers film, that manages to do what Ken Russell can only dream of.

Moulin Rouge 20th Century Fox Film Corporation

Moulin Rouge
20th Century Fox Film Corporation