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

34 10,000 B.C.
37 Air I Breathe, The
52 Be Kind Rewind
47 Boarding Gate
46 Bonneville
42 Bucket List, The
70 Caramel
49 Cassandra's Dream
44 Chaos Theory
54 Charlie Bartlett
64 Chronicle of an Escape
63 City of Men
78 Control
66 Darfur Now
59 Definitely, Maybe
41 Drillbit Taylor
36 Eye, The
46 Finishing the Game
35 Flakes
38 Flash Point
57 Flawless
29 Fool's Gold
41 Funny Games
66 George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead
65 Grace Is Gone
57 Hammer, The
68 Honeydripper
67 In Bruges
xx Jack and Jill vs. the World
35 Jumper
9 Meet the Spartans
52 My Blueberry Nights
48 National Treasure: Book of Secrets
50 Other Boleyn Girl, The
90 Persepolis
44 Rails & Ties
46 Rambo
36 Remember the Daze
47 Semi-Pro
24 Sex and Death 101
76 Shotgun Stories
63 Signal, The
62 Spiderwick Chronicles, The
12 Strange Wilderness
45 Tyler Perry's Meet the Browns
59 Under the Same Moon
40 Vantage Point
55 Walker, The
37 War, Inc.
46 Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins
60 What Would Jesus Buy?
51 Wild West Comedy Show: 30 Days & 30 Nights - Hollywood to the Heartland
17 Witless Protection

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Moulin Rouge
20th Century Fox Film Corporation


9.0

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

based on 474 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

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 9.0 (out of 10) based on 474 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

[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.

Nicki gave it a10:
I loved this movie it deserves way over a ten! It was so much fun to watch, I could watch it over and over again. Definetly is my favorite movie, the music, the acting, the costumes, everything was amazing and definetly worth your time!

Juan P. gave it a10:
Fantastic film, great cast, great music. Nicole K. is spectacular spectacular.

Drunken Master gave it a0:
This is a film for people who know nothing of history and don't mind seeing one of the most talented and tragic artists of all time portrayed as a singing and dancing life-of-the-party midget. Never mind that the REAL star of the Moulin Rouge was an obese redhead (a far cry from Kidman) nicknamed "The Glutton", never mind that the film is chock full of ridiculous anachronism (who the hell sold these jerks the rights to "Smells like Teen Spirit", fer chrissakes??? they should be found and punished. Severely.), never mind that the entire film is directed to look exactly like an extended music video: Ewan MacGregor is SO DREAMY WHEN HE SINGS and that is all that matters! (Ugh, excuse me for just a second: I feel ill.) A lot of people defend this move because they think it's "romantic". Well, if your ideal of love and romance is this gaudy, this detached from reality, this superficial, you can keep it. I'll stick with the real thing. This film is strictly for fourteen year old girls. Even a guest appearance by the Green Fairy can't cover the stink of this turd.

Slavisa M. gave it a10:
Moulin ROuge is the best musical of all time and the best film of 2001!! Baz Luhrmann makes beautiful work - he is one of the great directors who puts his heart and soul in a film, until it's perfect! And Moulin Rouge is almost there! Nicole Kidman gives the role of her life as well as Ewan McGregor and Jim Broadbent do too. If Luhrmann ever came near to an Oscar, then it was with Moulin Rouge! Because he won't be able to repeat it again. That story, that imaginative score, costumes and art direction... Which I really liked was film editing and cinematography. It makes the film feel "alieve", just makes it something special. Moulin Rouge is the best musical ever and one of the greatest love stories...simply 10+

Jamie S. gave it a10:
This movie combined the best of musical theatre and modern cinema. The p.d. technology and charming antiquity meet and blend beautifully in this piece. Kudos!

Alex gave it a10:
It's by far the best movie that I've ever seen. The whole cast is perfect, Ewan McGregor in particular. He has the voice of an angel. The chemistry between each cast member is palpable...just amazing. Costumes, setting, plot, script...everything was phenomenal.

Moulin Rouge 20th Century Fox Film Corporation

Moulin Rouge
20th Century Fox Film Corporation