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

63 11th Hour, The
47 27 Dresses
29 Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem
39 Alvin and the Chipmunks
81 Bamako
84 Before the Devil Knows You're Dead
47 Bella
68 Business of Being Born, The
69 Charlie Wilson's War
64 Cloverfield
30 Cover
68 Delirious
92 Diving Bell and the Butterfly, The
43 Final Season, The
41 First Sunday
51 Golden Compass, The
49 Good Night, The
65 Great Debaters, The
63 Hannah Takes the Stairs
52 Hollywood Dreams
7 Hottie and the Nottie, The
60 I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With
15 In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale
81 Juno
70 Lars and the Real Girl
47 Lions for Lambs
41 Mad Money
71 Manda Bala (Send a Bullet)
xx Moondance Alexander
53 Music Within
77 Nanking
44 Nina's Heavenly Delights
24 One Missed Call
74 Orphanage, The
30 Over Her Dead Body
39 P.S. I Love You
37 P2
46 Reservation Road
55 Resurrecting the Champ
57 Romulus, My Father
85 Savages, The
78 Starting Out in the Evening
83 Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
57 Teeth
92 There Will Be Blood
38 Trailer Park Boys: The Movie
32 Untraceable
63 Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story
68 War Dance
71 Water Horse: Legend of the Deep, The
43 Youth Without Youth

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

People vs. Larry Flynt, The
Sony Pictures Entertainment / Columbia Pictures


8.3

based on 24 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 8 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

FILM:

MPAA RATING: R for strong sexual material, nudity, language and drug use

Starring Woody Harrelson, Courtney Love, Edward Norton, Brett Harrelson, Donna Hanover, James Cromwell, Crispin Glover, and Vincent Schiavelli

Woody Harrelson stars as publishing maverick Larry Flynt, who becomes the unlikely champion of the First Amendment when he takes his fight against the Rev. Jerry Falwell all the way to the Supreme Court. (Sony Pictures Entertainment)

GENRE(S):	Drama
WRITTEN BY:	Scott Alexander Larry Karaszewski
DIRECTED BY:	Milos Forman
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: May 6, 2003 Video: November 17, 1998 Theatrical: December 25, 1996
RUNNING TIME:	129 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	Canada / 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

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Love proves she is not a rock star pretending to act, but a true actress, and Harrelson matches her with his portrait of a man who has one thing on his mind, and never changes it.

100

Film.com John Hartl

Raucously entertaining.

100

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

The film catches us by surprise in its moving portrayal of the love between Larry and Althea, played by Courtney Love in a performance that glides from kinky abandon to stark tragedy.

100

USA Today Mike Clark

Forman finesses the story's grimmer aspects as he did in "Cuckoo's Nest," and his ability to switch moods on a dime remains unsurpassed.

100

Washington Post Rita Kempley

Enormously entertaining and surprisingly touching.

100

The New York Times Elvis Mitchell

A blazing, unlikely triumph about a man who is nobody's idea of a movie hero. Smart, funny, shamelessly entertaining and perfectly serious too.

100

Newsweek David Ansen

Courtney Love's performance as stripper Althea Leasure is an amazement. Funny, unfettered and almost scarily alive in front of a camera, she's the definition of a "natural."

100

Film.com Robert Horton

Forman imbues the material with exactly the right dry, satirical flavor, yet this story is still a Frank Capra little-guy-against-the-system picture.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

Provocative and engrossing.

Variety Todd McCarthy

Vastly entertaining.

Film.com Sean Means

Althea is a ferociously vibrant character, and Love goes all out to infuse her with a wildness seldom seen on screen. Love holds nothing back, and her energy and her heartache energize the movie.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

There's a gentleness and open-mindedness in that touch and throughout the film that's a little at odds with the shallower script. But, in the end, that humanity pays. [27 Dec 1996]

ReelViews James Berardinelli

Tells a good, intelligent story that keeps us interested and involved.

San Francisco Examiner Barbara Shulgasser

With its fine courtroom scenes, excellent performances, great writing and superb direction it reminds me more than anything else of Barbet Schroeder's "Reversal of Fortune."

Film Threat Chris Gore

I loved it. I'm glad it was made...Film Threat's association with Flynt would sometimes bring gasps of outrage or phones slammed down in disgust. Now, it brings curiosity and even admiration. Kinda weird, huh?

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

With "Flynt," Love does what Madonna has been trying to do for 12 years -- create a performance filled with humor, intelligence and soul.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

The result is good dirty fun, flecked with enough wit to help you overlook the relatively barren characterization.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

Milos Forman's drama is full of outrageous material that will offend liberals and conservatives alike, but it's positioned on the cutting edge of contemporary debates about free speech, feminism, and the effects of mass media on modern society.

TV Guide Staff (Not Credited)

But long after you've grown tired of [Flynt's] escapades, the scenes in which he and Althea support one another against the slings an arrows of outrageous fortune are touching and, ultimately, genuinely tragic.

Time Richard Corliss

Jogs from one incident to the next, amassing information and dispensing attitude but rarely creating real characters. That's supposed to be director Milos Forman's forte; here, though, nearly everyone is an enemy or a stooge.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski's script may in spots be as much of a skim job as their one for "Ed Wood," but it's almost as sweet and as likable, and if the movie can't ever practice what it and its hillbilly hero preach--the only "beaver" shot in the movie involves a corpse--its heart is certainly in the right place.

Salon.com Charles Taylor

"Larry Flynt" should have a slick, whorish look, but there's no juice in Forman's sleaze. Hustler's centerfolds look like Renoirs next to the cold-eyed way Forman shoots women's bodies.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

We're really celebrating Hollywood's freedom to create biographies of anyone, no matter how high or low on the social ladder, and still come up with the same banal characteristics, messages and conclusions. In this sense, The People vs. Larry Flynt doesn't champion, so much as squander, freedom of speech.

Film.com Tom Keogh

In all, this film is a major disappointment with a few powerful highlights.

The average user rating for this movie is 8.3 (out of 10) based on 8 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Pat C. gave it a9:
A precise solidly crafted movie in full control of its volatile actors, story line and editing. Not quite uplifting, but still reassuring, not to mention both cerebral and provocative.

angie gave it a10:
This movie was absolutely wonderful. Made a very valid point.

mayank s. gave it a10:
Movie of our times.. sad, dark, and yet an expression so strong.

Ryan M. gave it a 10:
One of the greatest, most unflinchingly sad, but real biopics I've ever seen.

Gilbert gave it an 8:
Oh, come on. You call it a "pandering glorification of political correctness", then call it "evidence of our moral bankruptcy". Which are two different things. Face it, "Flynt" is not a leftie liberal pinko etc conspiracy to usurp you from your throne as arbiter of the Western World's morals. It's just a great movie. Like all the other ones Milos Forman made.

Steve B. gave it a 2:
This movie almost had me rooting against the first amendment. This pandering, glorification of a politically correct (these days) low-life shows just far downhill our society has gone, and the moral bankruptcy of the entertainment industry, including the left immoral (yet moralistic) movie critics.

Discuss this movie in our forums

Return to top of page

People vs. Larry Flynt, The Sony Pictures Entertainment / Columbia Pictures

People vs. Larry Flynt, The
Sony Pictures Entertainment / Columbia Pictures