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85
Savages, The
84
Before the Devil Knows You're Dead
83
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
81
Juno
81
Bamako
78
Starting Out in the Evening
77
Nanking
74
Orphanage, The
71
Water Horse: Legend of the Deep, The
71
Manda Bala (Send a Bullet)
70
Lars and the Real Girl
69
Charlie Wilson's War
68
Business of Being Born, The
68
Delirious
68
War Dance
65
Great Debaters, The
64
Cloverfield
63
Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story
63
11th Hour, The
63
Hannah Takes the Stairs
60
I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With
57
Romulus, My Father
57
Teeth
55
Resurrecting the Champ
53
Music Within
52
Hollywood Dreams
51
Golden Compass, The
49
Good Night, The
47
Bella
47
Lions for Lambs
47
27 Dresses
46
Reservation Road
44
Nina's Heavenly Delights
43
Youth Without Youth
43
Final Season, The
41
Mad Money
41
First Sunday
39
Alvin and the Chipmunks
39
P.S. I Love You
38
Trailer Park Boys: The Movie
37
P2
32
Untraceable
30
Over Her Dead Body
30
Cover
29
Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem
24
One Missed Call
15
In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale
7
Hottie and the Nottie, The
xx
Moondance Alexander
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
|
Shakespeare in Love
Miramax Films
FILM:
MPAA RATING: R for sexuality
Starring
Gwyneth Paltrow,
Joseph Fiennes,
Geoffrey Rush,
Judi Dench,
Colin Firth,
Ben Affleck,
and
Rupert Everett
Shakespeare in Love is a romantic comedy for the 1990s set in the 1590s. It imaginatively unfolds the witty, sexy and timeless tale behind the creation of the greatest love story ever told. (Miramax Films)
| GENRE(S): |
Romance
|
| WRITTEN BY: |
Marc Norman
Tom Stoppard
|
| DIRECTED BY: |
John Madden
|
| RELEASE DATE: |
DVD: August 10, 1999
Video: August 10, 1999
Theatrical: December 11, 1998
|
| RUNNING TIME: |
122 minutes, Color |
| ORIGIN: |
USA / UK |

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
The New Republic
Stanley Kauffmann
With most historical films the informed viewer scrutinizes in order to cluck at errors. (There are books full of such cluckings.) With Shakespeare in Love, the more one knows, the more one can enjoy the liberties taken. [Jan. 4, 1999]
100
Chicago Sun-Times
Roger Ebert
I was carried along by the wit, the energy and a surprising sweetness.

100
Entertainment Weekly
Owen Gleiberman
The richest and most satisfying romantic movie of the year. It's really about two great loves at once -- the love of life and of art -- and the way that Shakespeare, like no writer before him, transformed the one into the other.

100
Time
Richard Corliss
The true, rare glamour of the piece is its revival of two precious movie tropes: the flourishing of words for their majesty and fun, and--in the love play between Fiennes and his enchantress--the kindling of a playfully adult eroticism.

100
The New York Times
Elvis Mitchell
Shakespeare meets Sherlock, and makes for pure enchantment in the inspired conjecture behind Shakespeare in Love.

100
Los Angeles Times
Kenneth Turan
One of those entertaining confections that's so pleasing to the eye and ear you'd have to be a genuine Scrooge to struggle against it.

100
Washington Post
Michael O'Sullivan
Paltrow and Fiennes are so good and the script, referencing not only "Romeo and Juliet" but "Twelfth Night," is so consistently intelligent that seduction is inevitable.

100
Film.com
Norman Green
These are the heights of cinematic achievement.
100
New York Post
Rod Dreher
If she (Paltrow) were the only good thing about Shakespeare in Love, it still would have been worth seeing; that she is the crown jewel in a glittering tiara of a film studded with writing and acting gems testifies to the deep pleasures to be found in this remarkable movie.

100
Portland Oregonian
Barry Johnson
Like "Amadeus," Shakespeare in Love works splendidly as an appreciation of an artist in the heat of creation, and it breathes life into "Romeo and Juliet."

100
Film.com
Gemma Files
It's a rollicking good time, full of genuine emotional pull and incandescent acting, and anchored by a passionate love for the theater itself which puts most human liaisons--including Shakespeare and Viola's -- to shame.
100
Chicago Tribune
Michael Wilmington
Some scholars may scowl, some lowbrows may scoff. But, like wordwise Will, these filmmakers know how to win a crowd -- from the queen down to the groundlings, from the sky above to the stage below. Bravo! [5 December 1998, Friday, p.A]
100
San Francisco Chronicle
Ruthe Stein
Anyone not romantically inclined going into Shakespeare in Love surely will be by the end.

90
Film.com
Peter Brunette
Stoppard's luxuriant, richly comic language cascades and washes over you, and, for once, more than keeps pace with the sprightly pictures.
90
TNT RoughCut
Jennifer Nowitzky
The most romantic film of the year.
90
Newsweek
David Ansen
The beauty of this extremely clever movie, directed with fleet, robust theatricality by John Madden, is how deftly it manages to work on multiple levels.

90
Washington Post
Stephen Hunter
The movie becomes something quite rare and magical: a text about a text that is also full of life. In other words, it's a true first: It's both postmodern and fun!

90
Variety
Lael Lowenstein
Exquisitely acted, tightly directed and impressively assembled.

90
Chicago Reader
Lisa Alspector
It's easy to suspend disbelief and embrace this historically creative fiction, whose clever relationship to what's known and what's unresolved is part of what makes it so intriguing and so romantic.

90
Mr. Showbiz
Eleonore Snow
The result is a film that is as witty, astute, and romantic as its timeless subject.

89
Austin Chronicle
Marjorie Baumgarten
The end result is a delightful, though a smidge too long, reminder of one of the reasons we so enjoy going to the movies: perchance to dream.

88
San Francisco Examiner
Walter Addiego
Its brazen mixture of the comic and dramatic, the high and low and the emotional and intellectual is positively Shakespearean.

88
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
Rick Groen
The whole ensemble has a hoot with this material, and their joy is contagious.

88
USA Today
Mike Clark
Accessibly brainy screen charmer.

88
New York Daily News
Jami Bernard
Inordinately clever, sprightly romantic comedy.

80
Dallas Observer
M. V. Moorhead
These filmmakers have taken a historical figure and made him into a hot-blooded romantic hero. Shakespeare did that a time or two himself.

80
The Onion (A.V. Club)
Keith Phipps
Delivers the goods, if the goods you're in the market for happen to be a clever romance concerning William Shakespeare that's unlikely to cause anyone to reassess their notions of Shakespeare, romance, or enjoyment.

75
ReelViews
James Berardinelli
Not a great film, but it's an excuse to have an evening of pure enjoyment with a little culture painlessly mixed in.

70
LA Weekly
Ella Taylor
Good fun, though not more than up-market situation comedy studded with the usual leaps out of period-speak to swipe at contemporary Hollywood.

70
TV Guide
Sandra Contreras
This delightful, fast-paced and entirely fictional imagining of Shakespeare's life during the writing of "Romeo and Juliet" brims with witticisms predicated on the determination to have a rollicking good time exploring the link between libido and creativity.

60
Salon.com
Laura Miller
A corny, old-fashioned backstage farce.

50
Christian Science Monitor
David Sterritt
This romantic farce has a talented cast and energy to spare, but somehow the ingredients don't burn as brightly as one would expect from such promising ingredients.

40
Village Voice
Amy Taubin
It soon becomes evident just how inane a film this is.


The average user rating for this movie is 7.8 (out of 10) based on 36 User Votes
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