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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Sin City
Dimension Films


7.5

based on 40 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 354 votes
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FILM:

MPAA RATING: R for sustained strong stylized violence, nudity and sexual content including dialogue

Starring Jessica Alba, Rosario Dawson, Elijah Wood, Bruce Willis, Benicio Del Toro, Michael Clarke Duncan, Carla Gugino, Josh Hartnett, Michael Madsen, Jaime King, and Brittany Murphy

Robert Rodriguez and comic book icon Frank Miller co-direct Sin City, based on the series of graphic novels created, written and illustrated by Miller. The film is infested with criminals, crooked cops and sexy dames, some searching for vengeance, some for redemption and others, both. (Dimension Films)

GENRE(S):	Action \| Crime \| Drama \| Suspense/Thriller
WRITTEN BY:	Frank Miller (graphic novels)
DIRECTED BY:	Frank Miller Robert Rodriguez Quentin Tarantino (special guest director)
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: August 16, 2005 Video: August 16, 2005 Theatrical: April 1, 2005
RUNNING TIME:	126 minutes, Color / B/W
ORIGIN:	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

New York Magazine Ken Tucker

The visually stunning Sin City has grit to spare and a thrilling undercurrent of morality.

100

Time Richard Corliss

Sin City is brazenly, thrillingly alive.

100

Slate David Edelstein

I loved it. Or, to put it another way, I loved it, I loved it, I loved it. I loved every gorgeous sick disgusting ravishing overbaked blood-spurting artificial frame of it.

100

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

This isn't an adaptation of a comic book, it's like a comic book brought to life and pumped with steroids.

100

Washington Post Desson Thomson

It's a guaranteed must-see for its generation. Sin City has a long, long shelf life ahead.

100

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

A movie unlike any other.

100

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

Two hours and six minutes has never seemed so much like two and six-tenths seconds. It's pure pulp metafiction.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

Some things in Sin City are almost too much to watch: the violence, the cruelty, the irredeemable evil. But it's irresistibly magnetic because it serves as a barely distorted mirror to our world.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

Sin City is the first mainstream American picture I've seen this year that feels even remotely brash or original. It's a hard, viciously funny little movie, one with all the subtlety of a billy club. But there's artistry here.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

Honestly, this ultra-noir adaptation of Frank Miller's black-and-white cult comic series is a visual feast ripped straight from the original medium's blood-soaked pages.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

Tarantino may have nicked the title first, but this is the real ''Pulp Fiction," with all the drama and the dead ends that implies.

USA Today Mike Clark

Occasionally very funny, the picture tends to coast on its cosmetics. A first-rate script might have made it a twisted masterpiece.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

Sin City is an evil place, full of awful people, an obsessive movie full of monomaniacal tough guys. Yet when Miller and Rodriguez move it into gear, noir lives.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

The worst thing I can say about this savage, sexy and ferociously funny screen translation of three stories from Frank Miller's Sin City series of graphic novels is that it's too much of a good thing.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

The most visually inventive comic book adaptation to make its way to a movie screen.

Premiere Aaron Hillis

A rough-and-tumble magnum opus of digital filmmaking that thrillingly basks in the sick, slick, sexy and quick-witted excesses of its imaginatively mutant stylizations.

Empire Kim Newman

For the guys it's Rodriguez's best film by far and a treat for fans of good-looking girls in black-and-white, of classic film noir and of imaginative ultra-violence.

Newsweek Devin Gordon

It's gory stuff, but it's also a visually arresting blitzkrieg with action so bare-knuckled you'll leave the theater spitting out teeth.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps

Sin City draws on the cumulative history of both mediums, creating a pastiche that would have been technologically impossible even three years ago. Its creators invent a queasily intoxicating new world.

Dallas Observer Robert Wilonsky

Rodriguez clearly assumes Sin City to be his "Pulp Fiction," his rambling portmanteau--a blending of disparate tales to form a complete, overwhelming epic.

Variety Todd McCarthy

For geeks, action freaks and sensation-seeking teenage boys of all ages, the price of admission will provide a one-way ticket to hard-boiled heaven.

Film Threat KJ Doughton

Rodriguez slams down the sledgehammer with so much brutal, punishing force, there's no room to breathe.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

Sin City snaps, crackles and pops like no graphic novel ever brought to the screen. Mixing live-action with computer-generated images, it looks like the novels, talks and bleeds like the novels, is as muscular and voluptuous as the novels - and it leaves you breathless as only a movie can.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

This is noir on steroids, cartoonishly ultra-violent and drawing inspiration from Mickey Spillane novels and E.C. comics of the '50s.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

Sin City gives sin a great name -- it's never been more plentiful or looked so gorgeous.

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

Rodriguez's evident delight in the form make this a worthwhile piece of eye candy.

The New York Times Manohla Dargis

Sin City has been made with such scrupulous care and obvious love for its genre influences that it's a shame the movie is kind of a bore.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

But once you're good and drunk on the look, details like the tin-eared tough-guy dialogue (which sounds especially stilted issuing from flesh-and-blood mouths) don't seem so important.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

Sin City is always moving on to the next thing, and despite surprisingly good work from its large cast (especially Rourke and Owen, who are both outstanding), the picture feels synthetic and artificial.

Philadelphia Inquirer Dan DeLuca

To say that Sin City is a guy movie - and an often brutally misogynist one, at that - would be an understatement.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

Glued tightly from page to screen, Sin City is so seduced by the visual possibilities of sin that style becomes its own vice.

LA Weekly Ella Taylor

After half an hour spent drooling over its visual splendors, I found the movie every bit as sickening as its creators intended it to be, minus the kicks they so palpably got out of making it.

Los Angeles Times Carina Chocano

For a relentlessly violent and exploitive noir knockoff, Sin City is mystifyingly flat and static - cartoonish, even, if you want to get tautological about it.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

Mr. Rourke's performance is quite phenomenal, a case of unquenchable talent bursting the bonds of dehumanized artifice.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

Sin City is a seedy tribute to rugged masculinity disguised as a rogue's gallery, all the better to please college boys who like their sentimentality slicked with grunge.

The New Yorker Anthony Lane

What binds and clads the new movie most thoroughly, however, is not storytelling but the high pressure of atmosphere.

Village Voice J. Hoberman

Sin City lacks the human interest, not to be confused with humanism, that "Pulp Fiction" had in abundance. As if to underscore the fact, Tarantino guest-directed a scene. It's readily recognizable as the only one in which the dialogue has the slightest conviction.

The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt

Eye-popping yet ultimately thin and shallow as a page in a graphic novel.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

Everything here has been done better in other books, other movies. The lone remarkable thing is the level of violence, which exposes the cowardice and hypocrisy of the Motion Picture Association of America's ratings system.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

The attainment it achieves is in the depths of pointless, mean-spirited exploitation.

The average user rating for this movie is 7.5 (out of 10) based on 354 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

L J M gave it a10:
When I saw Sin City I was blown away by the pace and style that it had. The film not only had an artistic style that has never been seen before in cinema but also strong stories as well as a great cast of characters who, over the course of the film, you care about and support as the film runs its course. The film has a deeply dark tone but also a great humane quality about it. Heres hoping Sin City 2 is soon produced.

[Anonmous] gave it a10:
To say this movie is just visually appealing is wrong. Everything is appealing. This movie took me on a ride to and what I saw I was not disappointed with. Wow

Paul H. gave it a1:
a disgusting blend of mind-numbingly banal cliches and over-the-top sadistic violence..i really wonder about those infants who find this film entertaining. It is about as original as a snuff movie and is a worrying sign of the direction Hollywood is taking. Bravo rayo for your wonderful critique...when kidnap,torture,rape and cannibalism becomes mainstream popcorn-fodder you really have to ask yourself about the world you're living in. This movie really does not have any redeeming features. Sorry to sound like an evangelist but as someone who loves cinema i find sin city empty, shallow, fake, offensive and in the end plain dumb.

John B. gave it a9:
Ok, I'm a sucker for movies this stylistic. It's an utterly cliche yet original piece of visual genius.

Jim A. gave it a10:
This film is the perfect example of a perfect acting and directing. At first I believed that it would be one more usual movie which is totally different from the comic but when I saw it I changed my mind completely. The transfer from the comic is excellent and as fantastic is the comic so fantastic is the movie. Frank Miller remains the best!

George H. gave it a10:
It would seem campy if it weren't so visually advanced, but the campiness combined with the CGI actually makes for an unforgettable combination.

Mr Blonde gave it a10:
This movie is awesome. I love how douchebag critics try to say this film rips of Pulp Fiction, but the Sin City novels came out before hand. Mickey Rourke should have gotten an oscar nomination for his portrayal of Marv. This film is balls on true to the comics.

Sin City Dimension Films

Sin City
Dimension Films