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Year One
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
Spider
EMAILPRINTSony Pictures Classics

Universal acclaim
Based on 35 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 32 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Suspense/Thriller
Written by:
David Cronenberg
Patrick McGrath (also novel)
Directed by: David Cronenberg
Release Date:
Theatrical: December 20, 2002
DVD: July 29, 2003
Running Time: 98 minutes, Color
Origin: France / Canada / UK
Summary
RATING: R for sexuality, brief violence and language
Starring Ralph Fiennes, Miranda Richardson, Gabriel Byrne, Bradley Hall, Lynn Redgrave, John Neville, Gary Reineke, and Philip Craig
A psychological thriller about a man (Fiennes) trying to piece his life back together after his premature release from a mental institution.
Also On Metacritic
FILM: A History of Violence Crash Dead Ringers Eastern Promises eXistenZ M. Butterfly Naked Lunch Scanners The Dead Zone The Fly Videodrome
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database View The Trailer Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
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...
San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle
In this small and very smart film, Cronenberg does several things at once and makes them all look effortless, capturing various shadings of consciousness and versions of reality.
Read Full Review >Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt
Arguably the subtlest, most carefully textured film of Cronenberg's career.
Read Full Review >Village Voice J. Hoberman
Spider lasts in the mind and it's built to last -- this is a movie that invites and repays repeated viewings.
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy
Exciting spectacle of a master director reining in his abilities to create a work that is etched in acid, burnished in smoke.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Michael O'Sullivan
His story is sad, compelling and morbidly, tragically watchable.
Read Full Review >Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
The most elegantly crafted and confidently directed of all his (Cronenberg's) films, it's a calm, chilling portrait of a blighted soul and, just as calmly but quite stunningly, an evocation of the thought processes behind the blight.
Dallas Observer Bill Gallo
It takes an especially fine-tuned director and an inventive actor to cut as close to the bone as Spider does.
Read Full Review >The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann
Spider is not a pulse-quickening experience, but Fiennes's art makes it engrossing.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas
In an instance of director, stars and material melding flawlessly, Spider is a brilliantly realized depiction of a mentally ill individual.
Read Full Review >Variety David Rooney
This slow but brilliantly sustained journey into madness is fronted by a remarkable performance from Ralph Fiennes and superb backup from Miranda Richardson in a triple role.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum
I was floored by Cronenberg's mastery of the material. Fiennes gives one of his finest performances; Miranda Richardson, playing at least three characters in the protagonist's twisted vision, is no less impressive.
Read Full Review >Newsweek David Ansen
The superbly acted Spider is muted in comparison: its a quiet nightmare, painted in hospital greens and rust browns.
Read Full Review >LA Weekly Ella Taylor
Deliciously wicked, strangely poetic portrait (adapted by Patrick McGrath from his own novel) of a schizophrenic man at once tyrannized and elevated by oedipal terrors.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Ty Burr
It's Cronenberg's finest film, it's star Ralph Fiennes's riskiest role, it's a tour de force for actress Miranda Richardson.
Read Full Review >Rolling Stone Peter Travers
What catches us in Spider's web -- besides the indelible performances of Fiennes and Richardson -- is the director's sympathy with this freak man-child who struggles to order his confused memories into a kind of truth.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen
This is a rare adaptation where the script (by McGrath himself) heads straight for the novel's horrible essence, reproducing it non-verbally and in an even more concentrated form.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington
A shocker for devotees of stylish angst and psychological torment. You'll have to watch it with patience and great attention, but it richly rewards that patience.
Read Full Review >Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker
Cronenberg's most disciplined exploration yet of that shadowy realm: the world refracted through the prism of a schizophrenic mind.
Read Full Review >Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir
It isn't likely to drive anybody out of the theater -- although getting people out of the house to see a meticulous, minimalist study of madness and memory may be another story.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Stephen Hunter
An eensy-weensy movie sustained by two utterly gigantic performances.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Stephen Holden
Brilliantly realized but bone-chillingly bleak.
Read Full Review >Film Threat Darrin Keene
This is the film that "Shine" and A Beautiful Mind could not be, a story about schizophrenia that doesnt neatly resolve its complex subject matter.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps
Were he only trying to remark on that world's creepiness, Cronenberg would still succeed brilliantly, if coldly, but his sympathy makes the film.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov
Cronenbergs nonlinear narrative is trying at times it keeps you nearly as off-kilter as the characters, and surely thats intentional but as a character piece about madness and stymied dreams, its remarkably realistic.
Read Full Review >USA Today Mike Clark
This is the kind of well-made movie you wish well but you don't particularly wish to see again.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
The details of the film and of the performances are meticulously realized; there is a reward in seeing artists working so well. But the story has no entry or exit, and is cold, sad and hopeless. Afterward, I feel more admiration than gratitude.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Jami Bernard
A cat's cradle of creepy childhood memory oozing unreliably from the mind of an aging, desiccated, paranoid schizophrenic, played quite amazingly by a mumbling, stooped, shifty-eyed Ralph Fiennes.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum
Fiennes' very skin participates in the project -- his fingernails are nicotine-stained the color of tea bags. The performance works; it's a ballet, a concerto of big, big Acting.
Read Full Review >New York Post Jonathan Foreman
If you have the patience, its almost endless silences and extremely slow pacing eventually pay off.
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez
This superbly realized, clammy and unsettling movie doesn't hinge on plot. Claustrophobic and profoundly creepy, Spider isn't a pleasant viewing experience, and that's the point.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey
Spider is a difficult film, but an inspired one, the movie equivalent of eating a meal of artfully prepared eel or sea urchin. It's for those with adventurous tastes and no fear of squishy textures.
Read Full Review >Slate David Edelstein
The inner life of the young Spider is just screaming to be taken to the next level--but Cronenberg mulishly won't go there. What goes wrong with Spider is pretty basic: The audience has no idea why it was made.
Read Full Review >New York Magazine Peter Rainer
A kind of psychological whodunit, but without the thrills. The clue-making is rather desultory, as if Cronenberg were indulging a narrative strategy he didnt really care for.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Maitland McDonagh
Its minutely detailed revelations work their way under the skin like slivers of glass.
Read Full Review >Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow
Spider as a character is a fantasizing detective, but the movie is no Singing Detective (the high-water mark of the sub-genre). This film rarely rises above a murmur.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 7.0 (out of 10) based on 32 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
william w gave it a10:
The most nerve-racking, chillingly precise film about mental illness ever made. In my humble opinion, the director's magnus opus.
Methusalah gave it a10:
This movie was visually astounding. It had more eye catching, amazingly framed scenes than any previous Cronenberg movie. A surreal trek through a day in the life of a mentally ill individual.
Mathew B. gave it a10:
A masterpiece of perception of reality vs. reality
Vocecita gave it a10:
An excellent movie.
Eon gave it a9:
Great acting, great directing, great puzzle. ;)
Susan D. gave it a2:
I thought at least the special effects would be good as I am not a big fan of comics, but the effects were terrible! The story line was juvenile at best, there was no character development and the ending was dismal and dark with no explaination that made sense...other than the world is made up of bad people. Boring!
Jonathan H. gave it a 10:
Great, breathtaking performances, wonderful visuals, sadly very little-seen.
