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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Thirteen
Fox Searchlight Pictures


7.7

based on 37 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 66 votes
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FILM:

MPAA RATING: R for drug use, self destructive violence, language and sexuality - all involving young teens

Starring Evan Rachel Wood, Holly Hunter, Nikki Reed, Jeremy Sisto, Brady Corbet, Deborah Unger, Sarah Clarke, and Vanessa Anne Hudgens

This film focuses on a thirteen-year-old girl growing up with conflicting pressures in Los Angeles.

GENRE(S):	Drama
WRITTEN BY:	Catherine Hardwicke Nikki Reed
DIRECTED BY:	Catherine Hardwicke
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: January 27, 2004 Video: January 27, 2004 Theatrical: August 20, 2003
RUNNING TIME:	100 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	USA / UK

Winner, Director's Award, 2003 Sundance Film Festival

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

Premiere Brooke Hauser

The result is a disturbing look into the so-called Wonder Years of adolescence, with convincing, award-worthy performances from each of its key players: Hunter, Wood, and Reed.

100

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

With an authenticity that is tender and merciless, the movie shows you what it looks like when youth rebellion becomes a form of fascism.

100

USA Today Mike Clark

The most powerful of all recent wayward-youth sagas; indeed, it's tough to recall the last such drama that packed as much emotional clout.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker

Despite the raw gut-punch of its direction, its power lies in compassion, not sensationalism.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

It feels like real life unfolding before your eyes.

The New Yorker David Denby

This movie is an emotionally coherent work--a burning experience of desperation and fleeting exhilaration. [1 September 2003, p. 130]

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

Just plain unforgettable.

New York Post Megan Lehmann

Despite its shock value, Thirteen rises above dysfunctional-family-drama cliches, thanks to the truthfulness of its script and the keen eye of a sympathetic director.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

A smart movie that does not simplify or candy-coat the rigors of the teenage years.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

An excellent, unforgettable film.

New York Daily News Jami Bernard

One of the most honest and harrowing depictions of female adolescence ever put to film.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

Unlike most other teen cautionary tales, Thirteen does not accuse merely one villain for the corruption of a minor.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

Despite Hunter's terrific acting, the mom seems too unaware.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Who is this movie for? Not for most 13-year-olds, that's for sure. The R rating is richly deserved, no matter how much of a lark the poster promises. Maybe the film is simply for those who admire fine, focused acting and writing.

Empire Joe Berry

Hunter is superb as the alcoholic mom trying to keep her life from falling apart, and Wood and Reed are scarily convincing as delinquents.

Dallas Observer Gregory Weinkauf

What could have become a heinous TV movie instead delivers the moving and relatable experience of being an emotionally overburdened person stuck in a world that mostly sucks.

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

The creation of teen-girl culture seems almost pitch-perfect. The flaw is the flaw of most works of muckraking when they are held to artistic standards: It's a question of proportion.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey

A movie that is often as awkward and as filled with mixed impulses as the age it documents.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Brace yourself for Thirteen -- it'll cause a commotion.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

Wood is superb at delineating Tracy's slide into desperate incoherence, but equally impressive is Reed, who has to conceal her writer's intelligence in playing a character who's entirely instinctive and unreflective.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

Would it be rude to suggest that your time might be better spent with your own children?

Miami Herald Connie Ogle

Sometimes the film feels as if it's trying too hard to include every possible horror a teenager could sample.

The Hollywood Reporter Duane Byrge

An engaging, sympathetic portrait of junior high girls who have grown up too fast and way too little. Without being preachy, it's also a cogent, terrifying tale of the lack of supervision many teens face and the utter inability of many parents to not only raise kids but also to direct their own lives.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

They often seem more bent on titillating or harrowing us than on helping us understand the characters.

Los Angeles Times Manohla Dargis

Isn't in league with the Nicholas Ray classic ("Rebel Without a Cause"), but in its ferocious energy and lead performances it's many cuts above most big-screen soap operas.

Slate David Edelstein

Thirteen has a way of smashing through your defenses. Hardwicke has goosed up the old melodramatic formula with a neorealist syntax and up-to-the-minute cultural nuances and violence.

TV Guide Ken Fox

The film is not without its share of awkward moments, but as an insightful critique of "Girl Culture" and the mounting war over the hearts and minds of adolescent girls that's currently being waged in the media, it's mandatory viewing.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

Walks a fine line between bold indie film, with the attendant in-your-face roughness, and sodden Lifetime Original Movie.

Variety Todd McCarthy

Deliberately unvarnished shock piece designed to give pause to anyone with a daughter approaching teenhood.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

Though thirteen too often mistakes hard realism for overheated spectacle, the heightened drama brings out the best in Wood and Hunter, who turn their climactic scene into an actors' workshop, charged with raw emotion. As the film barrels toward the outrageously histrionic, they nearly pull it back from the brink.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

If you boil Thirteen down to its flimsy bones, you'll find that it's not really so much about peer pressure in contemporary teen life as it is a story about a classic bad egg. That right there dilutes its highfalutin aspirations.

New York Magazine Peter Rainer

Thirteen doesn't really offer much more insight into exasperated mother-daughter relationships or twisted teens than, say, "Freaky Friday," which I much prefer. At least that film was funny and didn't try to fob itself off as a bulletin from the front lines.

LA Weekly Ernest Hardy

More than once, while watching the film, I thought: The camera should really just turn away from those grating teen brats and follow the mom (Holly Hunter).

The New York Times A.O. Scott

Ms. Wood's performance bounces with mood swings from anxiety to exhilaration in a movie with moments so realistically painted that your eyes will sting from the fumes.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

The movie doesn't complete itself, in the sense of filling in our knowledge of its people (who are more like passengers). It simply comes to a stop.

Film Threat Jim Agnew

This isn't a new spin on Bret Easton Ellis, it's more like a 90-minute "Saved By The Bell" episode with better music.

Village Voice Laura Sinagra

Catherine Hardwicke's directorial debut is less a damozel-in-distress fetish flick than a bird-flipping plunge into coded girl-cult communication.

The average user rating for this movie is 7.7 (out of 10) based on 66 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Einar J. gave it a9:
Amazing acting. Am i the only one who f*cking loves this soundtrack ?!? Great acting, bit overblown situation, but this has happened before, no doubt. Liked it in general, loved the acting and soundtrack.

Jeremy F gave it a9:
Superb acting. Evan Rachel Wood is amazing. Holly Hunter is remarkable. When I first saw it I doubted the storyline, because it IS unbelievable what this thirteen year old does and how quickly she changes. Then I looked at the youth in my town and surrounding towns. Times are changing. Kids are getting high, smoking, drinking, and some having sex / getting pregnant. It's becoming more and more common. Cutting is extremely common. Even though these girls are probably a hugely exaggerated version of this, it is an exaggeration of the truth. Too bad there's so much profanity, drug use, sexual content, and a scene of nudity. I am not against this, but schools are (OBVIOUSLY.) But, this is an important film for youth to see, though it may not change their ways, it can effect them, even in a small way.

Tenaya C. gave it a2:
The movie was nicely done. OVERdone. HELLO, 90% or more of thirteen year old girls have never kissed a guy or worn a skirt the size of underwear, let alone gotten high or cut themselves. So will all the grown people please stop thinking it's a CHILLINGLY ACCURATE portrayal of the teen years. Puh-lease.

Bernardo S. gave it a5:
This movie does one thing right: It shows how you must not raise your kids. Simply because of that I´m giving an average rate I have come to realize that the ones that give a high rank are usually kids and my question is: What use the restrictions have if a kid is watching a R-rated movie?

Rachel J. gave it a10:
It was absoloutely fantastic! I just got so influenced by Evie's magnetic behaviour I wanted to be her! I am 14 so i understand the pressure of being 13, i know what its like you have to wear the right clothes, the right makeup, not say stupid things, make sure you get all the boys occasionally smoke Cannabis, sniff Poppers, I used to be like Tracy, my previous school i did my best to always look good but i never succeeded. Loved it!

Emily N. gave it a10:
I am a 13 year old girl going to a junior high somewhat like the one portrayed in this movie, and when I saw it I was blown away. I've never chosen to do most of the things thses girls do simply because I know what it can do to my life. I loved the film, and it inspired me to keep trying for what I know is right.

Rick gave it a4:
This movie had no redeeming factors about it. from the girls which were ok looking but obviously not in their early teens to the charcters who didnt change through the whole movie this was a waste of my time to watch.

Thirteen Fox Searchlight Pictures

Thirteen
Fox Searchlight Pictures