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Year One
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
Waking Life

Universal acclaim
Based on 31 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 64 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Drama
Written by: Richard Linklater
Directed by: Richard Linklater
Release Date:
Theatrical: October 19, 2001
DVD: May 7, 2002
Running Time: 99 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: R for language and some violent images
Starring Wiley Wiggins, Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy, Timothy 'Speed' Levitch, Nicky Katt, and Peter Atherton
In this animated drama, a man walks through what may be a dream, flowing in and out of scenarios and encounters with strange characters. (Fox Searchlight)
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Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database 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...
Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington
The film is truly special, truly different -- a wondrous talky roundelay about and for people who love life.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum
An amazing thing -- a work of cinematic art in which form and structure pursues the logic-defying (parallel) subjects of dreaming and moviegoing.
Read Full Review >Film Threat Chris Barsanti
If there is justice in this world, this is the movie that will get people talking again about the excitement of film.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
I have seen Waking Life three times now. I want to see it again -- not to master it, or even to remember it better, -- but simply to experience all of these ideas, all of this passion, the very act of trying to figure things out.
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy
Not only does this film make you think, it makes you want to think. Few films -- few works of art of any stripe -- can claim that.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Jay Carr
Intriguing, arresting, delightfully refusing to be pigeonholed.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Desson Thomson
A smart cartoon about the life of the mind. It's about the fuzzy border between dreaming and living. It's thoughtful, provocative, liberating and fun.
Read Full Review >Slate David Edelstein
One of the most inspired cases of the medium embodying the message ever captured on celluloid.
Read Full Review >Rolling Stone Peter Travers
That Linklater pulls off the innovative feat with hypnotic assurance is nothing short of amazing.
Read Full Review >Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek
It's the perfect marriage of music and animated movement. But even when there's no music playing in Waking Life, the movie's lyricism is sustained by the way it looks and feels.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Stephen Holden
So verbally dexterous and visually innovative that you can't absorb it unless you have all your wits about you. And even then, you may want to see it again to enjoy its subtle humor and warm humanity.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea
A smart, sensuous and sensory mind trip that caroms around a universe of thought.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Jami Bernard
Linklater's ravishing new movie represents a bold leap into the possibilities of technology.
Read Full Review >The New Yorker David Denby
For the battered American independent cinema, Linklater's movie is the highest form of life seen in the last couple of years. [12 Nov 2001, p. 138]
Mr. Showbiz Michael Atkinson
Like being jacked directly into Linklater's alpha waves, and the experience is bracingly new to movies.
Austin Chronicle Kimberley Jones
The pictures are gorgeous, and the words, well, if you listen hard enough, the words say exactly what one needs to hear: that is, to wake up and live.
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez
Might have been unbearable if Linklater hadn't filled it with so much self-deprecating humor, undercutting the pretentiousness whenever it threatens to become too thick.
Read Full Review >Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt
Few American filmmakers put more faith in the ability of words to stimulate mind and heart.
Read Full Review >New York Post Lou Lumenick
A breakthrough animated film -- a trippy cross between "Yellow Submarine" and "My Dinner With Andre" that will leave some audience members struggling to stay awake and others reaching for a toke.
Read Full Review >Variety Todd McCarthy
Audiences looking for something fresh and different, not to mention a head trip, will find it in Waking Life.
Read Full Review >New Times (L.A.) Gregory Weinkauf
While much of the film is as scattershot as life itself, there are a few superb sequences involving lucid dreaming that really get down to business.
Read Full Review >LA Weekly Ella Taylor
Individual artists were assigned their own characters and given free rein -- characters and locations shift on a dime from naturalistic to baroque -- with the result that the movie's formal imagination surpasses and redeems the banal tedium of some of the dialogue.
Read Full Review >Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker
I'd like to think it's all a joke, that far from a dream this is actually Linklater's idea of a nightmare.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Stephen Hunter
It's a cult movie in search of a cult. It'll probably find one. It certainly looks and feels like no other movie ever made.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle
Leaves an impression, while its specifics fade almost immediately.
Read Full Review >Village Voice J. Hoberman
Waking Life doesn't leave you in a dream, specifically the dream of Linklater's previous films, so much as it traps you in an endless bull session.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Frank Lovece
All talk and no action. Never, however, has pedantic navel-gazing been so beautifully drawn.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 7.4 (out of 10) based on 64 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Chelsea E. gave it a10:
This film was simply mind blowing. I watched it every night before I went to bed for about 3 months, until I let someone borrow it and they lost it. It really opens your mind and your eyes to the simple truths of life and existence. From scenes of optimism to existentialism, there is a story for every type of perspective. One of my favorite quotes from the movie: "Hey. Could we do that again? I know we haven't met, but I don't want to be an ant. You know? I mean, it's like we go through life with our antennas bouncing off one another, continuously on ant autopilot, with nothing really human required of us. Stop. Go. Walk here. Drive there. All action basically for survival. All communication simply to keep this ant colony buzzing along in an efficient, polite manner. "Here's your change." "Paper or plastic?' "Credit or debit?" "You want ketchup with that?" I don't want a straw. I want real human moments. I want to see you. I want you to see me. I don't want to give that up. I don't want to be ant, you know?"
D McGinty gave it a6:
I seem to be the only person that I know that liked this movie. It's good if you just don't take it too seriously. It's not particularly deep or philosophical. It's just a film of whimsical visuals backed by ambient lectures on post-modern nothingness.
[Anonymous] gave it a1:
Nauseatingly self-indulgent. I'm pretty sure we hashed through all these questions during college 101 classes, and in "deep" drunken conversations.
[Anonymous] gave it a10:
I'm not sure how a movie can go deeper into the human-experience and still be intelligible. An incredible film.
Tom H. gave it a1:
Graphics were nausea inducing. First 20 minutes of the story were very hard to follow.
Bob E. gave it an8:
A film that requires repeated viewings, and even short 'rewinds' withing the film. Watch it once and then decide if you'd like to study it.
David T. gave it a0:
I feel as though this film created exactly what I believe it was trying to escape, an effortless post-modern dichotomy. "Being wierd...for the sake of being wierd!" Terrible film.
