American Splendor
HBO Films | Release Date: August 15, 2003 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
90
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 42 Critic Reviews
Positive:
41
Mixed:
1
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
It's a humane and witty treatment of an average life that, incidentally, speaks to the worth and inherent drama of average lives. Read full review
100
Boston GlobeTy Burr
The movie is pricelessly comic -- the Harvey/Joyce scenes catalog the couple's neuroses with glee -- but it just as often reaches for something richer. Read full review
100
Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern
Pirandello didn't have a patch on its complexities. Here's a popular entertainment with an eclectic soundtrack raising penetrating questions of identity in astonishing sequences that interweave live action with comic-book art. Read full review
100
USA TodayMike Clark
Produced by HBO but too good not to play theaters, this soon-to-be minor classic is the best movie about society's untrendiest since "Ghost World" exactly two years ago. Read full review
100
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
This film is delightful in the way it finds its own way to tell its own story. There was no model to draw on, but Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini, who wrote and directed it, have made a great film by trusting to Pekar's artistic credo. Read full review
100
Washington PostDesson Thomson
Superbly conceived anti-biopic. Read full review
100
Christian Science MonitorDavid Sterritt
Filmed and acted to near perfection, it's one of the year's most innovative and exciting pictures. Read full review
100
Entertainment WeeklyLisa Schwarzbaum
American Splendor presents Pekar as drawn on the page, Pekar as brilliantly interpreted by Paul Giamatti, and the actual Pekar, in the double role of narrator and interview subject -- sometimes all at once. The magic act is thrilling, and truly surprising. Read full review
100
PremiereGlenn Kenny
One of the funniest, smartest, most moving pictures of the year. Read full review
91
Portland OregonianShawn Levy
Thoroughly unique work of art. Read full review
91
Seattle Post-IntelligencerSean Axmaker
In the world of comic-book movies, American Splendor is the real deal, the warts-and-all adventures of the most unlikely hero on the comic stands. Read full review
90
Washington PostStephen Hunter
The genius of the film is its utter commitment to the Pekar point of view. Read full review
90
VarietyScott Foundas
Sad, tender, wise and beautiful film... It's a profound tribute to lives lived on the fringes of society -- to the introspective loners who are the most observant chroniclers of our times. Read full review
90
Film ThreatMerle Bertrand
One of the most wildly original, dryly comical, and smartly structured films ever created. Read full review
90
SalonStephanie Zacharek
A narrative picture with many of the qualities of a documentary, not to mention a comic book -- is one of those rare, inventively made movies that isn't so taken with its own novelty it loses sight of its characters. Its warmth is for real, and it enwraps you. Read full review
90
Village VoiceJ. Hoberman
Clever, engaging, and cannily faux populist. Read full review
90
NewsweekDavid Ansen
A painfully funny movie. There’s nothing in the history of movie courtship quite like the first meeting between Pekar and his future wife and fellow depressive, Joyce Brabner. Read full review
90
New York Magazine (Vulture)Peter Rainer
It would be a mistake to regard American Splendor as an anthem for the common man. It is the UNCOMMON that is being celebrated here. Read full review
90
The New YorkerAnthony Lane
That is the quiet triumph of American Splendor: behind the playfulness, it cleaves to an oddly old-fashioned belief that a life, even a life as mangy as Mr. Pekar’s, gains in depth and darkness when it is crosshatched with the imaginary. The nerd needs no revenge. [18 & 25 August 2003, p. 150]
90
L.A. WeeklyScott Foundas
It’s our great good fortune, and Pekar's, that this movie -- which won the Grand Jury Prize at this year's Sundance Film Festival, followed by the FIPRESCI Award at Cannes -- is as true to the dyspeptic spirit of its source as anyone could have imagined. Read full review
90
Dallas ObserverRobert Wilonsky
A gentle, frank, and often hysterical love story about two people destined, and occasionally doomed, to be together forever. Some of us should be as lucky, as blessed, as Harvey Pekar. Read full review
90
Film ThreatMark Sells
Though it has many moments of sarcasm and humor, the overall tone, like the comics themselves, is a depressing one. Read full review
90
The Hollywood ReporterKirk Honeycutt
It's an extraordinary film. Read full review
89
Austin ChronicleMarc Savlov
Remarkably fresh and exciting. Read full review
88
Baltimore SunMichael Sragow
One genuine small triumph of American Splendor is that the title isn't ironic. The movie is a splendid, inventive piece of urban Americana about that hardboiled original, Harvey Pekar. Read full review
88
New York PostLou Lumenick
Davis, a hugely underrated actress..., is deadpan perfection as Joyce, wearing oversized glasses and a wig that makes her look like an older version of Thora Birch's character in "Ghost World." Read full review
88
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam Lacey
The best American movie so far this year. Read full review
88
Chicago TribuneMark Caro
Such a stylistic inconsistency might be bothersome in another film, but here it's just part of the texture. Read full review
88
Miami HeraldRene Rodriguez
American Splendor reminds you that sometimes, simply getting out of bed each morning can be the most heroic of acts. Read full review
88
Rolling StonePeter Travers
Not your typical biopic. But it is one of the best times you'll have at the movies this year. Read full review
88
New York Daily NewsJack Mathews
As inventive as "Being John Malkovich," as psychologically quirky as "Ghost World" and as honest as the day is long. Read full review
88
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
American Splendor is deserving of accolades, not only because it tells an interesting story about a fascinating man, but because it does so with such freedom and freshness. I wish more of the comic book-inspired movies were like this. Read full review
88
Philadelphia InquirerCarrie Rickey
The film has the dog-eared look of a homemade valentine and the improvised sound of '60s jazz, courtesy of a score by Mark Suozzo and a spirited soundtrack including Marvin Gaye's "Ain't That Peculiar," which might be the film's anthem. Read full review
88
Charlotte ObserverLawrence Toppman
A feature film as odd, personal and sometimes mundane as his (Pekar) comics. Read full review
80
SlateDavid Edelstein
The film isn't in the same key as Pekar's comic: The tempo is buoyant, puckish, and even more "meta" than the original. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesManohla Dargis
Biographies of living people are tricky if for no other reason than a biographer can sometimes feel protective of his or her subject. Berman and Pulcini obviously adore Pekar, but by not getting out of his head more often and taking him on his own harsh terms, they blow the chance to dig as deep as the source. Read full review
80
The A.V. ClubScott Tobias
With a lovably cantankerous sense of humor and an honest strain of hard realism and pathos, the film thrives on the tension that comes from an artist who devotes himself to the truth, but watches his image get away from him. Read full review
80
The New York TimesA.O. Scott
There's as much at stake in the hilarious, moody and cantankerous film adaptation of "Splendor" as there was in this summer's other movies of comic-book antiheroes like "The Hulk" and "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen." Read full review
80
Chicago ReaderJonathan Rosenbaum
I can't say that this feature by Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini, about the life and art of Harvey Pekar, made me want to run out and buy his comic books, but it does offer a highly interesting and original introduction to them. Read full review
80
EmpireCaroline Westbrook
It's an hilarious, touching reminder that, sometimes, ordinary folk have the world's most interesting lives. Read full review
70
Time
A kind of bipolar movie, not exactly haha funny but true to life. Read full review
60
TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonagh
Pekar's autobiographical chronicle of day-to-day banality is a rich, if dingy, tapestry of ordinary life in all its infinite, homely peculiarity, which filmmakers Sheri Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini bring to uniquely eccentric life. Read full review
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