X
- 1983
- PG-13
- Warner Bros.
- 1 h 31 m
- 1983
- PG-13
- Warner Bros.
- 1 h 31 m
Summary The coming-of-age film based on S.E. Hinton's novel where two rival gangs fight over "turf" in 1960s Oklahoma.
Directed By: Francis Ford Coppola
Written By: Kathleen Rowell, S.E. Hinton
- 1983
- PG-13
- Warner Bros.
- 1 h 31 m
- 1983
- PG-13
- Warner Bros.
- 1 h 31 m
The Outsiders
45
8.4
Where to Watch
Summary The coming-of-age film based on S.E. Hinton's novel where two rival gangs fight over "turf" in 1960s Oklahoma.
Directed By: Francis Ford Coppola
Written By: Kathleen Rowell, S.E. Hinton
Where to Watch
Top Cast
Metascore
Mixed or Average
Based on 18 Critic Reviews
45
28% Positive
5 Reviews
5 Reviews
44% Mixed
8 Reviews
8 Reviews
28% Negative
5 Reviews
5 Reviews
Metascore
Mixed or Average
Based on 18 Critic Reviews
45
28% Positive
5 Reviews
5 Reviews
44% Mixed
8 Reviews
8 Reviews
28% Negative
5 Reviews
5 Reviews
This is a film that carries you along and there is an added savour in seeing those cherubic faces which have since settled into middle age.
The director gives us a small, sincere and nearly perfectly realized film about adolescence in Oklahoma, aptly entitled The Outsiders. [24 Mar 1983]
User Score
Universal Acclaim
Based on 153 User Ratings
8.4
82% Positive
125 Ratings
125 Ratings
13% Mixed
20 Ratings
20 Ratings
5% Negative
8 Ratings
8 Ratings
User Score
Universal Acclaim
Based on 153 User Ratings
8.4
82% Positive
125 Ratings
125 Ratings
13% Mixed
20 Ratings
20 Ratings
5% Negative
8 Ratings
8 Ratings
One of the most perfect book-to-screen adaptations ever made. I do not understand any disdain for this masterpiece of directing, screenwriting, casting and acting.
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this is an amazing movie and book i would deffanitally recomend it to people who like crime, drama and action.
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The director's touch of class is consistently present, but it may be a case of the wrong man for the job, since overall film plays unevenly, with a cliche and detached ambiance that robs the plotline of what passion it might have whipped up.
But whether even kids will be able to take The Outsiders seriously is a hard question. Whether by fidelity to his source or by director's embellishments, Coppola has come up with a story about tough kids who appreciate sunsets and recite Robert Frost from memory, about members of a mid-American urban underclass who ponder their situations with the dispassionate acumen of sociologists. The Outsiders is about "greasers" who are not greasy, and it seems likely that even kids will see through it. [29 March 1983, p.5]
As a movie, it's mediocre.
Hinton was still a Tulsa teen when she wrote the best seller (4 million copies in seven languages) in the mid-1960s. Her brain wasn't mucked up with adult equivocation, so she didn't get into those confusing gray zones. Great for her, but not for Coppola, who turns this long-awaited story into baffling mush.
Francis Ford Coppola's gang film is as moony about death as "One From the Heart" was over romance; the film is unremitting in its morbid sentimentality, running its teenage characters through a masochistic gamut of beatings, killings, burnings, and suicides.
One of my favorite movies of all time . Really good coming of age movies and how kids work together
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I gotta admit, I haven't read this book since 7th grade and my memories of the class in which it was assigned to me are not exactly rosy, so my mixed feelings on all things "The Outsiders" don't really have a whole lot to do with S.E. Hinton or the contents of her book. Indeed, personal hang-ups aside, the story is nonetheless resonant, especially considering it was embarked upon when Hinton was just in her teens. As far as adaptations go, however, I think this one has some bright spots, as well as dark ones. The narrative and thematics are, for the most part, represented quite well (from what I can remember). The period elements ring as authentic and Coppola's visual landscape feels true to the novel too. Some of the acting borders into cheese territory and I get it — this is difficult material for any actor, let alone for child actors. I just thought some scenes brought on an occasional unintentional giggle or two. I also really do feel the length here and not in the way you think. This thing is only 90 minutes long and it really does harm the consequentiality of the events at hand. I do remember the novel having a great sense of character and, with this, I think the brevity didn't lend to that goal all that well. Still, this was a quaint little trip down memory lane.
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Francis Coppola has made a well acted and crafted but highly conventional film out of S.E. Hinton’s popular youth novel, The Outsiders. Although set in the mid-1960s, pic feels very much like a 1950s drama about problem kids.
Screenplay is extremely faithful to the source material, even down to having the film open with the leading character and narrator, C. Thomas Howell, reciting the first lines of his literary effort while we see him writing them.
But dialog which reads naturally and evocatively on the page doesn’t play as well on screen, and there’s a decided difficulty of tone during the early sequences, as Howell and his buddies (Matt Dillon and Ralph Macchio) horse around town, sneak into a drive-in and have an unpleasant confrontation with the Socs, rival gang from the well-heeled part of town.
When the Socs attack Howell and Macchio in the middle of the night, latter ends up killing a boy to save his friend, and the two flee to a hideaway in an abandoned rural church. It is during this mid-section that the film starts coming to life, largely due to the integrity of the performances by Howell and Macchio.
Howell is truly impressive, a bulwark of relative stability in a sea of posturing and pretense. Macchio is also outstanding as his doomed friend, and Patrick Swayze is fine as the oldest brother forced into the role of parent.
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Here is a who's-who of hot young male stars from the early 1980s. Too bad it is not a better movie. It is an adaptation of S.E. Hinton's hugely popular book that starts off pretty well, but blunders into over-the-top melodrama etc. It looks like it was intentionally shot with a retro palate that makes me think of 1950s classics like "East of Eden."
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Awards
Young Artist Awards
• 1 Win & 3 Nominations
Moscow International Film Festival
• 1 Nomination
Turkish Film Critics Association (SIYAD) Awards
• 1 Nomination
