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Movies / On DVD / American Beauty
American Beauty

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American Beauty (1999)

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Reviews Counted:148

Fresh:131

Rotten:17

Average Rating:8/10

Consensus: Critics praise American Beauty for its wit and insight, as well as for its exceptional performances.

Runtime: 2 hrs 2 mins

Genre: Dramas

Synopsis: AMERICAN BEAUTY tells the story of Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey), a suburban father who snaps when he becomes disgusted with his stale, repetitive existence. Burnham lets us know in voice-over from... AMERICAN BEAUTY tells the story of Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey), a suburban father who snaps when he becomes disgusted with his stale, repetitive existence. Burnham lets us know in voice-over from the film's opening that this is the day he dies (using the SUNSET BOULEVARD flashback approach), a technique that adds an inevitable tension to the proceedings and keeps the story moving forward at all times. On a whim, Lester quits his job and begins a regression into young adulthood, lifting weights, smoking pot, doing nothing, and discovering the overflowing sexuality of his 16-year-old daughter's best friend, Angela (Mena Suvari). His wife, Carolyn (Annette Bening), has her own midlife crisis of sorts. A real estate agent, she experiences a youthful awakening when super-agent Buddy Kane (Peter Gallagher) seduces her repeatedly. Meanwhile, Jane (Thora Birch), the Burnhams' daughter, is pursued by Ricky (Wes Bentley), the mysterious boy next door who carries a video camera around with him at all times. When Ricky's militaristic father, Colonel Fitts (Chris Cooper), discovers something potentially horrifying on one of his tapes, and when Carolyn's rage for Lester's actions boils over, the time bomb finally explodes. [More]

Starring: Kevin Spacey, Annette Bening, Thora Birch, Wes Bentley

Starring: Kevin Spacey, Annette Bening, Thora Birch, Wes Bentley, Mena Suvari, Chris Cooper, Peter Gallagher, Allison Janney, Scott Bakula, Sam Robards, Barry Del Sherman

Director: Sam Mendes

Director: Sam Mendes
Screenwriter: Alan Ball
Producer: Bruce Cohen, Dan Jinks
Composer: Thomas Newman

[See More Credits]

Reviews for American Beauty

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1 - 20 (sorted by date; UK critics are listed first)
Text View | 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 >> >|
Arrange By:Fresh | Rotten | Comments | Name | Source | Date
 
 

One of the most startling, brilliant pictures to come out of a major studio in many years.

Full Review Source: Channel 4 Film | comment Comment
02/20/08
Channel 4 Film
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Director Mendes guides an artful path between desire and self-disgust, playing youth against experience, male against female.

Full Review Source: Time Out | comment Comment
02/09/06
Geoff Andrew
Geoff Andrew
Time Out
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Time and again, you fear Mendes won't be able to sustain such a confident shuffling of his pack, but somehow he does, and for once the result is a genuine surprise.

Full Review Source: Sight and Sound | comment Comment
12/02/02
Kevin Jackson
Kevin Jackson
Sight and Sound

From the opening moment we know we're in the hands of gifted, assured, focussed filmmakers.

Full Review Source: Shadows on the Wall | comment Comment
12/10/01
Rich Cline
Rich Cline
Shadows on the Wall

As ever, Spacey is brilliant with his edgy, almost psychotic creation, delivering Alan Ball's quick-witted script in superb, deadpan fashion.

Full Review Source: BBC | comment Comment
04/17/01
Kevin Lewin
Kevin Lewin
BBC
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

An incisive, deliriously funny and profound vision of the American Dream hitting meltdown.

Full Review Source: Empire Magazine | comment Comment
01/01/00
Ian Nathan
Ian Nathan
Empire Magazine
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

An incisive, deliriously funny and profound vision of the American Dream hitting meltdown.

Full Review Source: Empire Magazine | comment Comment
01/01/00
Ian Nathan
Ian Nathan
Empire Magazine
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

I think it unfolds as a profound masterpiece, then collapses in a muddle of probably unintentional, certainly unnecessary pessimism.

Full Review Source: UK Critic | comment Comment
01/01/00
Ian Waldron-Mantgani
Ian Waldron-Mantgani
UK Critic

It's daring in that it sympathizes with a protagonist who's a pederast though its portrait of an American family on the brink of collapse is essentially a cartoon

Full Review Source: Slant Magazine | comment 2 Comments
06/05/08
Ed Gonzalez
Ed Gonzalez
Slant Magazine

An elusive and allusive work of art that won't be pinned down easily.

Full Review Source: eFilmCritic.com | comment Comment
07/23/07
Rob Gonsalves
Rob Gonsalves
eFilmCritic.com

Recently, Happiness and Election have taken pot shots at suburban morals and ethics, but none has hit so close to the bone and so on-target as American Beauty.

Full Review Source: Big Picture Big Sound | comment Comment
07/14/07
Joe Lozito
Joe Lozito
Big Picture Big Sound

It's like Norman Bates getting good advice from Mother.

Full Review Source: Film Freak Central | comment 4 Comments
05/23/07
Walter Chaw
Walter Chaw
Film Freak Central

As the latest mainstream movie symptom of our premillennial malaise, American Beauty is so brilliantly acted, written, directed and visualized that for all its despondency and despair, it is a lot of fun.

Full Review Source: New York Observer | comment 1 Comment
04/27/07
Andrew Sarris
Andrew Sarris
New York Observer

An incisive if over-the-top take on familial dysfunction.

Full Review Source: Oscar Guy | comment Comment
01/04/07
Wesley Lovell
Wesley Lovell
Oscar Guy

Above all, "American Beauty" is about finding peace and a sense of wonder in the least likely of places, such as your inner torment or, failing that, perhaps a floating plastic bag.

Full Review Source: Arizona Daily Star | comment Comment
08/25/06
Phil Villarreal
Phil Villarreal
Arizona Daily Star

Brit Sam Mendes makes an impressive directorial debut with a glossy, well-acted satire of the American burbs, a theatrically stylized meditation that combines the zeitgeist of 1950s Eisnehower with that of 1990s Clinton.

Full Review Source: EmanuelLevy.Com | comment Comment
07/29/06
Emanuel Levy
Emanuel Levy
EmanuelLevy.Com

Dark, intelligent, scandalous, emotional, and truthful -- one of the year's best.

Full Review Source: Combustible Celluloid | comment Comment
05/26/06
Jeffrey M. Anderson
Jeffrey M. Anderson
Combustible Celluloid

This is what movies are all about.

Full Review Source: Reeling Reviews | comment Comment
04/09/05
Robin Clifford
Robin Clifford
Reeling Reviews

Complexity, say quite a few of my colleagues. Lies, I say.

Full Review Source: Nation | comment 4 Comments
03/03/05
Stuart Klawans
Stuart Klawans
Nation

As the world changed in the past five years, so did the relevance of American Beauty.

Full Review Source: Draxblog Movie Reviews | comment 2 Comments
02/16/05
Dragan Antulov
Dragan Antulov
Draxblog Movie Reviews
 
 
1 - 20 (sorted by date; UK critics are listed first)
Text View | 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 >> >|
all

Latest News for American Beauty

May 29, 2008: Stuck Just the Latest Offbeat Choice for Suvari Opens in new window
With this Friday's Stuck, Mena Suvari adds another strange chapter to the decidedly un-Hollywood story she's written for herself since starring in American Beauty. More...

January 25, 2008: Sam Mendes Making With the Funny for Focus Features
He made his cinematic bones with dramatic films such as American Beauty and Road to Perdition, but director Sam Mendes wasn't born without a funny bone, and he's about to prove it. More...

October 26, 2006: Critical Consensus: "Fire" Blazes; "Scissors" Isn't Sharp Enough; "Saw III" Not Screened: Guess The Tomatometer!
This week at the movies, we've got the return of Jigsaw ("Saw III," starring Tobin Bell), a tale of rebellion in apartheid-era South Africa ("Catch a Fire,"... More...

December 12, 2005: Paramount Buys Itself a Christmas Present: DreamWorks Pictures
Paramount Pictures, a unit of Viacom Inc., has signed a definitive agreement to acquire DreamWorks SKG for $1.6 billion in cash and assumption of debt. The deal brings Paramount... More...

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