American Beauty (1999)
Tomatometer
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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... [More]
Starring: Kevin Spacey, Annette Bening, Thora Birch, Wes Bentley
Director: Sam Mendes
Reviews for American Beauty
| Tomatometer | Critic | Review | Category |
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One of the most startling, brilliant pictures to come out of a major studio in many years. Full Review |
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Director Mendes guides an artful path between desire and self-disgust, playing youth against experience, male against female. Full Review |
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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 |
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5/5 |
From the opening moment we know we're in the hands of gifted, assured, focussed filmmakers. Full Review |
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4/5 |
As ever, Spacey is brilliant with his edgy, almost psychotic creation, delivering Alan Ball's quick-witted script in superb, deadpan fashion. Full Review |
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5/5 |
An incisive, deliriously funny and profound vision of the American Dream hitting meltdown. Full Review |
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5/5 |
An incisive, deliriously funny and profound vision of the American Dream hitting meltdown. Full Review |
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3/4 |
I think it unfolds as a profound masterpiece, then collapses in a muddle of probably unintentional, certainly unnecessary pessimism. Full Review |
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 2.5/4 |
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 |
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5/5 |
An elusive and allusive work of art that won't be pinned down easily. Full Review |
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3.5/4 |
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 |
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2/4 |
It's like Norman Bates getting good advice from Mother. Full Review |
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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 |
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3.5/4 |
An incisive if over-the-top take on familial dysfunction. Full Review |
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4/4 |
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 |
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B+ |
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 |
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4/4 |
Dark, intelligent, scandalous, emotional, and truthful -- one of the year's best. Full Review |
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A |
This is what movies are all about. Full Review |
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Complexity, say quite a few of my colleagues. Lies, I say. Full Review |
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5/10 |
As the world changed in the past five years, so did the relevance of American Beauty. Full Review |
CommentLatest News for American Beauty
May 29, 2008:
Stuck Just the Latest Offbeat Choice for Suvari 
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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