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American Beauty

Oscar™ Best Picture - Winning Movies

American Beauty

1999

Sam Mendes

Kevin Spacey, Annette Bening, Thora Birch, Allison Janney ...

7.9

171,633

Drama. Comedy Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey) is a middle aged man suffering from a mid-life crisis. He has an epiphany when he lays his eyes on one of his daughter Jane's friends. Woken from his suburban coma, he takes it upon himself to make a few changes -- like quitting his job and buying the car of his dreams. His wife, Carolyn (Annette Bening), is a frustrated control freak who is only maddened by his escalating freedom, and his daughter (Thora ... [+]

	Author	Review
United States	Peter Travers Rolling Stone	"The kind of artful defiance that Hollywood is usually too timid to deliver: a jolting comedy that makes you laugh till it hurts"	POS
United States	Todd McCarthy Variety	"An acerbic, darkly comic critique of how social conventions can lead people into false, sterile and emotionally stunted lives"	POS
United States	Owen Gleiberman Entertainment Weekly	"You know you're in the hands of a true filmmaker when you feel invited, at every turn, to share his sense of entrancement. I got that feeling in just about every frame of 'American Beauty'"	POS
United States	Rex Reed The New York Observer	"A film of such rich complexity, maturity, revelation, subtlety and paradox that you just have to experience it for yourself"	POS
United States	Edward Guthmann SFGATE	"A great, tremendously entertaining experience. I only wish there were more films this satisfying"	POS
United States	Roger Ebert rogerebert.com	"'American Beauty' is a comedy because we laugh at the absurdity of the hero's problems. And a tragedy because we can identify with his failure (…) Rating: ★★★★ (out of 4)"	POS
United Kingdom	Peter Bradshaw The Guardian	"A film of incredible flair and formal, compositional brilliance (...) Flaws and all, this is intelligent, exhilarating, effervescent film-making"	POS
United States	Janet Maslin The New York Times	"Kevin Spacey in his wittiest and most agile screen performance yet (...) [It] strikes an unusually successful balance between the mordant and bright."	POS
United Kingdom	Ian Nathan Empire	"An incisive, deliriously funny and profound vision of the American Dream hitting meltdown (…) Rating: ★★★★★ (out of 5)"	POS
United Kingdom	Marc Lee Telegraph	"In his big-screen debut, the British director Sam Mendes shines a bright light into the dark heart of the American dream (...) An endlessly rewatchable black comedy (…) Rating: ★★★★★ (out of 5)"	POS

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