Insomnia | Rotten Tomatoes

Insomnia

R

Released May 24, 2002

1h 58m

Mystery & Thriller

Crime

Drama

TRAILER

for Insomnia: Trailer 1

List

Insomnia: Trailer 1

2:23

View more videos

92%

Tomatometer

205 Reviews

77%

Audience Score

100,000+ Ratings

From acclaimed director Chris Nolan ("Memento") comes the story of a veteran police detective (Al Pacino) who is sent to a small Alaskan town to investigate the murder of a teenage girl. Forced into a psychological game of cat-and-mouse by the primary suspect (Robin Williams), events escalate and the detective finds his own stability dangerously threatened.

Read More

Read Less

Watch on Fandango at Home

Rent Now

Fandango at Home

Prime Video

Rent Insomnia on Fandango at Home, Prime Video, or buy it on Prime Video.

Critics Consensus

Driven by Al Pacino and Robin Williams' performances, Insomnia is a smart and riveting psychological drama.

Read Critics Reviews

Adam Kempenaar

Filmspotting

Dormer has a weariness that Pacino wears perfectly, always finding some new depth to his exhaustion and despair without ever being a sleepy presence on screen.

Rated: 3.5/5

Apr 24, 2020

Full Review

Jami Bernard

New York Daily News

Insomnia is not so much about the murder mystery as it is about Will's internal struggle with what's right and what's possibly okay.

Rated: 3/4

Aug 25, 2014

Full Review

Richard Schickel

TIME Magazine

The film represents a triumph of atmosphere over a none-too-mysterious mystery. Which is to say that Nolan makes you feel the end-of-the-earth bleakness of his setting, makes you feel the way it can discombobulate people once they internalize it.

Aug 5, 2013

Full Review

David Nusair

Reel Film Reviews

...a methodically-paced yet increasingly absorbing drama...

Rated: 3.5/4

Apr 29, 2024

Full Review

Akhil Arora

AkhilArora.com

The only remake Nolan has ever done and the only time he’s never written his own script—Insomnia was his first step in a studio system—this feels the least like a Nolan film, at least what we would come to expect of it based on what came after and before.

Oct 17, 2023

Full Review

Cory Woodroof

For the Win (USA Today)

An electric police procedural drenched in the terror of sleeplessness, Nolan’s remake of the 1990s Norwegian thriller is perhaps his most underrated film as it shows him coming into his own with his command of mood and atmosphere.

Jul 20, 2023

Full Review

Read all reviews

Simon M

Didn't follow through on the primary moral question of the movie, felt like a cop-out ending

Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars

05/22/24

Full Review

r96 s

A relatively normal Christopher Nolan movie? Well I never! 'Insomnia' might not be as deeply entwined as what the director usually produces, yet in entertainment terms it is still right up there. I really enjoyed this one, thanks in large part to the performances of Al Pacino and Robin Williams - great to see those two icons onscreen together! You also have some nice visuals, Alaska looks real neat!

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

05/16/24

Full Review

Dan R

In 2002 visionary director Christopher Nolan brought his 'Insomnia' remake to cinemas. SYNOPSIS: 'Two Los Angeles homicide detectives are dispatched to a northern town where the sun doesn't set to investigate the methodical murder of a local teen.' Along with 'One Hour Photo' this film is up there with Robin Williams' best works. It's a shame we didn't see more performances like this during his life. 'Insomnia' is an excellent crime thriller which is incredibly smart and riveting, and absolutely drags you into the story whether you like it or not. Al Pacino gives one of the best performances, with his role of a man struggling with sleeplessness being so infectious it weighs down the entire atmosphere of the film with a kind of relentless fatigue. What's madness? What's insomnia? These questions are all asked here. 'Insomnia' is a pretty flawless movie, and continued Nolan's career into becoming a Hollywood A lister. It's a dark and haunting thriller that gets right under your skin and asks a number of moral questions of the characters and ourselves. An exceptional movie which needs more eyes on it. 8/10

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

05/13/24

Full Review

Zach Z

Very good. Enjoyable. I miss Robin Williams a lot.

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

04/18/24

Full Review

Aender S

Good story just a little tarnished by Al Pacino's over-acting. I surely need to watch this film's Norwegian original.

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

04/11/24

Full Review

David M

We all know that it's our real or perceived weaknesses, mistakes and transgressions that keep us awake at night; left to themselves they can run riot. Unable to rest, we lose perspective, our memory plays tricks on us and guilt - justified or not - can become overwhelming. Soon we're caught in a circular trap, from which we can only be freed by sleep or the morning. It's precisely this insomnia that haunt's Nolan's third film; Dormer (Pacino) is haunted throughout by an assortment of vulnerabilities. Some of these are a simple fact of the passage of time and humanity - the threat of a turned ankle after a jump, slipping under the logs giving chase, an inability to sleep in bright light. Others are real guilt, an increasing doubt of his own motives, or the temptations of being away from home and whatever his more 'normal' family life might be. This is all given force by the parallelisms between Dormer and Robin Williams's character, and the Internal Affairs investigation with the central murder. These are all strengths of a script that, unusually for a Nolan film, isn't written by the director. I haven't seen the film it's a remake of, but certainly it's a film that unlike many of Nolan's other films (which he at least co-writes), its main female characters are complex, interesting creations with genuine agency. Photographed by long-term collaborator Wally Pfister, the film is soaked in cold, almost metallic shades (amongst others) of blue, lending a sense of the eerie to a film which, driven by a Pacino performance that for the most part avoids his latter-day tendency to self-parody, brilliantly evokes the way an inability to sleep feels all the day round. Unlike many Nolan films, the story is entirely linear; but it retains his obsessions with how our past informs our present, and the film plays with that as the flashes of visons that haunt that Dormer suggests a suppression of his past that threatens to overwhelm in - and by the end, does. This is often seen as a minor Nolan film, on the way to the more successful and lauded films that lay in his future. But it deserves attention for all these reasons, not to mention the much missed Robin Williams's haunting and controlled performance. If Inception would take the cinema of dreams to somewhere new, this asks uncomfortable questions about what makes us unable to sleep ... and therefore to also dream. Showcasing as it does a deft thriller plot, his customary technical excellence and female characters who are better drawn than his usual, this is a corner of the Nolan filmography ripe for a revisiting.

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

03/30/24

Full Review

Read all reviews

Post a rating

Christopher Nolan

Director

Al Pacino

Will Dormer

Robin Williams

Walter Finch

Hilary Swank

Ellie Burr

Maura Tierney

Rachel

Martin Donovan

Hap Eckhart

Show Less Cast & Crew

Show More Cast & Crew

63%

82%

The Salton Sea

84%

79%

Narc

25%

25%

The House on Turk Street

69%

74%

Red Dragon

78%

59%

The Pledge

Discover more movies and TV shows.

View More

Rank All of Christopher Nolan’s Movies

New Certified Fresh Movies and TV on Netflix and Amazon Prime

Now Streaming: Lawrence of Arabia, Insomnia, And More

Insomnia: Trailer 1

2:23

View more videos

View more photos

Synopsis

From acclaimed director Chris Nolan ("Memento") comes the story of a veteran police detective (Al Pacino) who is sent to a small Alaskan town to investigate the murder of a teenage girl. Forced into a psychological game of cat-and-mouse by the primary suspect (Robin Williams), events escalate and the detective finds his own stability dangerously threatened.

Director: Christopher Nolan
Producer: Paul Junger Witt, Edward L. McDonnell, Andrew A. Kosove, Broderick Johnson
Screenwriter: Hillary Seitz
Distributor: Warner Bros. Pictures
Production Co: Alcon Entertainment, Witt/Thomas Productions, Section Eight Ltd.
Rating: R (Language|Brief Nudity|Some Violence)
Genre: Mystery & Thriller, Crime, Drama
Original Language: English
Release Date (Theaters): May 24, 2002, Wide
Release Date (Streaming): Dec 1, 2010
Box Office (Gross USA): $67.3M
Runtime: 1h 58m
Sound Mix: Dolby Stereo, Dolby Digital, Dolby A, Surround, Dolby SR
Aspect Ratio: Scope (2.35:1)

Most Popular at Home Now