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Flawlessly cast and brimming with dark, acid wit, American Beauty is a smart, provocative high point of late '90s mainstream Hollywood film. Read critic reviews
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Rent American Beauty on Prime Video, Fandango at Home, Apple TV, or buy it on Prime Video, Fandango at Home, Apple TV.
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Movie Info
Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey) is a gainfully employed suburban husband and father. Fed up with his boring, stagnant existence, he quits his job and decides to reinvent himself as a pot-smoking, responsibility-shirking teenager. What follows is at once cynical, hysterical, and, eventually, tragically uplifting.
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Rating: R (Language|Drug Content|Strong Sexuality|Violence)
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Genre: Comedy, Drama
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Original Language: English
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Director: Sam Mendes
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Producer: Bruce Cohen, Dan Jinks
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Writer: Alan Ball
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Release Date (Theaters): wide
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Release Date (Streaming):
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Box Office (Gross USA): $130.1M
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Runtime:
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Distributor: DreamWorks SKG
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Production Co: DreamWorks Pictures, Jinks/Cohen Company
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Sound Mix: Dolby SR, DTS, Dolby Stereo, Surround, SDDS, Dolby A, Dolby Digital
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Aspect Ratio: Flat (1.85:1)
Cast & Crew
News & Interviews for American Beauty
Critic Reviews for American Beauty
Audience Reviews for American Beauty
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This was a pretty good movie after I actually got the whole way through it. It takes apart suburbia in a way that most films don't, actually defining deep and complex characters. Most of the cast is pretty spot on, there is a certain subtle humor to the film that can be appreciated.
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Another well deserved Oscar winning performance from the incompatible Kevin Spacey. This movie is worth watching solely for how great and hilarious the first hour is and how dramatic and tense the second hour is.
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American Beauty is a film that appears complex but in reality is quite simple: It's a film that unabashedly tears apart the delusion of the american dream and the typical middle-class lifestyle. A genius film and a perfect closing-out for the '90s. The brilliant part about American Beauty which proves that it's story is strong is that it does the classic progression method of multiple storylines diverging at the beginning before weaving back into one at the very end of the film. It's something that has been done many times over, but is completely brilliant to watch when written correctly, and it definitely is here. Kevin Spacey and Annette Bening are the nucleus for most of the film, playing Lester and Carolyn Burnham, a unhappily married couple whose marriage has grown completely 100% stagnant and who are in desperate need of contact but refuse for the most part to give it to each other due to their overwhelming pent-up anger at one another which is the driving force of the film in many ways. Their daughter Jane (Thora Birch) is a sarcastic and melancholic high school student who is friends with the vain and self-important Angela Hayes (Mena Suvari) who later becomes the object of Lester's desire. Jane meanwhile grows to befriend her next door neighbour and classmate Ricky Fitts, an equally different teenager who films everything he sees while dealing with an overbearing ex-marine father who is the very embodiment of conservative insecurity, and all these intersect at the grand finale where a preventable tragedy strikes at a bittersweet moment. American Beauty is such a relatable film because many people have at least been close to relating with one, if not two of it's protagonists, whether it's the introversion of Jane, the cynical, yet desperate Lester, or any of the others who all have their own serious problems in the storyline. However, Kevin Spacey's portrayal of Lester is the driving point of the film, as everything ends up revolving around the character's fate. Spacey's portrayal of Lester paints the character as a fiercely smart person who decides to take action and bring back some freedom into his life after he has lived a torturously banal existence. It's a film that can come off as depressing, but give it the chance and you'll see that it's a true work of art, and again, a perfect closing film for one of the most manic decades of modern history. Plus, you'll discover several hilariously stuck-up and utterly conservative euphemisms for not being the complete master of one's domain.
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The only way you'll find out if American Beauty is for you is by watching it. It's hard to imagine it not being though, American Beauty is a prime example of how brutal and brilliant seemingly mundane films can be.
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