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Now In Theaters
49
2012
53
Alice in Wonderland
41
Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel
84
Avatar![]()
69
Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans
53
Blind Side
53
Book of Eli, The
41
Bounty Hunter, The
43
Brooklyn's Finest
55
Christmas Carol, A
31
Cop Out
55
Crazies, The
57
Daybreakers
43
Dear John
27
Did You Hear About the Morgans?
55
Edge of Darkness
45
Extraordinary Measures
83
Fantastic Mr. Fox![]()
42
From Paris with Love
61
Green Zone
65
Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, The
74
Invictus
57
It's Complicated
34
Law Abiding Citizen
33
Leap Year
32
Legion
42
Lovely Bones, The
54
Men Who Stare At Goats, The
34
Ninja Assassin
19
Old Dogs
39
Our Family Wedding
47
Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief
39
Planet 51
79
Precious: Based on the Novel by Sapphire
73
Princess & the Frog, The
69
Redbelt
40
Remember Me
26
Repo Men
64
Road, The
57
Sherlock Holmes
47
She's Out of My League
63
Shutter Island
27
Spy Next Door, The
36
Tooth Fairy
44
Twilight Saga: New Moon, The
83
Up in the Air![]()
34
Valentine's Day
25
When in Rome
71
Where the Wild Things Are
43
Wolfman, The
63
Youth in Revolt
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
Limited Releases
Now In Theaters
67
3 Idiots
47
44 Inch Chest
82
Ajami![]()
71
American Radical: The Trials of Norman Finkelstein
73
Amreeka
75
Art of the Steal, The
43
Barefoot to Timbuktu
19
Bitch Slap
49
Blood Done Sign My Name
24
Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day, The
76
Broken Embraces
52
Celine: Through the Eyes of the World
67
Children of Invention
xx
City Island
64
Cloud 9
65
Coco Before Chanel
84
Cove, The![]()
83
Crazy Heart![]()
21
Crazy on the Outside
51
Creation
xx
Daddy Long Legs
81
Damned United, The![]()
57
Defendor
61
Delta
68
Departures
66
Diary of a Wimpy Kid
64
District 13: Ultimatum
72
Easier with Practice
85
Education, An![]()
61
Exploding Girl, The
70
Eyes Wide Open
24
Falling Awake
81
Fish Tank![]()
56
For My Father
51
Formosa Betrayed
xx
From Mexico with Love
43
Frozen
xx
Ghost Town
77
Ghost Writer, The
69
Girl on the Train, The
47
Good Guy, The
75
Greenberg
35
Happy Tears
68
Harlan: In the Shadow of Jew Suess
20
Harlem Aria
xx
Killing Jar, The
52
Killing Kasztner
xx
Kimjongilia
41
Last New Yorker, The
76
Last Station, The
47
Little Traitor, The
51
Loss of a Teardrop Diamond, The
71
Lourdes
73
Me and Orson Welles
77
Messenger, The
80
Mid-August Lunch
57
Missing Person, The
76
Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers, The
79
Mother
50
My Name is Khan
xx
Neil Young Trunk Show
49
Nine
67
North Face
64
October Country
67
Off and Running
52
Paranoids, The
40
Phyllis and Harold
49
Pop Star on Ice
49
Private Lives of Pippa Lee, The
74
Prodigal Sons
xx
Promised Lands (Re-release)
89
Prophet, A![]()
76
Red Riding Trilogy, The
61
Runaways, The
32
Saint John of Las Vegas
83
Secret of Kells, The![]()
69
September Issue, The
36
Serious Moonlight
57
Severe Clear
63
Shinjuku Incident, The
xx
Shutterbug
77
Single Man, A
76
Still Bill
34
Stolen
xx
Suicide Girls Must Die!
52
Tales from the Script
74
Terribly Happy
74
That Evening Sun
47
To Die for Tano
19
To Save a Life
63
Toe to Toe
69
Town Called Panic, A
54
Until the Light Takes Us
60
Videocracy
84
Vincere![]()
66
Waiting for Armageddon
45
White on Rice
82
White Ribbon![]()
xx
White Stripes Under Great White Northern Lights, The
43
Women in Trouble
xx
Word is Out
64
Yellow Handkerchief, The
64
Young Victoria, The
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
Avatar
Universal acclaim
Based on 35 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 1402 votes
Read user comments
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Movie Info
Genre(s): Action | Adventure | Sci-fi | Suspense/Thriller
Written by: James Cameron
Directed by: James Cameron
Release Date:
Theatrical: December 18, 2009
Running Time: 150 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: PG-13 for intense epic battle sequences and warfare, sensuality, language and some smoking
Starring Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver, Michelle Rodriguez, Giovanni Ribisi, Joel David Moore, CCH Pounder, Peter Mensah, Laz Alonso, Wes Studi, Stephen Lang, and Matt Gerald
Jake Sully is a former Marine confined to a wheelchair. But despite his broken body, Jake is still a warrior at heart. He is recruited to travel light years to the human outpost on Pandora, where a corporate consortium is mining a rare mineral that is the key to solving Earth's energy crisis. Because Pandora's atmosphere is toxic, they have created the Avatar Program, in which human "drivers" have their consciousness linked to an avatar, a remotely-controlled biological body that can survive in the lethal air. These avatars are genetically engineered hybrids of human DNA mixed with DNA from the natives of Pandora... the Na'vi. Reborn in his avatar form, Jake can walk again. He is given a mission to infiltrate the Na'vi, who have become a major obstacle to mining the precious ore. But a beautiful Na'vi female, Neytiri, saves Jake's life, and this changes everything. Jake is taken in by her clan, and learns to become one of them, which involves many tests and adventures. As Jake's relationship with his reluctant teacher Neytiri deepens, he learns to respect the Na'vi way and finally takes his place among them. Soon he will face the ultimate test as he leads them in an epic battle that will decide the fate of an entire world. (20th Century Fox)
Also On Metacritic
FILM: Aliens Aliens of the Deep Ghosts of the Abyss Terminator 2: Judgment Day The Abyss The Terminator Titanic True Lies
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database All Films Considered: James Cameron Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt
A fully believable, flesh-and-blood (albeit not human flesh and blood) romance is the beating heart of "Avatar." Cameron has never made a movie just to show off visual pyrotechnics: Every bit of technology in "Avatar" serves the greater purpose of a deeply felt love story.
Read Full Review >Empire Chris Hewitt
It’s been twelve years since "Titanic," but the King of the World has returned with a flawed but fantastic tour de force that, taken on its merits as a film, especially in two dimensions, warrants four stars. However, if you can wrap a pair of 3D glasses round your peepers, this becomes a transcendent, full-on five-star experience that's the closest we'll ever come to setting foot on a strange new world. Just don’t leave it so long next time, eh, Jim?
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
Once again, [Cameron] has silenced the doubters by simply delivering an extraordinary film. There is still at least one man in Hollywood who knows how to spend $250 million, or was it $300 million, wisely.
Read Full Review >Premiere Nick Starkey
This is, simply put, one of the most beautiful movies you’ll ever see.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader J.R. Jones
A quantum leap in movie magic; watching it, I began to understand how people in 1933 must have felt when they saw "King Kong."
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan
Avatar's shock and awe demand to be seen. You've never experienced anything like it, and neither has anyone else.
Read Full Review >ReelViews James Berardinelli
Avatar is entertainment of the highest order. It's the best movie of 2009.
Read Full Review >LA Weekly Scott Foundas
At the end of a decade defined by much bellyaching about “the death of cinema” (including, on occasion, by this critic), Avatar concludes, appropriately enough, with an image of rebirth.
Read Full Review >New York Magazine David Edelstein
Pantheism, Cameronism: In Avatar, what’s the diff? Now he’s king of a world he made from scratch.
Read Full Review >Slate Dana Stevens
Is it or is it not stupendously friggin' rad? And the answer is yes. For most of the first hour, a good portion of the second, and even many of the 40 minutes left after that, Avatar is stupendously friggin' rad.
Read Full Review >Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
Much of the time, though, you're transfixed by the beauty of a spectacle that seems all of a piece. Special effects have been abolished, in effect, since the whole thing is so special.
Read Full Review >The New Yorker David Denby
The movie’s story may be a little trite, and the big battle at the end between ugly mechanical force and the gorgeous natural world goes on forever, but what a show Cameron puts on! The continuity of dynamized space that he has achieved with 3-D gloriously supports his trippy belief that all living things are one.
Read Full Review >Time Richard Corliss
Embrace the movie -- surely the most vivid and persuasive creation of a fantasy world ever seen in the history of moving pictures -- as a total sensory, sensuous, sensual experience.
Read Full Review >Variety Todd McCarthy
Avatar is all-enveloping and transporting, with Cameron & Co.'s years of R&D paying off with a film that, as his work has done before, raises the technical bar and throws down a challenge for the many other filmmakers toiling in the sci-fi/fantasy realm.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov
It's thrilling and lovely and sad and explosive in all the right ways, and it needs to be seen – on the big screen, in 3-D – to be believed.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Ty Burr
An entertainment to be not just seen but absorbed on a molecular level; it’s as close to a full-body experience as we’ll get until they invent the holo-suits. Cameron aims for sheer wonderment, and he delivers.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea
Avatar delivers. Combining beyond-state-of-the-art moviemaking with a tried-and-true storyline and a gamer-geek sensibility - not to mention a love angle, an otherworldly bestiary, and an arsenal of 22d-century weaponry - the movie quite simply rocks.
Read Full Review >New York Post Lou Lumenick
Rarely less than absorbing and never boring over its nearly three-hour length.
Read Full Review >Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer
If I never felt entirely transported by Avatar, it’s probably because the story thudded just as often as the imagery soared. But Pandora is still a good place to park yourself for three hours.
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy
Is it a great movie? Maybe not. But it is a great step forward in moviemaking. Shrug it off if that makes you feel better, but starting today you live in a post-Avatar movie world.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Ann Hornaday
By presenting Avatar in 3-D, Cameron is staking his claim and building a fence around his own precious resource, making it unobtainable on any but his own terms to increasingly emboldened and technologically savvy natives.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen
Avatar is a king's ransom fairly well spent, not least because Cameron's invitation into his superbly crafted universe comes with an unexpected price: He makes it easy to gaze fondly on all this movie magic, but only in exchange for a hard look at ourselves.
Read Full Review >USA Today Claudia Puig
The scenes in Pandora -- a planet with an Earth-like environment -- are so breathtaking that the narrative seems almost beside the point.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips
The first 90 minutes of Avatar are pretty terrific — a full-immersion technological wonder with wonders to spare. The other 72 minutes, less and less terrific.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
As visual spectacle, Avatar is indelible, but as a movie it all but evaporates as you watch it.
Read Full Review >Village Voice J. Hoberman
Avatar is a technological wonder, 15 years percolating in King Cameron's imagination and inarguably the greatest 3-D cavalry western ever made. Too bad that western is "Dances With Wolves."
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez
Whatever faults Avatar may have -- and there are many -- the movie succeeds in immersing you in a photorealistic, painstakingly detailed world more fully than any science fiction movie before.
Read Full Review >Time Out New York Keith Uhlich
The question lingers as the movie comes to its triumphant body-swapping close: Is this a pro-environment parable or a prophecy of virtual realities yet to come? Cameron’s new world may very well be a verdant Matrix.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Joe Neumaier
Avatar clears the hurdle in terms of being optical candy. Its story, though, is pure cheese.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias
Avatar is a weak patchwork of his other films: the leaden voiceover from "Terminator 2" here, the military/civilian conflict from "Aliens" there, even a Jack-and-Rose-style forbidden love story cued to adult-contempo soundtrack.
Read Full Review >Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek
It is a very expensive-looking, very flashy entertainment, albeit one that groans under the weight of clumsy storytelling in the second half and features some of the most godawful dialogue this side of "Attack of the Clones."
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 8.0 (out of 10) based on 1402 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
David D. gave it a9:
Amazing graphics in 3D, really pull you into the story. I just wish the story line wasn't so predictable.
Zach S. gave it a2:
This movie made Beowulf look like Brown Bunny and Last Tango in Paris combined with Flatliners.
L. M. gave it a6:
Sigh....well I certainly had high hopes for the movie and I'm glad to say it wasn't that disappointing. While it does have an unoriginal story, the new themes of the Navi (indians basically) are interesting enough. A bit too drawn out but still enjoyable with suprisingly almost no humor. I would probably send my rating down around the 5 area had I not seen it in 3-D, since you had a sense that Cameron wanted to use it for a way to enhance the movie and not just be eye candy I'll give me credit for that. Needless to say the only thing keeping the movie up this high of a rating is the use of 3-D, hopefully we can now see improvements upon dialouge, acting, pacing, and no cheesy love story for the sequel to possibly get the score it deserves.
David P gave it a10:
Very moving movie visually and verbally. This is the best movie of 09 & 10. To be honest I thought it was going to be a gimmicky movie but when I saw it, it was amazing. 3d is even better. If you are going to see a movie this year it has to be this one
Jason B. gave it a10:
Best movie experience I have ever had.
joseph r. gave it an8:
It's really good, by that i mean the special effects, the story is okay but nothing to hold you in, it is still a really good movie if you forget the plotholes.
Rocco M. gave it a10:
This was the most amazing movie I've seen. You have to see it in 3D IMAX. The special effects and visuals are stunning.
