The 1996 dramedy shows how woke guardrails cripple Hollywood screenwriters.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Apr 21, 2024

Consistently smart and funny — sharply written and well-acted, with an authentic Bay State fatalism underlying every scene.

| Original Score: B | Sep 1, 2022

Beautiful Girls would have us believe being a guy is hard, confusing, nay, downright torturous.

| Jun 15, 2022

...the kind of salty, self-aware movie that nobody seems to make these days...

| Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 17, 2021

Does "Beautiful Girls" philosophically aspire to much more than mirroring a Counting Crows lyric from "Mr. Jones?" Maybe not. But there's a barroom eloquence, bottle-bottomed anxiety and stumblebum sadness to it that lingers in its bones.

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Jan 29, 2016

This film really succeeds with its warm treatment of ordinary hang-ups -- no life-shattering revelations or pain repressed since childhood, just the genuine, everyday trials of life.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 20, 2010

Beautiful Girls is always in touch with reality but never drowned in it.

| Nov 27, 2009

Natalie Portman, as a 13-year-old on whom Hutton develops a strangely affecting crush, is a delight.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Nov 27, 2009

Demme's conversational film is about the gaping chasm between what men say and what they feel. It may not tell us anything new, but its eloquence is quietly rewarding.

| Nov 27, 2009

Natalie Portman steals all the scenes with Timothy Hutton and lights up the movie...

| Apr 29, 2009

This startlingly uneventful compendium of thick-headed boy-talk and female tolerance squanders a fine cast on incredibly ordinary characters and situations.

Full Review | Mar 26, 2009

Ted Demme's coming of age tale is about guys in their 20s who refuse or are unable to mature, which might explain why the most captivating relationship is between Timothy Hutton and the 13-year-old Natalie Portman.

| Original Score: B | Apr 4, 2006

Women may be unimpressed, but men will squirm with recognition.

| Jan 26, 2006

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 26, 2005

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 29, 2005

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 27, 2005

A film about relationships and growing older that's funny and smart.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 2, 2004

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 4, 2004

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 10, 2004

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | May 27, 2004