The movie feels perfectly timed to coincide with our nation's latest flirtation with the apocalypse.

| Mar 31, 2017

Donnie Darko rightly made a star of Gyllenhaal.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Jan 10, 2017

The script makes variable sense, but so does life.

| Dec 29, 2016

A movie with something of Back to the Future, Twin Peaks, American Beauty and of course Harvey.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Dec 22, 2016

Defines itself through sustained mood, otherworldly intrigue and deep, abiding humanism.

| Original Score: A- | Jun 20, 2011

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Aug 14, 2007

Kelly is a supple and courageous storyteller, boldly free-associating as he mixes parody and satire with earnest psychodrama and coming up with plot points no one could anticipate.

| Jun 8, 2007

Donnie Darko has plenty of problems. But most stem from a young filmmaker overswinging on his first time up to the plate and hitting a deep fly out rather than a home run.

Full Review | Jun 8, 2007

A mini-masterpiece that marks the arrival of brave new talents in Gyllenhaal and Kelly. Cult glory beckons.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 30, 2003

An unnerving, electrifying debut film from 26-year-old writer/director Kelly, one that elucidates the universal traumas of growing up, but does so with a startling uncommonness.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Mar 10, 2003

Haunting and altogether exquisite.

Full Review | Oct 2, 2002

Excitingly original indie vision.

| Original Score: A- | Nov 6, 2001

A stunning technical accomplishment that virtually bursts with noise, ideas and references.

| Oct 31, 2001

First-time director-writer Richard Kelly draws on a number of intriguing elements ... without including a single, crucial gem that pulls everything together.

Full Review | Oct 26, 2001

If this movie ever figured out what it wanted to be when it grows up, it would be a terrific one.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Oct 26, 2001

An engaging, time-tripping Holden Caulfield.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Oct 26, 2001

This set-up and development is fascinating, the payoff less so.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Oct 26, 2001

It flutters, like a mischievous butterfly, above the despairing hands of easy description.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Oct 25, 2001

Kelly is unable to give the movie the kind of pacing that would make us laugh and shock us simultaneously, because he's too infatuated with an aura of hand-me-down gloom.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Oct 25, 2001

Donnie Darko may be too ambitious for a debut feature, but ambition and imagination still trump mediocrity any day of the week.

| Original Score: B+ | Oct 25, 2001