This era's of pearl-clutching domestic horror or privileged peril was fascinating.

| Apr 12, 2025

De Mornay is a pleasure to watch here: frozen-eyed and still, she has the poise of a tiger haunched in tall grasses and eyeing its prey.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | May 9, 2023

Hanson doesn’t take any plot shortcuts either. We know right from the start who Peyton is and what she’s up to. The film even plays fair with our sympathies...

| Original Score: 3/4 | May 26, 2022

No one who comes to the house ever recognizes the domestic helper as the dead physician’s wife, but once you have swallowed this improbability, you become completely enthralled by the ingenuity of the story, by its suspense, and by its terrifying climax.

| Apr 6, 2022

While certain elements (such as the depiction of people with disabilities) has aged poorly, the consideration of women and motherhood still resonates. This is 100 De Mornay's show and Peyton is a hugely compelling, and surprisingly sympathetic, villain

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Mar 9, 2022

...a sterling endeavor that kicks off with an absorbing opening stretch...

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jan 12, 2022

De Mornay's performance vacillates so wildly between sweet solicitousness and icy murderousness that it draws as many giggles as gasps.

| May 30, 2018

Disturbing thriller about a babysitter; cursing, violence.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 28, 2017

The Hand That Rocks the Cradle is that rare thing, a realistic thriller wise enough not to sell short any of its characters. Just be prepared to become very, very scared when you see it.

| Jul 10, 2013

This is De Mornay's film and she's a wicked treat, looking daggers at her enemy one moment and then glazing over with sweetness the next.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 10, 2013

This is pure unbridled hokum, of course, but extremely effective until the last 30 minutes, when the plot rapidly self-destructs.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 10, 2013

The film is unusually gripping.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jul 10, 2013

All of the best parts here go to women -- Sciorra, De Mornay and Julianne Moore in a funny supporting bit as Claire's cynical, suspicious friend.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 10, 2013

The Hand that Rocks the Cradle, though it positions itself as chilling suspense, is not even mildly scary; it's just offensive.

| Jul 10, 2013

The careful structure of THTRTC guarantees that the movie will generate a fair amount of suspense throughout. But the single-mindedness of the movie is a genuine limitation, and, watching it, you begin to feel spoon-fed.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 10, 2013

With its banal, docile household threatened by an enemy within, the film is like The Stepfather without wit or irony.

Full Review | Jul 10, 2013

At its best, The Hand That Rocks the Cradle is a bright, nasty psychological thriller with a joker up its sleeve.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jul 10, 2013

Exploitation of child abuse and baby-stealing make this one a particularly nasty business.

| Jul 10, 2013

Unpretentious and efficient.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 10, 2013

Things go about the way you expect them to, but Curtis Hanson, who directed, manages to make it work.

| Jul 10, 2013