If anyone ever tries to make the argument that plot is more important than anything else in cinema, this is a great movie to throw in their face.
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06/19/09
The Big Sleep (1946)
95
%
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Reviews Counted:42
Fresh:40
Rotten:2
Average Rating:8.6/10
Runtime: 3 hrs 50 mins
Genre: Dramas
Synopsis: Chandler's first novel introduced private detective Philip Marlowe, and THE BIG SLEEP set the standard for private detective movies. Down-at-the-heels private eye Marlowe gets the assignment to... [More]
Starring: Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Dorothy Malone, John Ridgely
Director: Howard Hawks
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Reviews for The Big Sleep
One of the finest mainstream noir-thrillers ever made.
06/24/06
A movie that every film student should study and every movie lover should watch at least once.
01/01/00
Top CriticDon¡¯t try too hard to follow the story, just get swept away by the mood of the film.
01/22/02
Top CriticBogart and Bacall are so good together that the story's impenetrability doesn't matter much, as long as it keeps serving up suspenseful situations and sassy dialogue.
04/20/02
Tribes of monkeys doing monkey things, albeit things related to the perforation of the flesh: murder and blood and sweat and sex.
07/09/07
It's likely to leave you confused and dissatisfied.
05/20/03
Top CriticIt matters not that even the writers (including William Faulkner) weren't sure who shot whom in Hawks' rousing adaptation of the Raymond Chandler detective novel.
02/10/06
The Big Sleep (1946) is one of Raymond Chandler's best hard-boiled detective mysteries transformed into a film noir, private detective film classic
01/01/00
It is typical of this most puzzling of films that no one agrees even on why it is so puzzling. Yet that has never affected The Big Sleep's enduring popularity, because the movie is about the process of a criminal investigation, not its results.
01/01/00
Top CriticI can't think of a crime drama with a story that can match that can match the headlong intricacy of The Big Sleep.
01/01/00
The dialogue is hard-boiled and crackles with wit, the plot is fast-paced and nearly impenetrable, and Humphrey Bogart is coolly unflappable in Howard Hawkes’s stylish noir classic.
10/03/03
What you remember here are moments.
07/18/08
Top CriticBogart as Marlowe is compelling in this classic thriller that is complex but triumph of atmospheric cool.
07/18/08
There's little else I can add about this proto-noir, one of the archetypes of the genre and a showstopper for Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart, who spar through a catty romance while dancing through a taut mystery.
01/01/06
This movie was among the most fun movies I have ever seen.
02/28/02
...fast, witty, and exciting. It may not make a lot of sense, but it's got layers of mood and ambience.
04/08/01
One of the most intriguing, energetic and playful film noirs ever.
12/27/06
For all young filmmakers, seeing the metamorphosis of a good film into a great one will be instructive.
01/01/00
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June 21, 2007:
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