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Moulin Rouge! (2001)

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All Critics
Top Critics

Average Rating: 7.1/10
Reviews Counted: 187
Fresh: 142 | Rotten: 45

A love-it-or-hate-it experience, Moulin Rouge is all style, all giddy, over-the-top spectacle. But it's also daring in its vision and wildly original.

Average Rating: 6.1/10
Critic Reviews: 38
Fresh: 24 | Rotten: 14

A love-it-or-hate-it experience, Moulin Rouge is all style, all giddy, over-the-top spectacle. But it's also daring in its vision and wildly original.

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Average Rating: 3.7/5
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Movie Info

The third film from pop-music-obsessed director Baz Luhrmann tweaks the conventions of the musical genre by mixing a period romance with anachronistic dialogue and songs in the style of his previous Romeo+Juliet (1996). Ewan McGregor stars as Christian, who leaves behind his bourgeois father during the French belle �poque of the late 1890s to seek his fortunes in the bohemian underworld of Montmartre, Paris. Christian meets the absinthe- and alcohol-addicted artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

PG-13, 2 hr. 6 min.

Drama, Romance, Musical & Performing Arts

Directed By: Baz Luhrmann

Written By: Craig Pearce, Baz Luhrmann

In Theaters: May 16, 2001 Wide

On DVD: Dec 18, 2001

Box Office:$55.1M

20th Century Fox

Moulin Rouge is a tour de force of artifice, a dazzling pastiche of musical and visual elements at the service of a blatantly artificial story.

July 6, 2010 Full Review Source: Variety

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Todd McCarthy

Variety

Top Critic

Mr. Luhrmann and his colleagues have worked like whirling dervishes to make the plot look like it's moving.

April 27, 2007 Full Review Source: New York Observer

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Andrew Sarris

New York Observer

Top Critic

[Luhrmann] gives you way too much of what you didn't really want in the first place: soulless high jinks.

January 22, 2002 Full Review Source: New York Magazine

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Peter Rainer

New York Magazine

Top Critic

The net result of all this cinematic whirling, of the "wrong" music and of the parodic plot, is that nothing at all in the film moves us.

June 7, 2001 Comments (3)

Stanley Kauffmann

New Republic

Top Critic

The film dances; the heart sings.

June 4, 2001 Full Review Source: TIME Magazine

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Richard Corliss

TIME Magazine

Top Critic

A wonderful postmodern hug of a movie.

June 1, 2001 Full Review Source: Washington Post

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Desson Thomson

Washington Post

Top Critic

A genuinely exhilarating experience. Moulin Rouge is like the best party ever, to the power of 10.

November 8, 2011 Full Review Source: Film4

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Film4

[A] tour de farce of trivia and Traviata, of tragic love and deliberate banality.

November 8, 2011 Full Review Source: Observer [UK]

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Philip French

Observer [UK]

Dazzling musical romance for teens.

December 31, 2010 Full Review Source: Common Sense Media

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S. Jhoanna Robledo

Common Sense Media

Vibrant, luxurious, full of razzle-dazzle fantasy and a delicious visual feast, yes, but watching it is rather like devouring a box of expensive chocolates in one go.

November 22, 2010 Full Review Source: Movie Talk

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Jason Best

Movie Talk Source: Movie Talk

Moulin Rouge! is a movie that works hard to earn that exclamation point after it.

October 30, 2010 Full Review Source: Movie Metropolis

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James Plath

Movie Metropolis

Baz Luhrmann's absinthe-dripped extravagance becomes contagious. Operating with the precision and crazy adornments of a cuckoo clock, what could've been a migraine becomes a film so visceral and enchanting that even the man in the moon sings out.

September 19, 2010 Full Review Source: Suite101.com

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Nick Rogers

Suite101.com

Electric Cannes opener.

August 21, 2009 Full Review Source: City Pages, Minneapolis/St. Paul

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Rob Nelson

City Pages, Minneapolis/St. Paul Source: City Pages, Minneapolis/St. Paul

Everything in it is appropriated from somewhere else.

July 18, 2008 Full Review Source: eFilmCritic.com

| Comments (4)

Rob Gonsalves

eFilmCritic.com

One of the most exciting pieces of filmmaking to hit theaters in a long time.

July 14, 2007 Full Review Source: Big Picture Big Sound

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Joe Lozito

Big Picture Big Sound

One of the year's best films: This tragi-comic musical is Luhrmann's most audaciously innovative feature, one that creates its own hightened world, aggressively defying historical authenticity and the established conventions of Hollywood musicals.

January 28, 2007 Full Review Source: EmanuelLevy.Com

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Emanuel Levy

EmanuelLevy.Com Source: EmanuelLevy.Com

A sense of timelessness and irony-free romance make this a winner.

May 26, 2006 Full Review Source: Combustible Celluloid

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Jeffrey M. Anderson

Combustible Celluloid

If it lacks the emotional punch of Luhrmann's earlier films, and drags towards the end, it is still great fun.

February 9, 2006 Full Review Source: Time Out

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Geoff Andrew

Time Out

It is a whirlwind of sound and imagery that wants nothing less than to suck you into its world of Truth, Beauty, and most of all love. And beneath the pageantry, the breathtaking visuals, and the songs, that is what this movie is; a love story.

September 30, 2005 Full Review Source: Three Movie Buffs

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Scott Nash

Three Movie Buffs

'Gorgeously decadent, massively contrived, and gloriously superficial.'

March 22, 2005 Full Review | Comments (3)

Jeannette Catsoulis

Las Vegas Mercury

Fans will need to devote days to sift through all of the content here--and even more to find the discs' numerous hidden features.

March 5, 2005 Full Review Source: TheMovieReport.com

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Michael Dequina

TheMovieReport.com

More Critic Reviews

Audience Reviews for Moulin Rouge!

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This reminded me of Michel Gondry's playful visionary style (The Science of Sleep, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), but with a much bigger budget. It is extravagantly silly, fun, and simple-minded, with occasionally-captivating singing performances.

January 27, 2012

Matthew Slaven

Super Reviewer

Based on set & costume design alone this is a five star movie but the story doesn't have one original idea and is stretched out to no purpose. Jim Broadbent and John Leguizamo are terrific, Ewan McGregor good but Kidman is as always barely adequate and at times downright awful but at least she can carry a tune.

March 26, 2007

jay nixon

Super Reviewer

Moulin Rouge! Quotes

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1. Christian: I first came to Paris one year ago. It was 1899, the summer of love. I knew nothing of the Moulin Rouge, Harold Zidler or Satine. The world had been swept up in the Bohemian Revolution and I had travelled from London to be a part of it. On a hill near Paris, was the village of Montmatre. It was not what my father had said but the center of the Bohemian world. Musicians, painters, writers. They were known as the children of the revolution. Yes, I had come to live a penniless existence. I had come to write about truth, beauty, freedom and at which I believed above all things, love. But there was only one problem, I've never been in love!
– Submitted by Christian B (3 months ago)
1. Toulouse-Lautrec: The story is about...it's about...about
2. Christian: It's about love!
3. Duke of Worcester: Love?
4. Christian: Love. Overcoming all obstacles.
5. Toulouse-Lautrec: And it's set in Switzerland!
6. Duke of Worcester: Switzerland?
7. Zidler: It's not in Switzerland!
8. Christian: INDIA! It's set in India! And there's this courtesan. The most beautiful courtesan in all the world. But her kingdom's been invaded by an evil mah rajah. And in order to save her kingdom, she must seduce the evil mah rajah. But on the night of the seduction, she mistakes a penniless... a penniless sitar player for the evil mah rajah. And she falls in love with him! He wasn't trying to trick her or anything. It's just that he was dressed as a mah rajah because he's appearing in a play.
– Submitted by Christian B (3 months ago)
1. Christian: Days turned into weeks. Weeks turned into months. And one not so very special day, I went to my typewriter,I sat down and I wrote our story. A story about a time. A story about a place. A story about the people. But above all things, a story about love. A love that will live forever. The end.
– Submitted by Christian B (3 months ago)
1. Christian: The hills are alive with the sound of music. With songs they have sung for a thousand years.
– Submitted by Christian B (3 months ago)
1. Christian: Love is a many splendored thing. Love lifts us up where we belong. All you need is love.
– Submitted by Christian B (3 months ago)