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8MM (1999)

tomatometer

22

Average Rating: 4.2/10
Reviews Counted: 78
Fresh: 17 | Rotten: 61

Its sadistic violence is unappealing and is lacking in suspense and mystery.

10

Average Rating: 3.1/10
Critic Reviews: 21
Fresh: 2 | Rotten: 19

Its sadistic violence is unappealing and is lacking in suspense and mystery.

audience

56

liked it
Average Rating: 3/5
User Ratings: 125,976

My Rating

Movie Info

Tom Welles (Nicolas Cage) is a surveillance expert on the rise. He's living the American dream with a wife, Amy (Catherine Keener), infant daughter, and a house in the suburbs of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. After the completion of an assignment for a U.S. Senator, Welles is summoned to the house of a recently deceased captain of industry. His widow, in settling his estate, has discovered an 8MM film in her late husband's private safe. The silent short depicts the apparent murder of a young woman

May 22, 2001

Columbia Pictures

Cast

All Critics (79) | Top Critics (21) | Fresh (17) | Rotten (62) | DVD (15)

I can't say I warmed to the results, but I was solidly held for the film's two hours.

September 17, 2008 Full Review Source: Chicago Reader | Comment
Chicago Reader
Top Critic IconTop Critic

A movie that keeps jumping the gate and finally unravels all over the floor.

July 22, 2008 Full Review Source: Variety | Comment
Variety
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Director Joel Schumacher aims for a psychological depth that the script can't sustain.

November 24, 2006 Comment
Rolling Stone
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Want to know what happens when an A-list director and A-list movie star attach themselves to a direct-to-cable screenplay? This.

July 21, 2005 Full Review Source: Houston Chronicle | Comment
Houston Chronicle
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An exploitation movie about an exploitation movie.

August 7, 2004 Full Review Source: New York Magazine | Comment
New York Magazine
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Given that Schumacher and his cohorts have reasons of their own for wanting to make this film, they may be the only people who end up liking it.

February 14, 2001 Full Review Source: Los Angeles Times | Comment
Los Angeles Times
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Poorly developed, 8mm is anything but a pretty picture.

September 17, 2008 Full Review Source: Film4 | Comment

Sets a new record for gross stupidity.

July 23, 2007 Full Review Source: eFilmCritic.com | Comment
eFilmCritic.com

There's no faulting Cage's committed, intense performance, but his slide from professional, internalised concern into personal, self-righteous rage still leaves a nasty aftertaste.

January 26, 2006 Full Review Source: Time Out | Comment

Walker at least has a solid premise here. Too bad the script didn't find its way to another David Fincher who could understand it.

December 6, 2005 Full Review Source: Film Threat | Comment
Film Threat

It's pretty sad that a big star/big budget film about a gritty piece of life that should powerfully effect the viewer at the gut level fails so miserably.

April 9, 2005 Full Review Source: Reeling Reviews | Comment
Reeling Reviews

Unpleasant.

June 14, 2004 Full Review | Comment
rec.arts.movies.reviews

The repartee between Cage and Phoenix is the high point in the film, which otherwise made me want to go take a long hot shower.

May 20, 2003 Comment
Palo Alto Weekly

It is good work by Schumacher, but hard to watch nonetheless.

February 8, 2003 Full Review Source: Film Quips Online | Comment
Film Quips Online

8mm is neither the sick exploitation film nor the risible misfire the critics had prepared us for -- it is a movie of serious intent.

December 8, 2002 Full Review | Comment
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

I could not get past the pathology lurking just below the skin of this story -- its false morality, its prurient absorption in sexual violence, its sadistic glee over the hero's degradation.

October 15, 2002 Full Review Source: Cincinnati Enquirer | Comment
Cincinnati Enquirer

It has some worthy moments, but it could have been so much more.

September 10, 2002 Full Review Source: Montreal Film Journal | Comment
Montreal Film Journal

I'd like to think the project would have fared better in more eclectic hands, say Gus Van Sant, or perhaps Roman Polanski, but what's done is done and what's done is maybe not what it could have been.

September 9, 2002 Full Review Source: Austin Chronicle | Comment
Austin Chronicle

Cage's flat, deadpan acting style makes it hard to pick up on his character's moral demise, much less care about it.

August 21, 2002 Full Review Source: Movie Habit | Comment
Movie Habit
More Critic Reviews

Audience Reviews for 8MM

You are never prepared for the truth.Good movie. This film is very strong,gritty,edgy and dark. Nicolas Cage did a very good job acting on this one. The thing is this film is very real and there's actually people so sick like this in the world we live in, it's disturbing to know this and those who do those kinds of

July 8, 2009
xXGiNoBiLiPRXx
Manu Gino

Super Reviewer

Private investigator Nic Cage is hired by some old rich dame to check out a curious video found in the dead husband's safe. With some moments of interest this attempt to update the gumshoe cliche gets lost in its own over-reaching for social relevance. And Cat Keener is totally wasted.

July 23, 2011
moonrivers

Super Reviewer

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Foreign Titles

  • Asesinato en 8mm. (ES)
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