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Movies / On DVD / Boys Don't Cry
Boys Don't Cry

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Boys Don't Cry (1999)

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Reviews Counted:21

Fresh:19

Rotten:2

Average Rating:7.9/10

Consensus: Hilary Swank's acclaimed performance pays fitting tribute to the tragic life of Brandon Teena.

Runtime: 2 hrs

Genre: Dramas

Synopsis: From the middle of America emerged an extraordinary double life, a complicated love story and a crime that would shatter the heartland. In Falls City, Nebraska, Brandon Teena (Hilary Swank) was... From the middle of America emerged an extraordinary double life, a complicated love story and a crime that would shatter the heartland.

In Falls City, Nebraska, Brandon Teena (Hilary Swank) was a newcomer with a future who had the small rural community enchanted. Women adored him and almost everyone who met this charismatic stranger was drawn to his charming innocence. But, Falls City's hottest date and truest friend had one secret: he wasn't the person people thought he was.

Back home in Lincoln just seventy-five miles away, Brandon Teena was a different person caught up in a personal crisis that had haunted him his entire life.

Like many young people, he made costly mistakes and when he inadvertently trespassed between his new love Lana (Chloe Sevigny) and her reckless friend John (Peter Sarsgaard), the mystery unraveled into violence.

In a single, short life Brandon Teena was at once a dashing lover and a trapped outsider, both an impoverished nobody and a flamboyant dreamer, a daring thief and the tragic victim of an unjust crime.

Boys Don't Cry explores the contradictions of American youth and identity through the true life and death of Brandon Teena. What emerges from a dust-cloud of mayhem, desire and murder is the story of a young American drifter searching for love, a sense of self and a place to call home. [More]

Starring: Hilary Swank, Chloë Sevigny, Peter Sarsgaard, Brendan Sexton

Starring: Hilary Swank, Chloë Sevigny, Peter Sarsgaard, Brendan Sexton, Alison Folland, Alicia Goranson, Matt McGrath, Lou Perryman, Rob Campbell, Jeannetta Arnette

Director: Kimberly Peirce

Director: Kimberly Peirce
Screenwriter: Kimberly Peirce, Andy Bienen
Producer: Christine Vachon, John Hart, Eva Kolodner, Jeff Sharp, Pamela Koffler
Composer: Nathan Larson

[See More Credits]

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Release:

Apr 18, 2000

No Details Exist
 
 

Reviews for Boys Don't Cry

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1 - 20 (sorted by date)
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N/R

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Full Review Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution | comment Comment
02/21/04
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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N/R

Click to read the article

Full Review Source: Minneapolis Star Tribune | comment Comment
11/06/02
Jeff Strickler
Jeff Strickler
Minneapolis Star Tribune
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Click to read the article

Full Review Source: San Francisco Chronicle | comment Comment
06/18/02
Peter Stack
Peter Stack
San Francisco Chronicle
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Click to read the article

Full Review Source: Globe and Mail | comment Comment
03/19/02
Globe and Mail
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[Hilary Swank] has come out of nowhere to deliver one of the year's finest pieces of acting.

Full Review Source: Dallas Morning News | comment Comment
01/01/00
Chris Vognar
Chris Vognar
Dallas Morning News
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Flawless acting by the ensemble.

Full Review Source: Variety | comment Comment
01/01/00
Emanuel Levy
Emanuel Levy
Variety
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Swank is impressive in the lead role.

comment Comment
01/01/00
Ernest Hardy
Ernest Hardy
Film.com
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With its constant juxtaposition of blazing nighttime highwayscapes and the flat Nebraska skyline, Boys Don't Cry manages to perfectly evoke both a life spent in aimless forward motion and the stifling boredom Brandon was so desperate to escape.

comment Comment
01/01/00
Gemma Files
Gemma Files
Film.com
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Click to read the article

Full Review Source: ReelViews | comment Comment
01/01/00
James Berardinelli
James Berardinelli
ReelViews
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Stunning.

Full Review Source: New York Times | comment Comment
01/01/00
Janet Maslin
Janet Maslin
New York Times
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Boys Don't Cry not only revisits the crime, but convinces us we're being taken inside it.

comment Comment
01/01/00
Jay Carr
Jay Carr
Boston Globe
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A haunting, superbly made film.

Full Review Source: New York Post | comment Comment
01/01/00
Jonathan Foreman
Jonathan Foreman
New York Post
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N/R

Click to read the article

Full Review Source: Chicago Reader | comment Comment
01/01/00
Jonathan Rosenbaum
Jonathan Rosenbaum
Chicago Reader
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Director Pierce and Bienen and the expert cast engage us in the actuality of these rootless, hopeless, stoned-out lives without sentimentalizing or romanticizing them.

Full Review Source: Los Angeles Times | comment Comment
01/01/00
Kenneth Turan
Kenneth Turan
Los Angeles Times
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Powerful and unpretentious.

Full Review Source: Houston Chronicle | comment Comment
01/01/00
Louis B. Parks
Louis B. Parks
Houston Chronicle
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A stirring, emotionally true testament to foolish bravery as well as shameful evidence of the severity with which it is so often punished.

Full Review Source: Chicago Tribune | comment Comment
01/01/00
Mark Caro
Mark Caro
Chicago Tribune
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Peirce seems to have researched her subject with grad-school-thesis intensity.

comment Comment
01/01/00
Mike Clark
Mike Clark
USA Today
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Lyrical and galvanizing.

comment Comment
01/01/00
Owen Gleiberman
Owen Gleiberman
Entertainment Weekly
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The film is framed, too unquestioningly, as a transgender Rebel Without a Cause, with Brandon the martyred innocent who dies for her infatuations.

Full Review Source: New York Magazine | comment Comment
01/01/00
Peter Rainer
Peter Rainer
New York Magazine
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

The movie lets down the material. It's too cool: all attitude, no sizzle--horror under glass.

Full Review Source: TIME Magazine | comment Comment
01/01/00
Richard Corliss
Richard Corliss
TIME Magazine
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1 - 20 (sorted by date)
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Latest News for Boys Don't Cry

September 08, 2006: Olyphant and the "Third Rock" Kid Join Phillippe In "Stop Loss"
Director Kimberly Peirce ("Boys Don't Cry") has a few more guys on her roster for the soldier drama "Stop Loss," also starring Ryan Phillippe. Thesps... More...

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