Donnie Darko Reviews
IGN DVD
An incredibly fascinating, star-making film that never fails to intrigue.
Full Review
| Original Score: 9/10
Movie Metropolis
Donnie Darko is a bit like a teenager: brooding, complex, rebellious, and difficult to comprehend.
Full Review
| Original Score: 8/10
Top Critic
Lessons of Darkness
Defines itself through sustained mood, otherworldly intrigue and deep, abiding humanism.
Full Review
| Original Score: A-
Movie Talk
A decidedly weird time-travel drama that puzzled viewers so much that many went back to see it again and again... Unfortunately, Kelly's extended version diminishes the film's impact.
Suite101.com
Maybe Richard Kelly's fate is to be the cult-film circuit's Michael Cimino. He has yet to match the mood or magnitude of his debut - a collision of time-travel sci-fi, commentary on '80s malaise and teen angst that's simultaneously witty and poignant.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/4
Cinema Crazed
A brilliant and truly incredible piece of art that deserves to be watched...
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/4
Nick's Flick Picks
The film...asks the question: what if the universe as we live it, not just as we theorize it, really isn't as we imagine it? In making the mundane as bottomless as the cosmic, Donnie Darko has the guts to remain a riddle itself.
Full Review
| Original Score: A-
eFilmCritic.com
The drowsy surrealism and elaborate inconclusiveness of Donnie Darko will simultaneously guarantee it a rabid cult and put it way off limits to the don't-get-its.
Full Review
| Original Score: 5/5
Movie Magazine International
The directors cut of Donnie Darko by Richard Kelly was screened at the Venice Film Festivals a couple of years ago, a film I missed for sure when it was released in 2001 and one of those pearls like Blade Runner that just is haunting screening after scree
Full Review
| Original Score: A
Kelly is a supple and courageous storyteller, boldly free-associating as he mixes parody and satire with earnest psychodrama and coming up with plot points no one could anticipate.
KPBS.org
Kelly captures, better than any film in recent memory other than Election, what it feels like to be in high school.
EmanuelLevy.Com
In its metaphysical concerns and challenging notions about personal and social responsibility, the film aims much higher than most American youth pictures.
Full Review
| Original Score: B+
DVDJournal.com
Donnie Darko's flaws, though, are those of a young, talented filmmaker reaching beyond his current grasp. That's a more forgivable sin than soulless excess or hubris-fueled incompetence.
Looking Closer
One of the most remarkable films of 2001, and it deserves a much larger audience than it has so far gained.
| Original Score: A-
Combustible Celluloid
Donnie Darko ranks among Gattaca, Pi and Dark City for pure imagination -- and surpasses them for astonishing execution.
Full Review
| Original Score: 5/5
FilmStew.com
The big screen, in any shape or form, is the ideal way to experience Donnie Darko, and so a re-release like this is a rare and welcome gift.
