Panic Room (2002)
Average Rating: 6.9/10
Reviews Counted: 181
Fresh: 138 | Rotten: 43
Elevated by Fincher's directorial talent and Foster's performance, Panic Room is a well-crafted, above-average thriller.
Average Rating: 6.6/10
Critic Reviews: 37
Fresh: 27 | Rotten: 10
Elevated by Fincher's directorial talent and Foster's performance, Panic Room is a well-crafted, above-average thriller.
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Average Rating: 3/5
User Ratings: 210,615
My Rating
Movie Info
A well-regarded spec script by A-list screenwriter David Koepp became this stylish thriller from director David Fincher. Jodie Foster stars as Meg Altman, a single mother of an diabetic preteen daughter, Sarah (Kristen Stewart). Meg's going through an unhappy divorce that forces her and Sarah to move into a new home. They choose a deluxe New York brownstone that coincidentally boasts an unusual feature: a "panic room," a vault-like hidden space capable of literally sealing itself off from the
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Cast
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Jodie Foster
Meg Altman -
Forest Whitaker
Burnham -
Dwight Yoakam
Raoul -
Jared Leto
Junior -
Kristen Stewart
Sarah Altman -
Ann Magnuson
Lydia Lynch -
Patrick Bauchau
Stephen Altman -
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Panic Room Trailer & Photos
All Critics (184) | Top Critics (38) | Fresh (144) | Rotten (43) | DVD (44)
A thinking-man's women-in-jeopardy picture, Panic Room does about as much as humanly possible with its deliberately restricted one-setting premise.
Top CriticNever averse to glistening darkness, meaty metaphor or grandiloquent technical display, Fincher is also surprisingly at home with hokum.
Fincher mounts some clever, tense sequences in which the trio devises increasingly threatening strategies to force Meg and Sarah out of the panic room, only to be matched with improvised ingenuity from behind the vault door.
... one of the most ingenious and entertaining thrillers I've seen in quite a long time.
Foster nails the role, giving a tight, focused performance illuminated by shards of feeling.
It's difficult to work up a strong case of the heebie-jeebies when you keep getting thrown out of the movie by all the atrocious acting.
Extreme suspense, graphic violence; not for kids.
Valuing logic over brutality, David Fincher's claustrophobic ride also touted the real-world practicality of keeping quiet over the cinematic kicks of a loud thriller. It's like "Wait Until Dark" with helplessness that's emotional, not just physical.
Apart from one plot twist too many, "Panic Room" is a seamless suspense-thriller with a top-notch cast.
There are so little things you can do with this story and a lot of it is pretty contrived.
David Fincher directs a nail-biter starring Jodie Foster about a mother and daughter who defend their house against a brutal home invasion.
[Allows] Fincher to shine as the skilled, stylish director that he is.
After his mind-bending, exhilarating Fight Club, director David Fincher takes on a more conventional Hollywood thriller.
Ultimately, this is just a big, dumb, commercial suspenser - but it's one of the best for ages, reminding us that it is still possible to make a high quality piece of popcorn entertainment.
Fincher is such a technically brilliant director that he can elevate a genre film--a suspenser about a damsel-in-distress--above its melodramatic trappings. The confined space (whole movie is set within a house) is no big challenge for him.
Panic Room is a very scary film, well made and lovingly dark, and it illustrates how terrified we are of becoming the victims we see on TV.
The panic room itself is a provocative concept and it says something about modern society, but I'm not sure if it deserved its own movie.
The rich in Panic Room are under siege, and the overgrown fortress of their self-indulgence seems helpless to defend itself.
The film has some nice psychological development and stimulating moral conflicts, but it is basically a bite-your-nails suspense film and makes no bones about it.
Audience Reviews for Panic Room
Super Reviewer
If not part of David Fincher's darkly profound line of incredible films, Panic Room is still one of the most extraordinary, nail bitingly suspenseful Hollywood efforts in many years. There's about enough depth and development to invest in the protaganists that make them believeable enough, and especially enough for us to care for the horrifying situation that their stuck in. Jodie Foster suits her role perfectly and is consistently engaged, truly believing her character with a passionate performance. As does Kristen Stewart who honestly gives one of her most emotionally resonant and sympathetic performances to date. David Fincher takes every single opportunity for camerawork, capturing scenery from each and every angle of the tightly enclosed setting with a visual spark that is similar to that of Fight Club and Seven. Although boasting none of the depth of some of his previous features, it's proof that Fincher understands edge of your seat film making in the same way he is aware of the conventions of mainstream thriller cinema. The script is full of psychological trauma and is quite frightening to sit through in a way that truly makes you claustrophobic and panic. I was gripped and engrossed the whole way through, by the design, Fincher's flashy direction, the cinematography, and the simple storyline in which the talent behind and in front of the camera take every opportunity to create suspense out of the unoriginal story and raise the bar at the same time.
Super Reviewer
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- Burnham: I spent the last 12 years of my life building rooms like this specifically to keep out people like us.
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Latest News on Panic Room
May 31, 2011:
David Fincher Options Revenge Novel Panic AttackThe adaptation will be produced for the "Panic Room" director's new company, Panic Pictures.
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Foreign Titles
- La habitación del pánico (ES)
