Pi (1998)
Average Rating: 7.3/10
Reviews Counted: 52
Fresh: 45 | Rotten: 7
Dramatically gripping and frighteningly smart, this Lynchian thriller does wonders with its unlikely subject and shoestring budget.
Average Rating: 6.8/10
Critic Reviews: 13
Fresh: 10 | Rotten: 3
Dramatically gripping and frighteningly smart, this Lynchian thriller does wonders with its unlikely subject and shoestring budget.
liked it
Average Rating: 3.8/5
User Ratings: 100,493
My Rating
Movie Info
Darren Aronofsky scripted and made his directorial debut with this experimental feature with mathematical plot threads hinting at science-fictional elements. In NYC's Chinatown, recluse math genius Max (Sean Gullette) believes "everything can be understood in terms of numbers," and he looks for a pattern in the system as he suffers headaches, plays Go with former teacher Sol Robeson (Mark Margolis), and fools around with an advanced computer system he's built in his apartment. Both a Wall Street
Jul 10, 1998 Wide
Jan 12, 1999
Artisan
Watch It Now
Cast
-
Sean Gullette
Max Cohen -
Mark Margolis
Sol Robeson -
Ben Shenkman
Lenny Meyer -
Pamela Hart
Marcy Dawson -
Stephen Pearlman
Rabbi Cohen -
Samia Shoaib
Devi -
-
-
-
-
-
ADVERTISEMENT
Pi Trailer & Photos
All Critics (55) | Top Critics (14) | Fresh (47) | Rotten (7) | DVD (18)
Aronofsky, who has parlayed this movie's Sundance success into two Hollywood deals, is that rare indie filmmaker who doesn't want to make hip romantic sitcoms. He's a genuine experimenter with a spooky visual style.
Top CriticWe share Max's feelings of imminent psychological disintegration as the film probes our own insecurity in the face of the eternal. Maths meets millennial doom in one of the decade's true originals.
It's remarkable to what extent Aronofsky has rendered the cerebral kinetically intense. The film's imaginative, diverse images create a mind's-eye urban claustrophobia.
Audacious and bursting with ideas.
The movie's low-budget look neatly matches the claustrophobia of Max's life, but the filmmakers have also devised some special shooting methods for certain scenes. These sequences -- breathless and jangly chases, for the most part -- look terrific.
The seductive thing about Aronofsky's film is that it is halfway plausible in terms of modern physics and math.
a real treat
Both story and style reveal the calculations of an artist so desperate to get noticed that he forgot to cover his id.
Pi is certainly about the burden of genius, but it very well may also be about mythical powers and faulty dogma in Judaism.
When the Torah is explained in mathematical terms, it's enough to make you want to take up second year trig - like the movie, a deeply flawed idea.
Disturbing, exhilarating, and sure to send anyone of conservative temperament scuttling from the room.
Clever and creepy as hell.
...a frustrating and maddeningly confounding piece of work...
Director Darren Aronofsky creates an eerie Eraserhead-like world that keeps the film compelling.
An ambitious, stylish and intriguing first effort by Aronofsky and director of photography Matthew Libatique. If you're of a mind for an offbeat but fascinating film, give it a shot.
Pi is an interesting film. Not a particularly good one, but interesting nonetheless.
Embora Aronofsky cometa excessos visuais em alguns momentos (tendência comprovada em seu trabalho seguinte, Réquiem para um Sonho), sua eficiente direção, a ótima edição e o inteligente roteiro transformam Pi em um filme singular.
Shot in blotchy, grimy black-and-white and edited in a style almost reminiscent of the French New Wave, 'Pi' is as jarring to the eye as it is enticing to the mind.
Destined to pick up a cult following.
Pi is like a Cronenberg film of the mind, where the unsettling images and lusts are driven by a desire for knowledge, not flesh.
Audience Reviews for Pi
Super Reviewer
Find out by watching it!
Super Reviewer
-
- Max Cohen: When I was a little kid, my mother told me not to stare into the sun. So once when I was six, I did.
-
- Max Cohen: It's fair to say that I'm stepping out on a limb, but I am on the edge and that's where it happens.
-
- Sol Robeson: Have you met Archimedes? The one with the black spots, you see? You remember Archimedes of Syracuse, eh? The king asks Archimedes to determine if a present he's received is actually solid gold. Unsolved problem at the time. It tortures the great Greek mathematician for weeks - insomnia haunts him and he twists and turns in his bed for nights on end. Finally, his equally exhausted wife - she's forced to share a bed with this genius - convinces him to take a bath to relax. While he's entering the tub, Archimedes notices the bath water rise. Displacement, a way to determine volume, and that's a way to determine density - weight over volume. And thus, Archimedes solves the problem. He screams "Eureka" and he is so overwhelmed he runs dripping naked through the streets to the king's palace to report his discovery.
-
- Marcy Dawson: It's survival of the fittest, Max, and we've got the fucking gun.
-
- Max Cohen: One: Mathematics is the language of nature. Two: Everything around us can be represented and understood through numbers. Three: If you graph the numbers of any system, patterns emerge. Therefore, there are patterns everywhere in nature.
-
- Max Cohen: 9:13. Personal note. When I was a little kid, my mother told me not to stare into the sun. So once, when I was six, I did. The doctors didn't know if my eyes would ever heal.I was terrified, alone in that darkness. Slowly, daylight crept in through the bandages and I could see. But something else had changed inside me.
Discussion Forum
There are no discussion threads for Pi yet.
Latest News on Pi
March 14, 2011:
Slightly More Than 3.14 Movies That Love MathHappy Pi Day! To help you celebrate, here's a list of movies that embrace math.
March 28, 2007:
Aronofsky to "Fight" with Mark Wahlberg and Matt DamonLast seen together in Martin Scorsese's "The Departed," Matt Damon and Mark Wahlberg will...
November 6, 2006:
Aronofsky to Go Biblical for His Next MovieWith "The Fountain" finally finished and ready for consumption, director Darren Aronofsky...
What's Hot On RT
Bradley Cooper's Best Movies
Fast & Furious 6 is Certified Fresh
Fast & Furious cars gallery
Blockbusters ranked!
Featured on RT
- Weekly Ketchup: Fox and Marvel Both Courting Quicksilver for Comic Blockbusters 19
- Critics Consensus: Fast & Furious 6 is Certified Fresh 58
- Red Carpet Photos with Vin Diesel, Michelle Rodriguez, Gina Carano and More 0
- Video: The Hangover Part III Cast Interviews 0
- Total Recall: Bradley Cooper's Best Movies 48
- Parental Guidance: Epic and Beautiful Creatures 2
- Comic Book Movies You Can Watch Online 14
Top Headlines
-
Evan Peters Joins X-Men: Days of Future Past
0
-
Toby Jones Talks Captain America: The Winter Soldier
1
-
The Poltergeist Reboot May Actually Be a Sequel
16
-
Will Forte Promises MacGruber 2
4
-
Universal Plans Timecop Reboot
2
-
Return of the Jedi Turns 30
1
-
Vin Diesel Says Fast & Furious 7 Will Take Place in L.A.
0
Fresh Links
Featured
Star Trek Movies Ranked
HitFix offers their own take on the worst-to-best of the Enterprise crew's cinematic adventures.
Top 10 Star Trek Villains
Rolling Stone unveils the Enterprise's most irksome adversaries.
Celebrity Yearkbook Flashback
We'll bet you never realized how many stars were cheerleaders and high school athletes!
50 Most Classic Movie Moms
In celebration of Mother's Day, TimeOut offers up 50 iconic matriarchs from the big screen.
Weirdest Movie Siblings
From Twins to The Royal Tenenbaums, Moviefone explores cinema's oddest siblings.
Promos
Follow RT on Twitter!
Spice up your feed with hourly Tomatometer updates!
Set in New York's Chinatown, the film follows a reclusive mathematician who, for the past ten years, has been working on cracking the code behind the numerical pattern of the stock market. The closer he gets to the solution, the more chaotic the world becomes around him. Dogged by both a ruthless Wall Street firm and some shady Kaballah sect intent on using him to decode the Torah, Max becomes increasingly detached from reality and sanity.
This is a really stunning picture. I give it major props for having a unique vision, killer art direction and set design, and being done independently on the cheap. The math angle is a little out there, but not so obscure that it is impossible for a lay person to follow. Even then, this isn't a film for everyone, but if you like mind benders, borderline sci-fi thrillers, and enjoy seeing films about people who go nuts, then this is a film for you.