Opening

73% Fast & Furious 6 May 24
21% The Hangover Part III May 23
63% Epic May 24
97% Before Midnight May 24
88% We Steal Secrets: The Story Of Wikileaks May 24
83% Fill the Void May 24
17% A Green Story May 24
—— Alyce Kills May 24

Top Box Office

87% Star Trek Into Darkness $70.2M
78% Iron Man 3 $35.8M
50% The Great Gatsby $23.9M
46% Pain & Gain $3.2M
69% The Croods $3.0M
77% 42 $2.8M
55% Oblivion $2.3M
99% Mud $2.2M
36% Peeples $2.2M
8% The Big Wedding $1.2M

Coming Soon

—— After Earth May 31
—— Now You See Me May 31
100% The Kings of Summer May 31
89% The East May 31

Primer (2003)

tomatometer

73

Average Rating: 6.6/10
Reviews Counted: 120
Fresh: 87 | Rotten: 33

Dense, obtuse, but stimulating, Primer is a film for viewers ready for a cerebral challenge.

71

Average Rating: 6.5/10
Critic Reviews: 31
Fresh: 22 | Rotten: 9

Dense, obtuse, but stimulating, Primer is a film for viewers ready for a cerebral challenge.

audience

79

liked it
Average Rating: 3.8/5
User Ratings: 41,919

My Rating

Movie Info

The debut feature from filmmaker Shane Carruth -- who wrote, directed, photographed, edited, scored, and stars -- Primer is a psychological sci-fi thriller about a group of four tech entrepreneurs. Toiling away in a garage, the quartet have successfully created error-checking systems for their clients. But their recent work seems to have created an unexpected and seemingly impossible side-effect. Suddenly, two members of the group realize they are in possession of a device that can double, or

Apr 5, 2005

$0.4M

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All Critics (126) | Top Critics (31) | Fresh (92) | Rotten (35) | DVD (26)

Mind-bending thrillers like Primer are terrific viewing with your teenagers. Maybe if you're nice, they'll explain the ending to you.

February 8, 2008 Full Review Source: Denver Post | Comment (1)
Denver Post
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Scary, puzzling, and different.

June 4, 2007 Full Review Source: Chicago Reader
Chicago Reader
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This film imagines its viewers to be smart, possessed of a decent attention span and game for a challenge. It doesn't happen all that often.

February 9, 2006 Full Review Source: Time Out
Time Out
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An unapologetically cerebral movie of ideas.

December 3, 2004 Full Review Source: Globe and Mail
Globe and Mail
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It's one thing to admire what writer/director/composer/actor Shane Carruth wrought on his $1.98 digicam budget; it's quite another to have to sit through the mind-numbing results.

December 3, 2004 Full Review Source: Toronto Star | Comments (3)
Toronto Star
Top Critic IconTop Critic

The ingenious debut of writer-director Shane Carruth, who assembled the film on his home computer and also plays one of the two leads, is purposely designed to be a little bewildering.

December 3, 2004 Full Review Source: Miami Herald
Miami Herald
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Where's Doc Brown when you need him?

April 22, 2013 Full Review Source: LarsenOnFilm
LarsenOnFilm

Shot for a begged and borrowed $7,000, 'Primer' looks it: grainy-ish, fuzzy on details and effects, acting running the gamut from A to B, and clipped incomprehensible technobabble for dialogue.

April 13, 2013 Full Review Source: ReelTalk Movie Reviews
ReelTalk Movie Reviews

While most time travel movies are usually mind-bending by their very nature, it's no exaggeration to say that Primer is as complicated as they come.

October 9, 2012 Full Review Source: Flix Capacitor
Flix Capacitor

ridiculous, confusing, vaguely noir-ish nonsense

August 24, 2010 Full Review Source: Cinema Writer
Cinema Writer

Discombobulating and mind-bending sci fi thriller. I think.

July 22, 2009 Full Review Source: Cinemania

An exceptional science fiction film...

April 29, 2009 Full Review Source: Cinema Crazed
Cinema Crazed

in the second commentary there is some interesting material regarding the film's creative use of shot composition. "Composition is really cheap", is the succinct explanation offered by one of them.

September 30, 2007 Full Review Source: Film4
Film4

Oh, man, they don't make 'em like this often. A film unabashedly for the nerds in the audience (God love us), this is the type of film you could inflict upon your enemies, watching them squirm as they stare at the screen.

June 21, 2007 Full Review Source: Film Scouts
Film Scouts

You're gonna love the film. It makes Memento seem linear. The dialog is jargon-packed and never slows down long enough to let you digest even a single sentence. It's like the lightening round on a game show, except that you never find out who wins.

July 20, 2006 Full Review Source: Movie City News
Movie City News

Shane Carruth's ultra-low budget, 78-minute sci-fi film could almost be a 'B' movie from the past if not for its icy intelligence.

May 26, 2006 Full Review Source: Combustible Celluloid
Combustible Celluloid

Shane Carruth's Primer is a science fiction movie like no other, pushing its experimental tendencies as far as they can go without betraying the genre

August 30, 2005 Full Review Source: Urban Cinefile
Urban Cinefile

Confident and well-woven.

August 25, 2005 Full Review Source: FilmFocus

Audience Reviews for Primer

an extremely indepth technical tackling of the concept of time travel. I may have to watch it again just to understand everything. it was not dumbed down for the masses for sure. A very solid hard sci fi movie.
March 21, 2010
jmanard52

Super Reviewer

It's hard to fault a time travel movie for being disjointed and confusing. The structure and dialogue reveals that is the intention early on - the characters hardly speak directly about anything. It seemed that they are co-conspirators in the director's intention to keep us one step behind the whole time, so they talk in unnecessary, cryptic, round-a-bout language. There is pleasure found when we do catch up to each little riddle, which is why the end disappoints. The storytelling rapidly accelerates into a confounding resolution that leaves us hopelessly in the dust.
February 28, 2013
Matthew Slaven

Super Reviewer

    1. Aaron: What's worse: thinking you're paranoid or knowing you should be?
    – Submitted by Chris R (7 months ago)
    1. Abe: Aaron, I can imagine no way in which this thing could be considered anywhere remotely close to safe. All I know is I spent six hours in there and I'm still alive... You still want to do it?
    – Submitted by Chris P (2 years ago)
    1. Aaron: Man, are you hungry? I haven't eaten since later this afternoon.
    – Submitted by Chris P (2 years ago)

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Latest News on Primer

March 16, 2005:
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