The Truman Show (1998)
Average Rating: 8.3/10
Reviews Counted: 111
Fresh: 104 | Rotten: 7
A funny, tender, and thought-provoking film, The Truman Show is all the more noteworthy for its remarkably prescient vision of runaway celebrity culture and a nation with an insatiable thirst for the private details of ordinary lives.
Average Rating: 8/10
Critic Reviews: 26
Fresh: 24 | Rotten: 2
A funny, tender, and thought-provoking film, The Truman Show is all the more noteworthy for its remarkably prescient vision of runaway celebrity culture and a nation with an insatiable thirst for the private details of ordinary lives.
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Average Rating: 3.5/5
User Ratings: 575,304
Movie Info
Peter Weir directed this comedy-drama, a commentary on all-pervasive media manipulation. Scripted by Andrew M. Niccol (Gattaca), the film plays like a combination of the British TV series The Prisoner and Paul Bartel's The Secret Cinema. Truman Burbank (Jim Carrey) is unaware that his entire life is a hugely popular 24-hour-a-day TV series. In this real-time documentary, every moment of Truman's existence is captured by concealed cameras and telecast to a giant global audience. His friends and
Jun 5, 1998 Wide
Jan 26, 1999
Paramount Pictures
Watch It Now
Cast
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Jim Carrey
Truman Burbank -
Laura Linney
Meryl -
Ed Harris
Christof -
Noah Emmerich
Marlon -
Natascha McElhone
Lauren/Sylvia -
Holland Taylor
Truman's Mother -
Brian Delate
Truman's Father -
Una Damon
Chloe -
Paul Giamatti
Control Room Directo... -
Philip Baker Hall
Network Executive -
Peter Krause
Lawrence -
John Pleshette
Network Executive -
Heidi Schanz
Vivien -
Blair Slater
Young Truman
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All Critics (111) | Top Critics (26) | Fresh (104) | Rotten (7) | DVD (40)
The important thing is that Carrey and the filmmakers have taken pains to give Truman that soul -- which, in itself, provides a kind of depth. In any case, it gets you to care about how it's going to end.
Top CriticThe movie might have been a soulless exercise without [Carrey]. With him, it has an authentic tremulousness, and also a dread, as if Pinocchio needed to take on Gepetto and Jiminy Crickett to become a real boy.
It's a satire/comedy/fantasy about the future of television and the people caught in its omnipresent electronic net: a supremely intelligent jape about a man named Truman Burbank.
Carrey is on his mettle, but you wonder why thirty years of close observation have made Truman so funny; shouldn't he be a regular guy gone mad?
Its essential strengths are more dramatic and emotional than topical or satirical. Truman is a touchingly gallant creation, the hero of someone else's existential burlesque.
A good, intelligent, insightful movie...
By trying too hard to be profound about the evils of television, this implausible sci-fi morality tale stretches this theme beyond the breaking point.
Excellently cast, immaculately designed and imaginatively filmed, The Truman Show casts the hypnotic blue glow of the television screen in a whole new light.
Tthis ingenious satirical comedy drama about media omnipotence is both dazzling and sophisticated from audacious start to poignant finale.
The Truman Show is a provocative, daring drama, and Carrey, heretofore the Silly Putty-limbed star of such lowbrow joy buzzers as Dumb and Dumber and Liar Liar, pulls off the movie's tricky leading role with aplomb.
Jim Carrey proves he has more than one acting dimension in this original, clever tale of junk-culture excess.
An unexpectedly satisfying, imaginative movie during a season of silliness and spectacle.
The Truman Show is a movie and the name of a television show within the movie, both of which star Jim Carrey. This tidy little metaphysic is superbly maintained throughout Peter Weir's flawlessly executed film.
Weir keeps things fairly entertaining, and is admirably not afraid to veer more toward drama than comedy, but his film, like the world it portrays, is all surface.
Thought-provoking story; outstanding performances.
The issues it tackles are just as relevant now (if not more so) than they were when the film was first released theatrically back in 1997.
...benefits substantially from Jim Carrey's unexpectedly layered (and flat-out moving) performance.
A hilarious and breathtakingly conceived satire which also allows Carrey to edge away from broad comedy.
Some of us may go out wishing for something meatier, edgier.
Audience Reviews for The Truman Show
Super Reviewer
"On the air. Unaware."
The Truman Show may have one of the most genius premises ever for a film. There's, especially today, always this fear of being watched. With all the paranoia about our phone calls and texts being sold to the government and with cameras everywhere and anywhere, it's a common part of our everyday. So with The Truman Show, we view a protagonist whose whole existence is a tv show. He's been on the air for thirty years, since his birth and he doesn't even know it.
Truman is a married, insurance agent. That's his "character" in the tv show, The Truman Show, that he stars as. The show was created by Christof, and everyone in the town he lives in is in on it. They are all actors. Truman is beginning to suspect all this and just wants to find the girl who he really wants to be with. But the show controls his life without his even knowing it.
This film is pretty much flawless. It's well thought out and just keeps getting better as it goes on, while many movies with great premises like this run out of steam near the end. The Truman Show is a perfect example, that great writing is what makes a movie great. Sure Peter Weir is legendary director and his work here is among his best, but what makes this movie so good, is definitely the screenplay. Also you gotta love Jim Carey in movies like this. This is where he thrives.
So if you haven't seen The Truman Show, it is a must watch. It's nonstop fun, intelligent entertainment. The story has good ideas present at every turning point, and just when you think the movie has reached as good of quality as it can, it introduces something else that makes it even better. This is a masterpiece and it would be a shame to miss a film like this one.
Super Reviewer
Movies Like The Truman Show
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- Christof: I know you better than you know yourself.
- Truman Burbank: You never had a camera in my head.
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- Truman Burbank: Who are you?
- Christof: I am the Creator - of a television show that gives hope and joy and inspiration to millions.
- Truman Burbank: Then who am I?
- Christof: You're the star.
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- Lauren/Sylvia: Look at what you've done to him!
- Christof: I have given Truman the chance to lead a normal life. The world, the place you live in, is the sick place.
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- Truman Burbank: You're going to the top of the mountain, broken legs and all.
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- Truman Burbank: In case I don't see ya, good afternoon, good evening and goodnight.
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- Meryl: Let me get you some help Truman, you're not well!
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Foreign Titles
- Die Truman-Show (DE)
- El show de Truman (ES)
