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What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?

Play trailer Poster for What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? 1962 2h 12m Horror Mystery & Thriller Drama Play Trailer Watchlist
Watchlist Tomatometer Popcornmeter
91% Tomatometer 53 Reviews 91% Popcornmeter 25,000+ Ratings
Jane Hudson (Bette Davis) is an aging child star left to care for her wheelchair-bound sister Blanche (Joan Crawford), also a former child actress. Stuck living together in a mansion in old Hollywood, Blanche plots to get even with Jane for the car crash that left her crippled years earlier. But Jane is desperate to keep Blanche imprisoned as she plans a new rise to fame, and tries to hide Blanche's existence from doctors, visitors and neighbors while she devises a way to get rid of her sister.
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What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?

What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?

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Critics Consensus

What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? combines powerhouse acting, rich atmosphere, and absorbing melodrama in service of a taut thriller with thought-provoking subtext.

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Critics Reviews

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James Powers The Hollywood Reporter 03/05/2017
A lurid melodrama of hate, revenge and murder, a high-class horror film, in the Hitchcock vein, with virtuoso performances from Bette Davis and Joan Crawford, and moments both searing and poignant. Go to Full Review
Jason Bailey Flavorwire 03/03/2017
What so often gets lost about 'Baby Jane' is that it's a real thriller, dark, suspenseful, and intense. Go to Full Review
Andrew Schenker Little White Lies 12/13/2012
3/5
There are plenty of thrills and no shortage of suspense in this darkly comic horror film. Go to Full Review
Matt Brunson Film Frenzy Mar 27
3.5/4
This offers an endless stream of indelible moments directed with ghoulish glee by Robert Aldrich. Go to Full Review
Penelope Gilliatt Observer (UK) 03/06/2024
It plays on the public's subconscious resentment of film stars... Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? is an oddly vengeful movie. Go to Full Review
Trace Thurman Horror Queers Podcast 05/17/2023
4/5
What could have been a campy B-movie becomes a rather touching tragedy thanks to two powerhouse lead performances from Joan Crawford and (especially) Bette Davis. Go to Full Review
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Audience Reviews

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Mariana T @M.Tezeta 6h "Could we have been friends all this time?"... Without a doubt, this is the most macabre sister story I've ever seen. Bette Davis, along with Joan Crawford, mesmerizes the viewer from beginning to end. You can't consider Jane a disturbed woman without first considering how influenced she is by her sister Blanche's thirst for revenge. And Blanche isn't simply a victim; she also generates guilt. In the end, I concluded that both women were victims of their desire to stand out... I wish they hadn't so desperately sought acceptance in an industry where expectations change so rapidly. At times, I wanted more plot twists, but I realized that this story aims to create a sense of ambivalence between who is guilty and who you feel sorry for... in any case, this bitterness was enough to enjoy the film until the very end. Jane dancing in the final scene immortalizes everything. See more Teddy B 23h This film is a case similar to 'The Exorcist', in my opinion. A wonderful novel perfectly fit for a movie, placed in the hands of a talented director, performed by actors in their A-grade, shot beautifully and breezily paced, with their own merits towards either the history of their actors or on movies themselves. Bette Davis and Joan Crawford make this movie, especially Bette Davis. Her ability to disappear into this role, her willingness to transform herself completely into this complicated villain in Baby Jane Hudson as she did nearly thirty years earlier with Mildred in 'Of Human Bondage', is commendable above all else and a true testament to her talent. See more Perry N H @Paras224 Jan 15 Heaven; shlud have been Davis' 4th oscar See more Christopher K. @gtrod47 Dec 24 Ahead of its time. Great performances. Strange. See more John S Nov 1 Brilliant on so many levels! This is a fascinating movie. Highly recommend. See more Mitch C @PrimetimeMitch Sep 9 This is quite the twisted tragic tale and another example of the dramatic lengths Bette Davis would go to. It's part black comedy, part drama and part horror - the latter existing in the demented actions of Jane Hudson played gruesomely by Davis whose abuse of her sister Blanche is unsettling viewing. Crawford is good and her deterioration and desperation are well executed as are moments of hope dashed by Jane's repeated returns to foil cries for help. The ending may suffer somewhat from the heights of Jane's mental breakdown as it's slows to a conclusion but the image of Davis dancing in a circle of onlookers with ice cream - a flash to her hideously spoilt younger self - is striking and effective. The movie shifts to give us new perspective and question who is the greater villain - though I feel its fleeting as the behaviour displayed by James throughout is not so much bore out of jealousy as purely psychotic See more Read all reviews
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?

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Movie Info

Synopsis Jane Hudson (Bette Davis) is an aging child star left to care for her wheelchair-bound sister Blanche (Joan Crawford), also a former child actress. Stuck living together in a mansion in old Hollywood, Blanche plots to get even with Jane for the car crash that left her crippled years earlier. But Jane is desperate to keep Blanche imprisoned as she plans a new rise to fame, and tries to hide Blanche's existence from doctors, visitors and neighbors while she devises a way to get rid of her sister.
Director
Robert Aldrich
Producer
Robert Aldrich
Screenwriter
Lukas Heller, Henry Farrell
Distributor
Warner Bros., Warner Home Vídeo
Production Co
The Associates & Aldrich Company Inc., Aldrich, Seven Arts Pictures, Warner Brothers
Genre
Horror, Mystery & Thriller, Drama
Original Language
English
Release Date (Theaters)
Oct 31, 1962, Wide
Release Date (Streaming)
Nov 21, 2016
Runtime
2h 12m
Sound Mix
Mono
Aspect Ratio
Flat (1.37:1)
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