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There’s a hum to the night of major cities. It’s the sound of unceasing traffic, neon lights buzzing, televisions on in every apartment, and more, and it creates a unique energy that you don’t find outside of places like New York City, Atlanta, Chicago, etc. It’s the kind of anxious energy that comes with a lack of sleep—paranoid and twitchy. That hum pervades the Safdie brothers’ excellent “Good Time,” a film that reminds me of great “city movies” of the ‘70s like “ Mean Streets ” and “ Dog Day Afternoon .” With a central performance from Robert Pattinson that feels like a direct descendant of Al Pacino ’s in that Lumet film, “Good Time” is a movie that can’t sit still, and I mean that in the best possible way. There’s a palpable sense of anxiety and panic that comes through in every heated frame after the film’s inciting incident. It’s one of those rare movies that makes you feel edgy, conveying its protagonist’s dilemma in ways that prey on your nerves and emotions more than just relaying a night-from-hell anecdote.

“Good Time” opens with one of its only relatively sedate scenes (although even it is filmed in such a way that it feels tense). Nick Nikas (the film’s co-director Ben Safdie ) sits uncomfortably in a court-ordered therapy session. Through the exchange with his doctor (Peter Verby), we learn that Nick was violent with his grandmother, and that he’s mentally handicapped enough to not fully understand how to control his anger or the social repercussions of his actions. Just as the therapist is getting somewhere, Nick’s brother Connie (Pattinson) bursts in and takes Nick out of the room. Connie thinks he’s doing good by protecting his brother—of course, he is not. And this will be a theme of the night ahead of Connie, one in which he’ll constantly try to fix a situation but only make it worse.

The movie proper opens with a bank robbery. Nick and Connie want $65,000 from a bank and appear to get away with it before a dye pack covers them, and their payload, in bright red dye. Nick gets nabbed by the cops, sending him to Rikers Island. Too much of the robbery money is ruined to make his bail, so Connie needs to come up with $10k as quickly as possible to get him out. He starts with his girlfriend ( Jennifer Jason Leigh ), and, well, things get crazier from there in ways that I wouldn’t dare spoil.

Working again with the great cinematographer Sean Price Williams (who shot the Safdies’ “ Heaven Knows What ,” Alex Ross Perry ’s “ Queen of Earth ,” and others), the Safdies give “Good Time” a claustrophobic energy that’s hard to fully convey in a review. It’s accomplished through intense close-ups and a style that could be called jittery but never calls too much attention to itself. It’s a visual language designed to enhance the enhance the mood of its leading man without distracting from it, and it works remarkably with an assist by a pulsing score from Daniel Lopatin .

Having said that, most of what shines so well about “Good Time” can be traced back to Robert Pattinson’s performance, the best of an already-impressive career. He is impossible to ignore from his very first scene, expressing Connie’s ability to only keep digging himself deeper and deeper into trouble. Connie makes choices instantly, and one gets the impression that it’s an instinctual ability that has helped him at times but will only prove his downfall on this particular night. “Good Time” is essentially one long chase movie—the story of a man trying to evade capture for a bank robbery and get his brother out of the predicament into which he threw him—and Pattinson perfectly conveys the nervous energy of being essentially hunted by your own bad decisions without ever feeling like he’s chewing scenery. Like Pacino in the ‘70s, there’s something in the eyes and the body language, an unease about what’s going to happen next, an inability to sit down. It is a stunning performance, and one of the best of 2017 by far.

By and large, films are passive experiences. We sit in the dark and allow stories to play out in front of us, behind the safety of the movie screen. Movies like “Good Time” that break down that comfort and make us as edgy as their protagonists are rare and should be embraced. They give us the characters that stand the test of time and, as with “Dog Day Afternoon,” people keep discussing four decades after their release. Connie Nikas is one of those characters.

Brian Tallerico

Brian Tallerico is the Managing Editor of RogerEbert.com, and also covers television, film, Blu-ray, and video games. He is also a writer for Vulture, The Playlist, The New York Times, and GQ, and the President of the Chicago Film Critics Association.

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Good Time (2017)

100 minutes

Robert Pattinson as Connie Nikas

Buddy Duress as Ray

Ben Safdie as Nick Nikas

Taliah Webster as Crystal

Jennifer Jason Leigh as Corey

Barkhad Abdi as Dash

• Joshua Safdie
• Ronald Bronstein

Cinematographer

• Sean Price Williams
• Daniel Lopatin

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After a botched bank robbery lands his younger brother in prison, Connie Nikas embarks on a twisted odyssey through New York City's underworld to get his brother Nick out of jail. After a botched bank robbery lands his younger brother in prison, Connie Nikas embarks on a twisted odyssey through New York City's underworld to get his brother Nick out of jail. After a botched bank robbery lands his younger brother in prison, Connie Nikas embarks on a twisted odyssey through New York City's underworld to get his brother Nick out of jail.

• Benny Safdie
• Josh Safdie
• Ronald Bronstein
• Robert Pattinson
• Jennifer Jason Leigh
• 405 User reviews
• 296 Critic reviews
• 80 Metascore
• 6 wins & 47 nominations

• Connie Nikas

• Corey Ellman

• (as Taliah Lennice Webster)

• Dash the Park Security Guard

• Peter the Psychiatrist
• Agapia Nikas
• Loren Ellman

• Eric the Bail Bondsman
• Bail Bondsman's Assistant
• Rachel the Public Defender

• Acid Buying Complainer

• Nassau County Police Officer A
• All cast & crew
• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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Did you know

• Trivia All actors didn't read the script but were given a detailed backstory of their characters and were told to improvise every scene, while Robert Pattinson and Benny Safdie had scripts but were still told to react to the others as well as they could.
• Goofs When Connie drives past the Elmhurst Hospital to drop off Ray, he is actually driving past the Saint Joseph's Medical Center in Yonkers, New York.

Connie Nikas : I think something very important is happening and it's deeply connected to my purpose.

• Crazy credits Excepting the production companies and title, the opening credits begin 17 minutes into the movie.
• Connections Featured in Chris Stuckmann Movie Reviews: Good Time (2017)
• Soundtracks Tu Con El (uncredited) Written by Eduardo Franco Da Silva Performed by Frankie Ruiz

User reviews 405

• raphaellecat
• Mar 28, 2019
• August 25, 2017 (United States)
• United States
• Official Facebook
• Official site (Japan)
• Good Time: Viviendo al límite
• Adventureland Amusement Park, Farmingdale, Long Island, New York, USA (adventureland amusement park scene)
• Elara Pictures
• Rhea Films (II)
• See more company credits at IMDbPro
• $4,500,000 (estimated)
• Aug 13, 2017

Technical specs

• Runtime 1 hour 42 minutes
• Dolby Digital

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‘good time’: film review | cannes 2017.

Robert Pattinson stars as a small-time criminal on a nocturnal odyssey to break his brother out of custody in 'Good Time,' New York guerilla-filmmaking siblings Josh and Benny Safdie's upgrade to the Cannes competition.

By David Rooney

David Rooney

Chief Film Critic

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If the Safdie Brothers’ last feature, Heaven Knows What , evoked The Panic in Needle Park with its cinema verite observation of the New York City heroin subculture, their impressive follow-up, Good Time , sees them continuing to draw inspiration from the gritty American movies of the 1970s , albeit with their own distinctive street edge. Led by Robert Pattinson , giving arguably his most commanding performance to date as a desperate bank robber cut from the same cloth as Al Pacino’s Sonny Wortzik in Dog Day Afternoon , this is a richly textured genre piece that packs a visceral charge in its restless widescreen visuals and adrenalizing music, which recalls the great mood-shaping movie scores of Tangerine Dream.

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The authority demonstrated here in the use of locations, lighting, sound, an anxiety-inducing shooting style and agitated editing — not to mention acting that is as invigoratingly in-the-moment as the breathless storytelling — more than justifies the elevation of co-directors Josh and Benny Safdie to the main competition in Cannes. The movie continues a trend of superior genre entries landing a slot in the premier global film showcase, though unlike, say, Drive , to name an entertaining recent example, Good Time never sacrifices its raw urgency to slickness. Those qualities, plus the head-turning work of Pattinson , should serve A24 well in a domestic release set for Aug. 11.

Release date: Aug 11, 2017

The opening scene pulls us instantly into a high-stakes emotional world. A social-services shrink (Peter Verby ) attempts to guide nervous patient Nick Nikas (Benny Safdie ) through some basic response tests, such as sentence interpretation and word comparison, while Sean Price Williams’ camera crowds in on him, forcing us to share directly in Nick’s trauma. Fragments of information expanded only minimally later on reveal there’s been violence at home with Nick’s Greek grandmother, and the silent tears that pool in his eyes inform us right off the bat that this is going to be a wrenching experience.

The painful intimacy of that scene explodes when Nick’s brother Connie ( Pattinson ) storms into the room and hauls him out of there, screaming that he doesn’t belong in a place only subsequently revealed to be a psychiatric treatment facility.

The action then shifts without a moment’s pause to a bank robbery in Queens, with a sly racial commentary inferred by having Connie and Nick hold up an African-American cashier while wearing masks, sunglasses and hoodies that give them the appearance of black men.

The scene is almost unbearably tense, though the robbery seems to go without any major hitches. A brief exchange of dialogue that immediately follows conveys not only that Connie is fiercely protective of his hearing-impaired, intellectually disabled brother, but he also pushes him to overcome his handicap attitudinally. “You’re incredible, do you understand?” Connie asks him rhetorically, establishing their George-and-Lennie bond. “I’m serious, do you think I could have done that without you standing next to me, being strong?” But unforeseen complications ensue, and Nick is apprehended during a panicked chase by cops.

That all this and more happens prior to and during the delayed opening credits is indicative of the film’s relentless pacing, and given the extreme vulnerability of Nick in particular, some audiences may find it distressing to watch.

A different kind of tension that’s no less electric pulsates through the scenes that follow. Connie manipulates his flaky girlfriend ( Jennifer Jason Leigh ) into paying Nick’s bail, only to discover that her mother is sufficiently onto him to have blocked her credit cards, and that Nick has been removed from the volatile holding pen at Rikers to Elmhurst Hospital. A night of escalating chaos and violence follows as Connie goes to increasingly desperate lengths to save his brother from a fate he knows he won’t survive.

That odyssey leads to various figures unwittingly being drawn into Connie’s mayhem, notably Crystal ( Taliah Webster, an understated natural), the self-possessed 16-year-old granddaughter of a Haitian woman (Gladys Mathon ) who helps him out against her better judgment; and Ray ( Heaven Knows What discovery Buddy Duress), a newly paroled, motormouth Ratso Rizzo-type with access to a stash of liquid LSD that might help them raise the cash to bail out Nick.

It’s a testament to the propulsive power of the Safdies ‘ direction and the perceptive character detailing of the script by Josh Safdie and regular collaborator Ronald Bronstein that Nick’s disappearance for much of the action, while it’s inevitably felt, brings no fatal loss of momentum. Instead, it’s replaced by a different, energized dynamic between Connie and Ray. Their hastily improvised solution leads them on a careening caper where they break into Adventureland , a run-down theme park, encountering resistance from a determined security guard ( Barkhad Abdi , from Captain Phillips ).

The milieu and character insight here are consistent with the strung-out, generally luckless outsiders, constantly winging it in existences unfurling without a plan; and with the street-life situations that have defined the Safdie Brothers’ films since their debut, Daddy Longlegs . While their latest feature is more conventionally structured, it’s still loose, unpredictable and exciting in its cold-plunge immersion into desperate lives and sharply drawn relationships. That means even the accidental nobility of Connie and the subdued note of sentiment in the conclusion feel honest and quite affecting.

It’s easy to see what draws actors to work with the directing team, who clearly encourage a freedom to experiment that allows someone like Leigh to make a vivid impression even in limited screen time. There’s almost invariably a sense of deep-dish backstories , even of characters we meet only for the briefest time, and the interplay between experienced actors and nonprofessionals adds authenticity.

Duress delivers on the promise of his live-wire work in Heaven Knows What , with a lowlife portrait both funny and infuriating, and Benny Safdie makes Nick a hulking figure of heartbreaking pathos, with never a false moment. But the magnetic center is Pattinson , playing a driven man whose ethics may be questionable even if his motivation at all times is rooted in fraternal devotion. It’s a performance of can’t-look-away intensity without an ounce of movie-star vanity.

Good Time looks terrific, bringing a scrappy sheen to the Safdies ‘ native borough. But more essential to its tight clench is the knockout underscoring, an almost nonstop blitz of intoxicating electronica from Brooklyn-based experimental composer Daniel Lopatin , who records as Oneohtrix Point Never. Lopatin also collaborated with Iggy Pop on an original closing-credits song, aptly titled “The Pure and the Damned.” Throughout, the prog-rock synth sounds conjure echoes of the vintage films of William Friedkin , Michael Mann and perhaps a hint of Assault on Precinct 13 John Carpenter, and yet the sonic carpeting never feels derivative.

The movie is bracing stuff — lean and punchy — that heightens expectations for the Safdies ‘ next project, the Martin Scorsese-produced Diamond District thriller Uncut Gems.

Production companies: Elara Pictures, in association with Rhea Films Distributor: A24 Cast: Robert Pattinson , Benny Safdie , Jennifer Jason Leigh, Barkhad Abdi , Buddy Duress, Taliah Webster, Peter Verby , Gladys Mathon , Necro Directors: Josh Safdie , Benny Safdie Screenwriters: Ronald Bronstein , Josh Safdie Producers: Sebastian Bear-McClard , Oscar Boyson , Jean-Luc de Fanti , Terry Douglas, Paris Kasidokostas Latsis Director of photography: Sean Price Williams Production designer: Samuel Lisenco Costume designer: Mordechai Rubinstein Music: Oneohtrix Point Never Editors: Benny Safdie , Ronald Bronstein Visual effects supervisor: Adam Teninbaum Casting: Jennifer Venditti , Eleonore Hendricks Venue: Cannes Film Festival (Competition) Sales: Memento Films 100 minutes

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Screen Rant

Jason statham's worst-rated rotten tomatoes movie is part of a shocking 18-year director streak.

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All 6 Jason Statham Comedy Movies, Ranked Worst To Best

All 6 jason statham villain roles, ranked worst to best, all 9 jason statham non-action movies, ranked worst to best.

• In the Name of the King is Jason Statham's lowest-rated movie, with a paltry 4% on Rotten Tomatoes.
• Despite its abundance of errors, the film still inspired a sequel and established a modest legacy.
• Uwe Boll's streak of critical failures lasted 18 years, with In the Name of the King just a small part.

Jason Statham 's lowest-rated Rotten Tomatoes movie is a badge of dishonor for the action superstar, but the film is just a small part of a much longer streak. A veteran of high-profile projects like Fast and Furious , The Expendables , and The Transporter series, Statham is widely recognized as one of the most popular genre stars working today. Despite this record of success, however, Statham has not been immune from failure. In fact, as his lowest-rated movie proves, he has previously proved more than capable of choosing some seriously questionable projects.

Although he has shown more consistency in recent years, Statham's early career is pockmarked by misfires . Alongside early independent hits like Snatch , for example, Statham also starred in critical and commercial failures like the Ja Rule vehicle Turn It Up (10% on Rotten Tomatoes). Even when his action career began in earnest with 2002's The Transporter , he was still following up hits with bombs such as Statham's Guy Ritchie collaboration Revolver (15% on Rotten Tomatoes). However, while these films and others like them remain low points in Statham's now-established career, one film ranks lower than any other.

Jason Statham is best known for his action-packed roles in iconic crime movies, but he also has starred in several comedies.

In The Name Of The King Is Jason Statham's Lowest-Rated Movie On Rotten Tomatoes

It holds a critics score of 4%.

With a critical score of just 4% on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, Jason Statham's action fantasy flick In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale is the actor's lowest-rated movie of all time . Although it's comparatively close to second place on the ignominious list (2010's 13 – sitting at 7% on Rotten Tomatoes), the 2007 movie stands out for its comparatively large budget (estimated at $60 million), stacked cast (including the likes of Ron Perlman, John Rhys-Davies, and Ray Liotta), and popular video game source material. While these factors could have come together to create something magical, In the Name of the King was a disaster.

The movie sees Jason Statham take on the role of the mysterious Farmer , a peasant who discovers that he is the long-lost son of the king. This thrusts him into a desperate struggle for the throne, where he is forced to reckon with his true destiny whilst trying to save his kidnapped family. It's a story redolent of many of the most popular epic fantasy adventures. Unfortunately, in this instance, the film falls completely flat.

As the Rotten Tomatoes consensus explains, In the Name of the King suffered from " mostly wooden performances, laughable dialogue, and shoddy production values ." Unsurprisingly, this assessment did not endear the film to audiences. In the Name of the King made just $13.1 million at the global box office , while its audience score on Rotten Tomatoes sits at a disappointing 22%. All this unquestionably marks the movie out as the nadir of Statham's impressive film career . And yet, for all the effect it had on Statham In the Name of the King was just part of another, much more alarming streak for the film's director.

In The Name Of The King Is Part Of Uwe Boll's Terrible Rotten Tomatoes Streak

It lasted for 18 years.

Whilst In the Name of the King is a low watermark for many otherwise reputable actors, it represents just a small fraction of one of the worst critical streaks in film history, courtesy of its German director, Uwe Boll. One of the most notorious auteurs in the industry, Boll began his career in the early 90s with a string of off-beat horror and comedy movies, such as Amoklauf and German Fried Movie . He then focused on the horror genre, before establishing himself as the most prolific adapter of video games in the industry – in which In the Name of the King was a cornerstone.

Jason Statham has established himself as an action movie hero, but the British star hasn't always played the good guy in his various projects.

Without context, Boll's career seems fairly unremarkable – if slightly unorthodox. However, in one of the most surprising streaks in Rotten Tomatoes history, none of the films made in the first 18 years of the director's career secured a positive " Fresh " rating on Rotten Tomatoes. As a result, while a film like In the Name of the King was an aberration for many of the cast, its performance was almost par for the course as far as Boll was concerned.

...despite In the Name of the King 's poor reputation, it is – perhaps perversely – not as embarrassing an outlier as it might be for other filmmakers.

Amazingly, In the Name of the King is not the worst-rated film in Boll's career. His infamous 2005 action-horror flick Alone in the Dark holds a rare 1% rating on Rotten Tomatoes , with the critical consensus declaring it " Inept on almost every level ". Likewise, Boll's 2003 video game movie debut, House of the Dead , holds just 3% on the site – a then low-point in the director's filmography. As a result, despite In the Name of the King 's poor reputation, it is – perhaps perversely – not as embarrassing an outlier as it might be for other filmmakers.

Despite Its Terrible Reviews, In The Name Of The King Was Still A (Partial) Success

It left a surprising legacy.

Beyond the fact that it is not the worst movie in Boll's career, In the Name of the King has other surprising attributes. Despite bombing with both critics and cinema-goers, the movie managed to find enough of an audience to justify a sequel . In the Name of the King 2: Two Worlds came out in 2010 and received an equally poor critical response – despite the star power of Dolph Lundgren. A second sequel followed in 2014, meaning that In the Name of the King spawned a modest fantasy action franchise – despite its poor reputation.

Admittedly, none of the two sequels that followed the original enjoyed any notable critical or financial success. Both were released directly on DVD and Blu-Ray, unlike the first movie – which had a limited theatrical run. Nevertheless, it's clear that In the Name of the King proved popular enough to establish a small but significant legacy – a noteworthy achievement for Jason Statham's lowest-rated movie.

Despite being best known for his exploits in action movies, Jason Statham has featured in several projects across a variety of different genres.

Has Uwe Boll Ever Made A Good Movie?

His career has been hit and miss.

In no small part thanks to the reputation of his video game movies, Uwe Boll has been generally ridiculed by critics . In fact, such is the perceived animosity between Boll and professional review writers that the director has even threatened to fight those who slander his work in a series of licensed boxing matches. However, despite the popular perception that critics universally despite his films, the picture is actually much more complicated.

The reason Boll's Rotten Tomatoes streak is technically only 18 years long is that his 2009 action movie Rampage is technically 100%-rated on the site – albeit from just two professional reviews. However, the fact that its audience score sits at a respectable 51% indicates that the movie is a vast improvement on efforts like In the Name of the King . Similarly, his political thriller Darfur even won Best International Film at New York International Independent Film and Video Festival , further underscoring his credentials. As a result, while his collaboration with Jason Statham remains a miscalculation from both parties, Boll is far from a total failure.

Source: Rotten Tomatoes

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Robert Pattinson Gives a Career-Best Performance in the Safdie Brothers’ ‘Good Time’ — Cannes 2017 Review

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In the opening minutes of Josh and Benny Safdie’s “ Good Time ,” Robert Pattinson bursts into the room and it’s clear he’s trying something different. With his black hair tousled above an angry stare and a silvery earring peering out from one side, he’s a scruffy, irrepressible ball of fury, eager to fix a problem and on the verge of making it worse. He’s abrasive, clumsy and a little bit fearsome. In other words: He’s in a Safdie brothers movie.

Anyone familiar with the sibling directors from their dreary NYC junkie drama “Heaven Knows What” or gritty urban comedy “Daddy Longlegs” knows how the brothers have assembled a universe of grimy characters enmeshed in bizarre, dangerous circumstances that can seem at once naturalistic and surreal. With “Good Time,” they transform that focus into a Kafkaesque heist movie, populated by maniacal characters careening through Queens on a doom-laden quest over the course of a single tumultuous night. It’s a wild, twisty maze of misbegotten plans by desperate people, and exists within the confines of their aggressive desire to get the job done.

This time, Pattinson provides the propulsive energy that makes the whole apparatus churn. Pushing beyond the muted roles for which he’s best known, the actor transforms into a vain, reckless character driven against impossible odds. The whole movie zips forward at an unnerving speed, and Pattinson’s tasked with making much of it believable — but he’s complemented by a co-star tackling a risky part: As two-bit bank robber Connie Niklas, Pattinson first appears opposite Benny Safdie, who plays Connie’s mentally disabled brother Nick.

Any suggestion of a reductive or insensitive performance on the actor-director’s part is quickly assuaged by Safdie’s quiet, measured turn; his distant eyes stuck in a frozen gaze, Benny’s Nick is a sad, gullible figure, but not a cartoonish simpleton. When Niklas bursts into a mental hospital to shelter his brother from a psychiatrist’s prying questions, Nick listens to his brother as they head for the exit and embrace. The jarring scene is filled with equal measures of chaos and affection. Again: It’s a Safdie brothers movie.

Connie’s a domineering figure intent on supporting his brother on his own terms, and when the pair rob a bank while wearing hoodies and rubber masks, at first it seems as though he’s slick enough to have concocted the perfect scheme. Minutes later, however, the situation takes a dour turn, as Sean Price Williams’ jittery cinematography chases the brothers through a hectic pursuit with the NYPD closing in.

Up to point, “Good Time” suggests “Of Mice and Men” by way of “Dog Day Afternoon,” but that’s only the prologue to the loopy subterranean odyssey around the corner. The rambunctious plot doesn’t stop twisting, veering from misanthropy to slow-burn suspense and eventually absurdist comedy, as if following the uneven contours of its troubled characters’ minds. Pattinson, his stern expression belying Connie’s mounting anxiety about his brother’s fate, channels the hopeless determination that keeps him going.

And he needs the extra push. Over the course of the night, Nick is detained by authorities and enmeshed in brutal late-night prison showdowns, while Connie bounces around town in search of help like Gary Cooper in “High Noon” with the velocity turned up to 11. At first, Connie seeks $10,000 for his brother’s parole, going so far as to trick an older squeeze into giving it to him; when that plot hits a wall, and Nick winds up hospitalized, Connie shifts gears to attempt an old-fashioned prison break.

Needless to say, that doesn’t go as planned, either. The ensuing misadventure finds Pattinson on the lam, hiding out in multiple households, joining forces with unlikely criminals, chasing buried treasure, and stealing a Sprite bottle of acid. The Safdies enhance the sheer lunacy of the plot with the unnerving tension of Connie’s messy journey around town, while the throbbing score by Daniel Lopatin (“The Bling Ring”) ensures the breathless pace never slows down.

That’s because Nick can’t afford to let that happen, and yet nothing he does is exactly right. After pulling off a daring rescue, he’s faced with a brutal punchline that throws him into far worse circumstances, and the rage in Pattinson’s eyes capture genuine emotion even as his situation strains credibility. It’s hard to believe that any of this will end well for him, but never less than thrilling to see him try to defeat the odds.

Pattinson’s dynamic performance is aided by the thuggish extremes of a hilarious drug-dealing Queens bro played by Buddy Duress who winds up in Connie’s car during the second act, exhibiting a goofier, self-absorbed opposite to the fragile heroin addict he played in “Heaven Knows What.” While Pattinson enters new territory, Durress is the movie’s real discovery — a hapless figure of despair who’s funny despite himself. For reasons too outrageous and strange to spoil here, the pair eventually join forces in a last-ditch attempt to score some dough and fix their problems.

The night takes on a phantasmagoric dimension when Connie arrives at a theme park after hours, but even this zany development contains an undertone of dread that lies at the root of the Safdies’ work, which has never been more exciting to watch than within the confines of this vibrant genre exercise.

“Good Time” ventures further and further into deranged circumstances with taut and ridiculous outcomes, in most cases leading to disorienting punchlines that speak to the underlying desire to make laughter catch in your throat.

After such powerful momentum, the brothers don’t quite stick the landing, but it’s a thrill to watch them try. More troubling is the way the only prominent female characters of the movie seem to inhabit shrill or clueless archetypes, as if the screenwriters (Josh Safdie and “Daddy Longlegs” star Ronnie Bronstein) decided they could only craft from the world of the movie from the narrow-minded perspective of its rash antihero. The Safdies may be working on a slightly bigger scale this time around, but the movie also shows the limitations of their range.

However, there’s simply no other modern American filmmaker capable of generating comedy and deep-seated suspense at the same time. “Good Time” combines anarchic sensibilities with an exacting style, its loopy plot starting in dark places and heads into willfully absurd directions before doubling back to a wakeup call. The essence of this unique directing duo’s appeal is they pin down what it feels like when crazy escapades die down and life gets real.

“Good Time” premiered in Official Competition at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival. A24 will release it in August 2017.

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Rotten Tomatoes, explained

Does a movie’s Rotten Tomatoes score affect its box office returns? And six other questions, answered.

by Alissa Wilkinson

In February 2016, Rotten Tomatoes — the site that aggregates movie and TV critics’ opinions and tabulates a score that’s “fresh” or “rotten” — took on an elevated level of importance. That’s when Rotten Tomatoes (along with its parent company Flixster) was acquired by Fandango , the website that sells advance movie tickets for many major cinema chains.

People had been using Rotten Tomatoes to find movie reviews since it launched in 2000, but after Fandango acquired the site, it began posting “Tomatometer” scores next to movie ticket listings. Since then, studio execs have started to feel as if Rotten Tomatoes matters more than it used to — and in some cases, they’ve rejiggered their marketing strategies accordingly.

It’s easy to see why anyone might assume that Rotten Tomatoes scores became more tightly linked to ticket sales, with potential audiences more likely to buy tickets for a movie with a higher score, and by extension, giving critics more power over the purchase of a ticket.

But that’s not the whole story. And as most movie critics (including myself) will tell you, the correlation between Rotten Tomatoes scores, critical opinion, marketing tactics, and actual box office returns is complicated. It’s not a simple cause-and-effect situation.

My own work is included in both Rotten Tomatoes’ score and that of its more exclusive cousin, Metacritic . So I, along with many other critics , think often of the upsides and pitfalls of aggregating critical opinion and its effect on which movies people see. But for the casual moviegoer, how review aggregators work, what they measure, and how they affect ticket sales can be mysterious.

So when I got curious about how people perceive Rotten Tomatoes and its effect on ticket sales, I did what any self-respecting film critic does: I informally polled my Twitter followers to see what they wanted to know.

Here are seven questions that many people have about Rotten Tomatoes, and review aggregation more generally — and some facts to clear up the confusion.

How is a Rotten Tomatoes score calculated?

The score that Rotten Tomatoes assigns to a film corresponds to the percentage of critics who’ve judged the film to be “fresh,” meaning their opinion of it is more positive than negative. The idea is to quickly offer moviegoers a sense of critical consensus.

“Our goal is to serve fans by giving them useful tools and one-stop access to critic reviews, user ratings, and entertainment news to help with their entertainment viewing decisions,” Jeff Voris, a vice president at Rotten Tomatoes, told me in an email.

The opinions of about 3,000 critics — a.k.a. the “Approved Tomatometer Critics” who have met a series of criteria set by Rotten Tomatoes — are included in the site’s scores, though not every critic reviews every film, so any given score is more typically derived from a few hundred critics, or even less. The scores don’t include just anyone who calls themselves a critic or has a movie blog; Rotten Tomatoes only aggregates critics who have been regularly publishing movie reviews with a reasonably widely read outlet for at least two years, and those critics must be “active,” meaning they've published at least one review in the last year. The site also deems a subset of critics to be “top critics” and calculates a separate score that only includes them.

Some critics (or staffers at their publications) upload their own reviews, choose their own pull quotes, and designate their review as “fresh” or “rotten.” Other critics (including myself) have their reviews uploaded, pull-quoted, and tagged as fresh or rotten by the Rotten Tomatoes staff. In the second case, if the staff isn't sure whether to tag a review as fresh or rotten, they reach out to the critic for clarification. And critics who don't agree with the site’s designation can request that it be changed.

As the reviews of a given film accumulate, the Rotten Tomatoes score measures the percentage that are more positive than negative, and assigns an overall fresh or rotten rating to the movie. Scores of over 60 percent are considered fresh, and scores of 59 percent and under are rotten. To earn the coveted “designated fresh” seal, a film needs at least 40 reviews, 75 percent of which are fresh, and five of which are from “top” critics.

What does a Rotten Tomatoes score really mean ?

A Rotten Tomatoes score represents the percentage of critics who felt mildly to wildly positively about a given film.

If I give a film a mixed review that’s generally positive (which, in Vox’s rating system, could range from a positive-skewing 3 to the rare totally enamored 5), that review receives the same weight as an all-out rave from another critic. (When I give a movie a 2.5, I consider that to be a neutral score; by Rotten Tomatoes' reckoning, it's rotten.) Theoretically, a 100 percent Rotten Tomatoes rating could be made up entirely of middling-to-positive reviews. And if half of the critics the site aggregates only sort of like a movie, and the other half sort of dislike it, the film will hover around 50 percent (which is considered “rotten” by the site).

Contrary to some people’s perceptions, Rotten Tomatoes itself maintains no opinion about a film. What Rotten Tomatoes tries to gauge is critical consensus.

• Why people are freaking out over Wonder Woman’s stellar Rotten Tomatoes score

Critics’ opinions do tend to cluster on most films. But there are always outliers, whether from contrarians (who sometimes seem to figure out what people will say and then take the opposite opinion), or from those who seem to love every film. And critics, like everyone, have various life experiences, aesthetic preferences, and points of view that lead them to have differing opinions on movies.

So in many (if not most) cases, a film’s Rotten Tomatoes score may not correspond to any one critic’s view. It’s more like an imprecise estimate of what would happen if you mashed together every Tomatometer critic and had the resulting super-critic flash a thumbs-up or thumbs-down.

Rotten Tomatoes also lets audiences rate movies, and the score is often out of step with the critical score. Sometimes, the difference is extremely significant, a fact that's noticeable because the site lists the two scores side by side.

There’s a straightforward reason the two rarely match, though: The critical score is more controlled and methodical.

Why? Most professional critics have to see and review many films, whether or not they’re inclined to like the movie. (Also, most critics don’t pay to see films, because studios hold special early screenings for them ahead of the release date, which removes the decision of whether they’re interested enough in a film to spend their hard-earned money on seeing it.)

But with Rotten Tomatoes’ audience score, the situation is different. Anyone on the internet can contribute — not just those who actually saw the film. As a result, a film’s Rotten Tomatoes score can be gamed by internet trolls seeking to sink it simply because they find its concept offensive. A concerted effort can drive down the film’s audience score before it even comes out, as was the case with the all-female reboot of Ghostbusters .

Even if Rotten Tomatoes required people to pass a quiz on the movie before they rated it, the score would still be somewhat unreliable. Why? Because ordinary audiences are more inclined to buy tickets to movies they’re predisposed to like — who wants to spend $12 to $20 on a film they’re pretty sure they’ll hate?

So audience scores at Rotten Tomatoes (and other audience-driven scores, like the ones at IMDb) naturally skew very positive, or sometimes very negative if there’s any sort of smear campaign in play. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that. But audience scores tend to not account for those who would never buy a ticket to the movie in the first place.

In contrast, since critics see lots of movies — some of which they would have gone to see anyhow, and some of which they would’ve never chosen to see if their editors didn’t make the assignment — their opinion distribution should theoretically be more even, and thus the critical Rotten Tomatoes score more “accurate.”

Or at least that’s what Rotten Tomatoes thinks. The site displays a movie’s critics’ scores — the official Tomatometer — at Fandango and in a more prominent spot on the movie’s Rotten Tomatoes landing page. The audience score is also displayed on the Rotten Tomatoes page, but it’s not factored into the film’s fresh or rotten rating, and doesn’t contribute to a film being labeled as “certified fresh.”

Why do critics often get frustrated by the Tomatometer?

The biggest reason many critics find Rotten Tomatoes frustrating is that most people’s opinions about movies can’t be boiled down to a simple thumbs up or down. And most critics feel that Rotten Tomatoes, in particular, oversimplifies criticism, to the detriment of critics, the audience, and the movies themselves.

In some cases, a film really is almost universally considered to be excellent, or to be a complete catastrophe. But critics usually come away from a movie with a mixed view. Some things work, and others don’t. The actors are great, but the screenplay is lacking. The filmmaking is subpar, but the story is imaginative. Some critics use a four- or five-star rating, sometimes with half-stars included, to help quantify mixed opinions as mostly negative or mostly positive.

The important point here is that no critic who takes their job seriously is going to have a simple yes-or-no system for most movies. Critics watch a film, think about it, and write a review that doesn't just judge the movie but analyzes, contextualizes, and ruminates over it. The fear among many critics (including myself) is that people who rely largely on Rotten Tomatoes aren't interested in the nuances of a film, and aren't particularly interested in reading criticism, either.

But maybe the bigger reason critics are worried about the influence of review aggregators is that they seem to imply there's a “right” way to evaluate a movie, based on most people's opinions. We worry that audience members who have different reactions will feel as if their opinion is somehow wrong, rather than seeing the diversity of opinions as an invitation to read and understand how and why people react to art differently.

Plenty of movies — from Psycho to Fight Club to Alien — would have earned a rotten rating from Rotten Tomatoes upon their original release, only to be reconsidered and deemed classics years later as tastes, preferences, and ideas about films changed. Sometimes being an outlier can just mean you're forward-thinking.

Voris, the Rotten Tomatoes vice president, told me that the site is always trying to grapple with this quandary. “The Rotten Tomatoes curation team is constantly adding and updating reviews for films — both past and present,” he told me. “If there’s a review available from an approved critic or outlet, it will be added.”

What critics are worried about is a tendency toward groupthink, and toward scapegoating people who deviate from the “accepted” analysis. You can easily see this in the hordes of fans that sometimes come after a critic who dares to “ruin” a film's perfect score . But critics (at least serious ones) don't write their reviews to fit the Tomatometer, nor are they out to “get” DC Comics movies or religious movies or political movies or any other movies. Critics love movies and want them to be good, and we try to be honest when we see one that we don't measures up.

That doesn't mean the audience can't like a movie with a rotten rating, or hate a movie with a fresh rating. It's no insult to critics when audience opinion diverges. In fact, it makes talking and thinking about movies more interesting.

If critics are ambivalent about Rotten Tomatoes scores, why do moviegoers use the scores to decide whether to see a movie?

Mainly, it’s easy. You’re buying movie tickets on Fandango, or you’re trying to figure out what to watch on Netflix, so you check the Rotten Tomatoes score to decide. It’s simple. That’s the point.

And that’s not a bad thing. It's helpful to get a quick sense of critical consensus, even if it's somewhat imprecise. Many people use Rotten Tomatoes to get a rough idea of whether critics generally liked a film.

The flip side, though, is that some people, whether they’re critics or audience members, will inevitably have opinions that don't track with the Rotten Tomatoes score at all. Just because an individual's opinion is out of step with the Tomatometer doesn't mean the person is “wrong” — it just means they're an outlier.

And that, frankly, is what makes art, entertainment, and the world at large interesting: Not everyone has the same opinion about everything, because people are not exact replicas of one another. Most critics love arguing about movies, because they often find that disagreeing with their colleagues is what makes their job fun. It's fine to disagree with others about a movie, and it doesn't mean you're “wrong.”

(For what it’s worth, another review aggregation site, Metacritic, maintains an even smaller and more exclusive group of critics than Rotten Tomatoes — its aggregated scores cap out around 50 reviews per movie, instead of the hundreds that can make up a Tomatometer score. Metacritic’s score for a film is different from Rotten Tomatoes’ insofar as each individual review is assigned a rating on a scale of 100 and the overall Metacritic score is a weighted average, the mechanics of which Metacritic absolutely refuses to divulge . But because the site’s ratings are even more carefully controlled to include only experienced professional critics — and because the reviews it aggregates are given a higher level of granularity, and presumably weighted by the perceived influence of the critic’s publication — most critics consider Metacritic a better gauge of critical opinion.)

Does a movie’s Rotten Tomatoes score affect its box office earnings?

The short version: It can, but not necessarily in the ways you might think.

A good Rotten Tomatoes score indicates strong critical consensus, and that can be good for smaller films in particular. It’s common for distributors to roll out such films slowly, opening them in a few key cities (usually New York and Los Angeles, and maybe a few others) to generate good buzz — not just from critics, but also on social media and through word of mouth. The result, they hope, is increased interest and ticket sales when the movie opens in other cities.

Get Out , for example, certainly profited from the 99 percent “fresh” score it earned since its limited opening. And the more recent The Big Sick became one of last summer's most beloved films, helped along by its 98 percent rating. But a bad score for a small film can help ensure that it will close quickly, or play in fewer cities overall. Its potential box office earnings, in turn, will inevitably take a hit.

Yet when it comes to blockbusters, franchises, and other big studio films (which usually open in many cities at once), it’s much less clear how much a film’s Rotten Tomatoes score affects its box office tally. A good Rotten Tomatoes score, for example, doesn't necessarily guarantee a film will be a hit. Atomic Blonde is “guaranteed fresh,” with a 77 percent rating, but it didn‘t do very well at the box office despite being an action film starring Charlize Theron.

Still, studios certainly seem to believe the score makes a difference . Last summer, studios blamed Rotten Tomatoes scores (and by extension, critics) when poorly reviewed movies like Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales , Baywatch , and The Mummy performed below expectations at the box office. ( Pirates still went on to be the year’s 19th highest-grossing film.)

2017’s highest grossing movies in the US

But that correlation doesn’t really hold up. The Emoji Movie , for example, was critically panned, garnering an abysmal 6 percent Rotten Tomatoes score. But it still opened to $25 million in the US, which put it just behind the acclaimed Christopher Nolan film Dunkirk . And the more you think about it, the less surprising it is that plenty of people bought tickets to The Emoji Movie in spite of its bad press: It's an animated movie aimed at children that faced virtually no theatrical competition, and it opened during the summer, when kids are out of school. Great reviews might have inflated its numbers, but almost universally negative ones didn't seem to hurt it much.

It's also worth noting that many films with low Rotten Tomatoes scores that also perform poorly in the US (like The Mummy or The Great Wall ) do just fine overseas, particularly in China. The Mummy gave Tom Cruise his biggest global opening ever . If there is a Rotten Tomatoes effect, it seems to only extend to the American market.

Without any consistent proof, why do people still maintain that a bad Rotten Tomatoes score actively hurts a movie at the box office?

While it’s clear that a film’s Rotten Tomatoes score and box office earnings aren't correlated as strongly as movie studios might like you to think, blaming bad ticket sales on critics is low-hanging fruit.

Plenty of people would like you to believe that the weak link between box office earnings and critical opinion proves that critics are at fault for not liking the film, and that audiences are a better gauge of its quality. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, co-star of Baywatch , certainly took that position when reviews of the 2017 bomb Baywatch came out:

Baywatch ended up with a very comfortably rotten 19 percent Tomatometer score , compared to a just barely fresh 62 percent audience score. But with apologies to The Rock, who I’m sure is a very nice man, critics aren't weather forecasters or pundits, and they’re not particularly interested in predicting how audiences will respond to a movie. (We are also a rather reserved and nerdy bunch, not regularly armed with venom and knives.) Critics show up where they’re told to show up and watch a film, then go home and evaluate it to the best of their abilities.

The obvious rejoinder, at least from a critic’s point of view, is that if Baywatch was a better movie, there wouldn’t be such a disconnect. But somehow, I suspect that younger ticket buyers — an all-important demographic — lacked nostalgia for 25-year-old lifeguard TV show, and thus weren't so sure about seeing Baywatch in the first place. Likewise, I doubt that a majority of Americans were ever going to be terribly interested in the fifth installment of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise (which notched a 30 percent Tomatometer score and a 64 percent audience score), especially when they could just watch some other movie.

A pile-up of raves for either of these films might have resulted in stronger sales, because people could have been surprised to learn that a film they didn’t think they were interested in was actually great. But with lackluster reviews, the average moviegoer just had no reason to give them a chance.

Big studio publicists, however, are paid to convince people to see their films, not to candidly discuss the quality of the films themselves. So when a film with bad reviews flops at the box office, it’s not shocking that studios are quick to suggest that critics killed it.

How do movie studios try to blunt the perceived impact when they’re expecting a bad Rotten Tomatoes score?

Of late, some studios — prompted by the idea that critics can kill a film’s buzz before it even comes out — have taken to “ fighting back ” when they’re expecting a rotten Tomatometer score.

Their biggest strategy isn’t super obvious to the average moviegoer, but very clear to critics. When a studio suspects it has a lemon on its hands, it typically hosts the press screening only a day or two ahead of the film's release, and then sets a review “embargo” that lifts a few hours before the film hits theaters.

Consider, for example, the case of the aforementioned Emoji Movie. I and most other critics hoped the movie would be good, as is the case with all movies see. But once the screening invitations arrived in our inboxes, we pretty much knew, with a sinking feeling, that it wouldn’t be. The tell was pretty straightforward: The film’s only critics' screening in New York was scheduled for the day before it opened. It screened for press on Wednesday night at 5 pm, and then the review embargo lifted at 3 pm the next day — mere hours before the first public showtimes.

Late critics’ screenings for any given film mean that reviews of the film will necessarily come out very close to its release, and as a result, people purchasing advance tickets might buy them before there are any reviews or Tomatometer score to speak of. Thus, in spite of there being no strong correlation between negative reviews and a low box office, its first-weekend box returns might be less susceptible to any potential harm as a result of bad press. (Such close timing can also backfire; critics liked this summer's Captain Underpants , for example, but the film was screened too late for the positive reviews to measurably boost its opening box office.)

That first-weekend number is important, because if a movie is the top performer at the box office (or if it simply exceeds expectations, like Dunkirk and Wonder Woman did this summer), its success can function as good advertising for the film, which means its second weekend sales may also be stronger. And that matters , particularly when it means a movie is outperforming its expectations, because it can actually shift the way industry executives think about what kinds of movies people want to watch. Studios do keep an eye on critics’ opinions, but they’re much more interested in ticket sales — which makes it easy to see why they don’t want risk having their opening weekend box office affected by bad reviews, whether there’s a proven correlation or not.

The downside of this strategy, however, is that it encourages critics to instinctively gauge a studio’s level of confidence in a film based on when the press screening takes place. 20th Century Fox, for instance, screened War for the Planet of the Apes weeks ahead of its theatrical release, and lifted the review embargo with plenty of time to spare before the movie came out. The implication was that Fox believed the movie would be a critical success, and indeed, it was — the movie has a 97 percent Tomatometer score and an 86 percent audience score.

And still, late press screenings fail to account for the fact that, while a low Rotten Tomatoes score doesn’t necessarily hurt a film’s total returns, aggregate review scores in general do have a distinct effect on second-weekend sales. In 2016, Metacritic conducted a study of the correlation between its scores and second weekend sales , and found — not surprisingly — that well-reviewed movies dip much less in the second weekend than poorly reviewed movies. This is particularly true of movies with a strong built-in fan base, like Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice , which enjoyed inflated box office returns in the first weekend because fans came out to see it, but dropped sharply in its second weekend, at least partly due to extremely negative press .

Most critics who are serious about their work make a good-faith effort to approach each film they see with as few expectations as possible. But it's hard to have much hope about a movie when it seems obvious that a studio is trying to play keep-away with it. And the more studios try to game the system by withholding their films from critics, the less critics are inclined to enter a screening devoid of expectations, however subconscious.

If you ask critics what studios ought to do to minimize the potential impact of a low Rotten Tomatoes score, their answer is simple: Make better movies. But of course, it’s not that easy; some movies with bad scores do well, while some with good scores still flop. Hiding a film from critics might artificially inflate first-weekend box office returns, but plenty of people are going to go see a franchise film, or a superhero movie, or a family movie, no matter what critics say.

The truth is that neither Rotten Tomatoes nor the critics whose evaluations make up its scores are really at fault here, and it’s silly to act like that’s the case. The website is just one piece of the sprawling and often bewildering film landscape.

As box office analyst Scott Mendelson wrote at Forbes :

[Rotten Tomatoes] is an aggregate website, one with increased power because the media now uses the fresh ranking as a catch-all for critical consensus, with said percentage score popping up when you buy tickets from Fandango or rent the title on Google Market. But it is not magic. At worst, the increased visibility of the site is being used as an excuse by ever-pickier moviegoers to stay in with Netflix or VOD.

For audience members who want to make good moviegoing decisions, the best approach is a two-pronged one. First, check Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic to get a sense of critical consensus. But second, find a few critics — two or three will do — whose taste aligns with (or challenges) your own, and whose insights help you enjoy a movie even more. Read them and rely on them.

And know that it’s okay to form your own opinions, too. After all, in the bigger sense, everyone’s a critic.

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Common sense media reviewers.

Vivid but violent crime movie about wounded souls.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

The movie takes a fairly pessimistic attitude of "

The characters are mainly criminals or are at leas

Brutal prison fight with punching, pummeling, and

Brief but graphic sex scene (thrusting, woman on h

Frequent language includes "f--k," "s--t," the "N"

Sprite soda bottle used to hold drugs/acid.

A secondary character has a drinking problem and d

Parents need to know that Good Time is a crime thriller starring Robert Pattinson, but it's definitely not for younger Twilight fans. Expect heavy violence, with scenes of fighting and pummeling and lots of blood, as well as a bank robbery, guns, and more. A secondary character drinks to excess, and…

Positive Messages

The movie takes a fairly pessimistic attitude of "us against the world." The desire to protect/save is countered by a "whatever it takes" approach that includes illegal, unethical actions.

Positive Role Models

The characters are mainly criminals or are at least on that path. Redemption seems unlikely for most of them.

Violence & Scariness

Brutal prison fight with punching, pummeling, and blood. A man crashes through a glass window. Pool of blood. More beating, fighting, blood. Bank robbery. Guns shown. Tear gas. Violent images from Cops seen on TV (woman stabbed with knife). Shard of glass used as weapon. Fall from height. Dogs fight.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Brief but graphic sex scene (thrusting, woman on hands and knees). A man kisses a teen girl to distract her; he then takes her to a bedroom, and they continue kissing, with some fondling. Sexy images in a carnival ride.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Frequent language includes "f--k," "s--t," the "N" word, "goddamn," "balls," and "f--got," plus uses of "God" and "Jesus Christ" (as exclamations).

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

Drinking, drugs & smoking.

A secondary character has a drinking problem and drinks to excess. A hidden bottle of liquid acid is part of the story. Characters on acid ("tripping balls"). Flashback with drug dealers, Xanax. A teen girl smokes pot; she says her boyfriend (never seen) is a dealer. Cigarette smoking.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Good Time is a crime thriller starring Robert Pattinson , but it's definitely not for younger Twilight fans. Expect heavy violence, with scenes of fighting and pummeling and lots of blood, as well as a bank robbery, guns, and more. A secondary character drinks to excess, and there are mentions/subplots about drug dealers and a lost Sprite bottle full of acid. Characters are on acid, and a teen girl smokes pot. Cigarette smoking is also shown. Language is strong and frequent, with many uses of "f--k" and "s--t." There's a brief but graphic sex scene and other sexual material, including a scene of a man making out with a teen girl on her bed. But for mature viewers, this is a smart, emotional, and extremely well-made film. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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• Parents say (7)
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Based on 7 parent reviews

Really Great Film, CSM and IMDb are over doing it

Amazing film, a must watch, what's the story.

In GOOD TIME, Nick (Ben Safdie) is being interviewed by a therapist, attempting to get to the bottom of his cognitive disability, when his brother, Connie ( Robert Pattinson ), bursts in and takes him away. They've planned a bank robbery, and it's time to go. The robbery seems to go well, and they walk out with a bag of money, but then the dye packs go off, staining their clothes and faces. As the brothers attempt to escape, Nick crashes through a glass door. He's arrested and sent to the hospital. Connie tries to raise the money to bail him out, but the dyed cash is no good, and his girlfriend's credit card doesn't work, so he plans to break his brother out. Over the course of a long, complex New York night, Connie meets several strange people, concocts a plan to retrieve hidden acid and sell it, and tries to stay a step ahead of the law.

Is It Any Good?

Directing brothers Ben Safdie and Joshua Safdie have created an ode to intense 1970s New York crime cinema, but with their own vivid, confined close-up take, bathed in artificial, carnival colors. More than just an homage, Good Time feels bracingly fresh, rooted in honest-to-goodness desperation. (The brothers share a wounded past that's unspoken but powerful.) Good Time doesn't necessarily transcend its genre limitations, but within those limitations, it's superb. The movie's unexpected backgrounds, such as a shut-down amusement park at night, or a stranger's apartment, spring up as a result of the characters, rather than as empty decoration. And the film's great, ominous, wailing score adds more unspoken tension.

Better still, the characters -- including a whacked-out, drunken, would-be drug dealer, a young girl staying up too late, and a frazzled security guard (Oscar-nominee Barkhad Abdi ) -- feel like they actually live in the corners of the story; they seem to have been there long before it began. Jennifer Jason Leigh is great in a small role as Connie's harried, distracted girlfriend, and Ben Safdie is astounding as Nick. But it's Pattinson, shaking off the last of his Twilight -drenched past, who gives a Pacino-worthy performance full of street smarts and fast talk, but with a human soul. Iggy Pop's shockingly gorgeous closing song sums it all up perfectly.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about Good Time 's violence . How intense does it feel? How do the filmmakers achieve this effect? What's the impact of media violence on kids?

How are drugs portrayed in this movie? Are they glamorized ? Are there realistic consequences? Why does that matter?

How is sex portrayed in this movie? Are women objectified? Are the women too young?

Why is Connie such an interesting character, when he makes so many bad decisions? How does Connie compare to Pattinson's character in the Twilight movies?

How does the movie treat its character with a cognitive disability? Is it compassionate? Understanding?

Movie Details

• In theaters : August 11, 2017
• On DVD or streaming : November 21, 2017
• Cast : Robert Pattinson , Jennifer Jason Leigh , Ben Safdie
• Directors : Joshua Safdie , Ben Safdie
• Inclusion Information : Female actors
• Studio : A24
• Genre : Thriller
• Topics : Brothers and Sisters
• Run time : 100 minutes
• MPAA rating : R
• MPAA explanation : language throughout, violence, drug use and sexual content
• Last updated : June 21, 2023

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

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Against gossip & scandal, independent media network, global stories from local perspective, factual culture news, how to understand rotten tomatoes: an in-depth guide to help you decide what movies to watch next.

Caroline is currently a writer and contributor for Hollywood Insider. She believes in constant critical thinking and applied analysis when it comes to media consumption. Her goal aligns with Hollywood Insider’s mission statement, and she strives to educate readers on the nuances of the entertainment industry and to hopefully encourage them to form their own opinions on the media they consume daily.

Mar 10, 2021

Table of Contents

Photo: Rotten Tomatoes

In 2020 alone, there were more than 320 films released in the United States and Canada. That was with the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent movie theater closures. The year before, there were over 800 films released. With the ever-growing number of films to watch both in theaters and on streaming platforms , it’s becoming a harder decision for viewers to pick what they want to watch. The overwhelming nature of choice has dominated the movie market for years now, but the aim of critical review aggregator, Rotten Tomatoes , is to help make that choice a little easier. 

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Rotten Tomatoes was launched in August 1998 with the goal of merging critical reviews into an easily-readable and understandable score that viewers could use to determine whether a movie was worth their time or not. It is important to note that, in 2016, Fandango , a movie ticketing company, acquired Rotten Tomatoes and now displays their scores next to films when you’re deciding on which tickets to purchase, so to say that Rotten Tomatoes scores are incredibly influential would be an understatement. They, in front of IMDB , are one of the most trusted sources for accurate, critical ratings on all your favorite movies. But where exactly do all the critical scores come from? And what do they mean? Let’s break it down.

What Are Critical Scores? How Are They Calculated?

When you click on a movie on Rotten Tomatoes, the first thing you see are two independent scores. One signifies an aggregation of critical ratings of a film (the “Tomatometer” ) and the other, denoted by a popcorn bucket, displays audience consensus on a film. In regards to critical reviews, there are three categories that a film can fall under: rotten, fresh, and certified fresh. To put it simply, if a film is marked as “rotten”, it means that under 60% of the total reviewers left a positive review. A positive review is usually marked by a score of 6 or more out of 10, but there is also room for interpretation as to what a positive score can be due to the wide variety of rating systems that critics use.

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Some critics use a letter grade such as “A”, “B”, “C”, or “D” to judge films and others use a rating system out of 4 instead of 10. Ultimately, it falls to the curators of Rotten Tomatoes to clarify whether a review is positive or negative, and categorize it as such. As a side note, the overall percentage that you see at the top of the screen is the total amount of reviewers that scored the film positively. For example, ‘Coming 2 America’ currently holds a critical rating of 52% on Rotten Tomatoes, meaning that of the 182 reviews, only 52% of them ranked the film positively. Got it? Great, let’s move on. If a film qualifies as “fresh”, that means that more than 60% of reviewers ranked the film positively.

That number increases to 75% or more if a film is “certified fresh”, however, that title is also accompanied by a different set of qualifying rules. For example, the film in question must have been reviewed 80 times or more, as well as have reviews by five of the “top critics” to qualify as certified fresh. But let’s back up even further to examine who these critics are and what qualifying categories they have to meet in order to be accepted into the Rotten Tomatoes club.

Who Are the Critics?

Rotten Tomatoes deems that all critics meet a set of eligibility guidelines that are meant to exemplify that this person or publication is influential (and experienced) enough to write well-articulated reviews. They do this through an application-based system with some of the requirements being: you must have been writing reviews for at least two years that are being published through a non-self-published source, whether that be online or print. For social media influencers, these qualifications are different in that you must have a subscriber count of at least 30,000 to be considered “widespread” enough in your audience scope. To put it simply, most Rotten Tomatoes reviewers are qualified to review films and have already been doing so, consistently, on a different platform. 

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Once a critic has been approved to write for Rotten Tomatoes, they either self-submit reviews to the website or continue to publish reviews via the medium they were previously published through. In the case of the latter, Rotten Tomatoes has a team of expert curators determine whether or not the review is “fresh” or “rotten”. This team of curators poses a morally gray area as they introduce a middleman who opens the reviews to the possibility of misinterpretation. Mostly, however, Rotten Tomatoes critics submit scores themselves in order to rule out any areas of miscommunication. 

Audience Scores Versus Critical Scores: Different Guidelines

Let’s switch gears a bit to talk about what an audience score is and what it means. Similarly to critical scores, the percentage at the top of the page (next to the popcorn bucket) represents the overall number of audience members who gave a film a positive review. However, it’s important to note that audience reviews have a different rating system than those described for critics, one that is universal and easier to aggregate. All audience reviews must score the film in question out of 5 stars. This shifts the rating system to a 3.5 out of 5 counting as a positive review while anything below that counts as a negative review. In this instance, and throughout this article, I’ve been using “positive” and “fresh” interchangeably as well as “negative” and “rotten” interchangeably too. Just a side note for anyone who feels confused! Luckily, the rest of the audience rating system is easier to digest. There’s a full popcorn bucket for any film that receives 60% or higher positive reviews from audience members while a spilled popcorn bucket denotes a film where less than 60% of reviewers scored the film positively.

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How You Can Use Rotten Tomatoes in Your Everyday Life

Okay, so now that I just rattled off a bunch of confusing numbers and percentages to you, let’s talk about why you should care. The main takeaway I hope you have from this article is that Rotten Tomatoes, at its core, is a review aggregator, which means that ultimately those percentages you see at the top of the screen are general estimates meant to give you an overall idea of what critics think about this film. Obviously, films with higher scores that are certified fresh, and films that fall to the other extreme of the rotten scale, are easier to judge because critical consensus is more unanimous. However, all these gray areas and film critics opinions shouldn’t matter to you unless you know for certain that you like their opinions. If you are a more traditional cinephile, aka a fan of the Criterion collection or HBOMax’s lineup, then you will probably benefit from looking at solely critical scores on Rotten Tomatoes.

For example, ‘L’Avventura’ directed by Michaelangelo Antonini in 1960, has a critical score of 94%, but an audience score of 88%. In a more abstract sense, if you prefer fun, entertaining blockbusters like the majority of the general public, you may not like this film as much as the professional critics who rated it very highly. At the end of the day, Rotten Tomatoes is in no way, shape, or form a Bible that determines a film’s quality. It is best used in a subjective way that accounts for nuances and personal taste. However, in this time of ever-growing film releases via all sorts of platforms, it can be helpful to look at a number and use it to make a quick judgment of a film before you dedicate an hour or more of your life to it. 

By  Caroline Adamec

An excerpt from the love letter:  Hollywood Insider’s  CEO/editor-in-chief  Pritan Ambroase  affirms,  “Hollywood Insider  fully supports the much-needed Black Lives Matter movement. We are actively, physically and digitally a part of this global movement. We will continue reporting on this major issue of police brutality and legal murders of Black people to hold the system accountable. We will continue reporting on this major issue with kindness and respect to all Black people, as each and every one of them are seen and heard. Just a reminder, that the Black Lives Matter movement is about more than just police brutality and extends into banking, housing, education, medical, infrastructure, etc. We have the space and time for all your stories. We believe in peaceful/non-violent protests and I would like to request the rest of media to focus on 95% of the protests that are peaceful and working effectively with positive changes happening daily. Media has a responsibility to better the world and  Hollywood Insider  will continue to do so.”

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Daisy Ridley’s New Movie isn’t Star Wars But Already Holds a Better Rotten Tomatoes Score Than The Rise of Skywalker

D aisy Ridley aka Rey from the  Star Wars  franchise, has gotten some criticism for her name throughout the years since she joined the franchise. Starring alongside notable names such as Harrison Ford and Mark Hamill, Ridley has not received “good reviews”, so to speak.

Despite starting off her career in  Star Wars: The Force Awakens  on a positive note, the actress was indeed praised for her performance. However, Ridley also received some form of criticism for her acting. Well, her recent film, which was released just now, has a higher score on Rotten Tomatoes than The Rise of Skywalker !

Daisy Ridley’s Latest Film Has Earned A Higher Rating Than  Star Wars !

Starring in a 2024 film titled  Young Woman and the Sea,  Daisy Ridley portrays the role of Trudy Ederle. A woman born to immigrant parents in New York City in 1905, she eventually overcomes adversity and the patriarchal society by becoming the first woman to ever swim the English Channel!

With an inspiring story at the heart of the film,  Young Woman and the Sea  received critical acclaim and worldwide love. Ridley was also heavily praised for her role in the film. Although the film received rave reviews, fans couldn’t help but notice one thing about the film.

After Star Wars, Daisy Ridley Could Soon Star in an Iconic $4.5 Billion Franchise if Her One Request Yields Fruits

Young Woman and the Sea  was released on 31 May in the U.S. and is currently playing in the U.S. for a limited time in theaters.  Star Wars: The Rise of the Skywalker  was released in 2019. Daisey Ridley’s 2024 film currently stands at a rating of 84% Critics Score and a whopping 100% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes.

On the other hand, her 2019 film,  Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker,  received a critic score of 51% and an audience score of 86% on Rotten Tomatoes! This means that the recently released film has already surpassed The Rise of Skywalker  in terms of its ratings!

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Although there might be some reasons for the low ratings of the 2019 movie, Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy created some controversy with her statements! Attacking the fanbase with genderism, Kennedy claimed that Star Wars fans were toxic to female characters!

Kathleen Kennedy Thinks Fans Are Toxic To Female Characters

It could be somewhat true that some  Star Wars  fans may indeed be toxic to some female characters. With the franchise coming to terms with the modern world and how it has to adapt, Kennedy wants it to be more suitable for the new generation of Star Wars fans.

In a recent interview with The New York Times , Kathleen Kennedy, who is the president of Lucasfilm, said in a statement that the Star Wars fandom was toxic to female characters!

I think a lot of the women who step into Star Wars struggle with [toxic fandom attacks] a bit more. Because of the fan base being so male dominated, they sometimes get attacked in ways that can be quite personal.

She further continued,

Operating within these giant franchises now, with social media and the level of expectation — it’s terrifying.

Although her statement got fans in an uproar, the point of female representation in the Star Wars franchise stands correct. Daisy Ridley , who wants to return to the Star Wars franchise at some point again, may have gotten the hope that she needed with Kathleen Kennedy’s statements.

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On the other hand, Ridley’s recently released film  Young Woman and the Sea  is currently screening in theaters in the U.S.

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Chris Pratt's The Garfield Movie lands soft Rotten Tomatoes score after first reviews

Mondays, eh?

Out in cinemas this week, the lazy feline of the title enjoys an unexpected reunion with his long-lost father Vic, who takes him and best friend Odie on a high-stakes heist.

At the time of writing, the movie has a Rotten Tomatoes score of 56%.

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The animated movie also features vocals from Samuel L Jackson, Hannah Waddingham, Nicholas Hoult and Snoop Dogg. But reviewers think it seems to be missing the whole point of the iconic cat.

Below is a selection of those indifferent opinions from the press.

The Hollywood Reporter

"The rudimentary animation does the film no favours, nor does the lead vocal turn by Pratt, who strangely has become one of Hollywood's go-to animation stars with Onward , The Lego Movie and its sequel and The Super Mario Bros . Movie . His colourless vocal work here pales in comparison with his predecessors Bill Murray, who voiced the character in the two live-action movies, and Lorenzo Music, who played it brilliantly for so many years on television. The strange result is a Garfield without attitude."

"What's surprising about The Garfield Movie is that although it's based on a pretty cynical comic strip, its highlights are all sentimental. The flashbacks to Garfield's kittenhood are shameless gut punches of maudlin cutesiness, but eventually they tear down one's defences. Garfield's relationship with his father earns real sympathy by the end. What the film lacks in hilarious jokes — there's only a few (watch out for the used catapult salesman) — it makes up for with good nature."

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"The hectic plot may keep younger minds from wandering. Long before the film reaches its action-packed, train-based climax, however, adults will be questioning if its three writers have so much as seen an actual Garfield comic strip, given how removed their work feels from its activity-averse inspiration."

"The lasagna-obsessed feline with a near-pathological aversion to Mondays, who first came into popular consciousness in the late '70s as a comic strip, is a diluted version of himself in The Garfield Movie .

"Not only is his suave apathy mostly replaced by an excessive excitedness with only sporadic glimpses of his endearingly negative qualities, but this Garfield jumps off trains, stages a heist, and is subjected to trite physical comedy by way of numerous predictable action sequences. The ordeal mimics a rehashed plot from the dull The Secret Life of Pets franchise with Garfield forcefully plugged in."

The Garfield Movie is released in cinemas on May 24.

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Reporter, Digital Spy 

Dan is a freelance entertainment journalist. Beginning his writing career in 2014, Dan's work first graced the pages of cult publications Starburst magazine and Little White Lies before moving onto Total Film, Digital Spy , NME and Yahoo Entertainment . 

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Robin Williams' 15 Best Movies, Ranked According to Rotten Tomatoes

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Robin Williams was a one-of-a-kind performer and comedy legend who established himself as one of Hollywood's greatest stars with memorable characters from iconic films like Disney's Aladdin , The Birdcage , and Good Morning, Vietnam . Noted for his epic improvisational skills and physical comedy, the Chicago-born comedian got his first break starring in the 1970s sitcom, Mork & Mindy and made his feature film debut in the 1980 comedy, Popeye .

With an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Good Will Hunting and six Golden Globe Awards, Williams conquered the silver screen in a variety of roles ranging from thrillers like One Hour Photo and Insomnia to heartfelt dramas such as Dead Poets Society and The Fisher King . Out of the actor's extensive list of filmography, these are 15 of Williams' best movies according to Rotten Tomatoes .

15 'Mrs. Doubtfire' (1993)

Rotten tomatoes score: 70%.

Mrs. Doubtfire is among Williams' most recognizable roles (from one of the best movies of 1993 ). In the classic family comedy, he takes center stage as Daniel Hillard, a talented voice actor and devoted father who, after a messy divorce from his wife, Miranda ( Sally Field ), resorts to an extraordinary scheme to stay close to his children.

Williams' performance in Mrs. Doubtfire is a masterclass in comedic timing – as both the bumbling, well-meaning father and the British nanny, he showcases his unparalleled ability to switch between characters seamlessly. He was also able to transform mundane household chores into hilarious moments through physical comedy. While some parts of the film have admittedly aged poorly, it still stands as a beloved family comedy and one of those nostalgic classics fans will remember fondly. – Hannah Saab

Mrs. Doubtfire

*Availability in US

Not available

14 'The World According to Garp' (1982)

Rotten tomatoes score: 71%.

During World War II, a nurse, Jenny Fields ( Glenn Close ), becomes pregnant and raises the child on her own, naming him Garp, after his father. Garp grows up to become an excellent fiction writer, but his mother is extremely successful with her feminist-themed work, which allows her to open a center for troubled young women. Even though Garp gets married and has children of his own, he still keeps an eye on his mother and the community surrounding her.

The World According to Garp is a comedy-drama based on the 1978 novel of the same name written by John Irving , who has a minor cameo in the film as a wrestling referee. The film gives Williams the opportunity to show off his dramatic acting chops for one of the first time , showcasing his immense range and talent as an actor. The World According to Garp earned two Academy Award nominations for Best Supporting Actress for Close and Best Supporting Actor for John Lithgow .

Rent on Apple TV

13 'The Butler' (2013)

Rotten tomatoes score: 72%.

After leaving the South and finding a job at a prestigious hotel in Washington D.C., Cecil Gaines' ( Forest Whitaker ) world completely changes when he's hired as a butler at the White House. Over the course of several decades, Gaines witnesses history and the inner workings of the Oval Office, but as his job takes him away from his wife and angers his anti-establishment son, Gaines is presented with an external struggle of serving the First Family or his own family.

Lee Daniel 's The Butler is based on the life of Eugene Allen who was a longtime White House employee and was originally hired during the Eisenhower administration. The film gives audiences a behind-the-scenes view of some of the moments and American history and even though Williams isn't the lead character, he still gives a stunning performance as the 34th President of the United States, Dwight D. Eisenhower , which deserves recognition.

12 'Moscow on the Hudson' (1984)

Rotten tomatoes score: 73%.

Vladimir is a musician in the Moscow circus who, during a trip to New York City, escapes from his handlers and publicly denounces the Soviet Union. Fearful of returning home, Vladimir meets an immigration lawyer ( Alejandro Rey ) who helps him gain citizenship and adjust to his new life in America.

The idea for Moscow on the Hudson came to the film's director, Paul Mazursky after hearing various stories from friends in Hollywood about their experiences coming from Russia to the United States. Williams prepared for the role by learning to speak Russian and play the saxophone, which are not the easiest subjects to master.

11 'Happy Feet' (2006)

Rotten tomatoes score: 76%.

An entertaining animated musical from the late 2000s, Happy Feet follows the journey of Mumble (voiced by Elijah Wood ), a penguin who is often ridiculed because of his tap-dancing skills. Robin Williams lends his voice to two characters, Ramón and Lovelace, and is also the narrator of the fun film.

Williams' performance as Ramón is unique in the actor's filmography, as the lovable and fast-talking penguin with a penchant for salsa dancing is instantly likable. Ramón's hilarious one-liners and unwavering loyalty to Mumble make him an instant fan favorite. As Lovelace, on the other hand, Williams brings out a wise and mystic Rockhopper penguin with an eccentric personality. The actor's dual roles in Happy Feet are a testament to his comedic talent that shows with just his voice. – Hannah Saab

10 'One Hour Photo' (2002)

Rotten tomatoes score: 81%.

Sy Parrish is a technician at a photo shop in the local mall and when it comes to his work, he is a perfectionist and makes an effort to know his regular customers. Over the years, he's watched one family, in particular, grow through their photos, but when he sees a photo showing the husband being unfaithful to his loving wife, he develops an unhealthy obsession with the family, which eventually sends him over the edge.

Williams' gives an against-type performance as the unstable but kind Sy Parrish in Mark Romanek 's prophetic thriller titled One Hour Photo . While the movie initially received mixed reviews, critics still praised Williams for his superb open-faced role as a reclusive madman, which is utterly convincing to audiences . One Hour Photo earned Williams several award nominations, and he ended up winning the Saturn Award for Best Actor.

One Hour Photo

9 'the birdcage' (1996), rotten tomatoes score: 83%.

Armand is a Miami club owner who manages a drag show headlined by his life partner, Albert ( Nathan Lane ). When their son, Val ( Dan Futterman ) becomes engaged to the daughter of a conservative senator ( Gene Hackman ), Armand entertains his son's plan to somehow convince his future in-laws that they're a traditional family.

The Birdcage is a cheeky '90s comedy film about how the similarities between people often outweigh their differences. Originally, Steve Martin was set to play Armand while Williams was to play Albert, but due to scheduling conflicts, Martin couldn't commit. Williams recalled that he wasn't disappointed about the role swap adding that he had dressed in enough drag in Mrs. Doubtfire .

The Birdcage (1996)

8 'dead poets society' (1989), rotten tomatoes score: 84%.

In the iconic movie every aspiring writer should see , Todd ( Ethan Hawke ) is starting his third year at an all-male boarding school, Welton Academy, which has hired a new English teacher, John Keating. The unorthodox teacher encourages his students to expand their horizons and open their minds to a world beyond the academy's traditional teachings.

Williams took on one of his first dramatic roles in the triumphant tragedy, Dead Poets Society . Before being cast as the inspiring John Keating, other stars like Dustin Hoffman , Mel Gibson , and Liam Neeson were also considered for the part . The movie earned Williams his second Oscar nomination and won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay.

Dead Poets Society

7 'awakenings' (1990).

Neurologist, Dr. Malcolm Sayer, has been working extensively with a group of patients at a hospital in the Bronx who are in a catatonic state. When he theorizes that they're experiencing an extreme form of Parkinson's Disease, he's permitted by his skeptical superiors to treat them with a medication that has bittersweet results.

Directed by Penny Marshall , Awakenings is a film based on the incredible true story of Dr. Oliver Sacks who treated a group of patients living with what's known now as sleeping sickness in the 1960s. Williams stars as Sayer, who is based on Sacks , alongside Robert De Niro , John Heard , and The Sopranos star, Vincent Pastore .

Watch on Fubo

6 'The Fisher King' (1991)

​​​​rotten tomatoes score: 85%.

After causing a caller to turn a gun on a group of innocent people, former radio DJ, Jack Lucas ( Jeff Bridges ) turns to alcohol to cope with his fall from fame. Jack's life seems close to a dead end when he meets Parry, a homeless man in search of the Holy Grail who Jack starts to feel responsible for after learning that his wife was killed by the caller he provoked.

The Fisher King is a riveting wave of humor and heartbreak that earned both Williams and Bridges an Oscar nomination for their performances. The movie is directed by former Monty Python member, Terry Gilliam and also stars Amanda Plummer , David Hyde Pierce , and Mercedes Ruehl , who won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.

The Fisher King

5 'world's greatest dad' (2009), rotten tomatoes score: 88%.

English teacher, Lance Clayton makes the shocking discovery that his son has accidentally killed himself and, in an attempt to evade a scandal, he writes a fake suicide note. After the note's published in the school paper, the public takes notice of the student's death, resulting in the attention that Lance had always wanted, but as the pressure builds, he struggles to keep up with the lie.

World's Greatest Dad is a dark, deadpan comedy written and directed by comedian, Bobcat Goldthwait . Even though the movie failed at the box office, it was praised for its risky plot as well as for bravely addressing uncomfortable subjects head-on.

World's Greatest Dad (2009)

4 'good morning, vietnam' (1987), rotten tomatoes score: 89%.

Radio comedian, Adrian Cronauer, is sent to Vietnam to provide some comic relief for the soldiers and while he's a hit with his new audience, his superior officer, Sergeant Major Dickerson ( J.T. Walsh ) is not amused with Cronauer and him. As Dickerson tries to get Cronauer thrown off the air, Cronauer starts to fall in love with a local woman who shows him the horrific impact the war has had on the country.

Good Morning, Vietnam was Williams' first major break and became the actor's breakout role , earning him his first Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. The war film is loosely based on the Armed Forces Radio Network host, Adrian Cronauer, and his personal experiences during the Vietnam War.

3 'Insomnia' (2002)

Rotten tomatoes score: 92%.

After a teenage girl is murdered in Alaska, Los Angeles detective, Will Domer ( Al Pacino ) and his partner are sent to assist the local authorities with the investigation. Domer eventually comes across a suspect and is sent into an intense psychological game of cat-and-mouse that becomes a threat to the detective's state of mind.

Williams takes on one of his first sinister roles as a potential serial killer in Christopher Nolan 's neo-noir film , Insomnia . The role is a drastic switch from Williams' usual upbeat, comedic characters, but the actor's established good guy facade works to his advantage, making the role a mind game itself for audiences.

2 'Aladdin' (1992)

Rotten tomatoes score: 95%.

Aladdin ( Scott Weinger ) has always had to fend for himself on the streets of Agrabah and dreams of living a life fit for a king. After discovering a powerful genie, Aladdin wishes to become a prince, hoping to impress Princess Jasmine ( Linda Larkin ), but when the sultan's advisor, Jafar ( Jonathan Freeman ), threatens to take over Agrabah, Aladdin and his friends embark on a dangerous mission to save the kingdom.

Genie from Aladdin is hands down one of Williams' most iconic characters – not to mention one of Disney's most unforgettable characters – and accurately portrays the actor's colorful, animated self. Directors, John Musker and Ron Clements had written the role of Genie for Williams but when Disney needed some convincing, animator, Eric Goldberg , created an animation reel of Genie to one of Williams' stand-up routines. When Williams was approached about the part, he watched the reel and, according to Goldberg, the comedian, "laughed his ass off."

Aladdin (1992)

1 'good will hunting' (1997), rotten tomatoes score: 97%.

Will Hunting ( Matt Damon ) is a natural genius recently paroled from jail who manages to get a job as a janitor at MIT. When Will solves an extensive math problem, Professor Lambeau ( Stellan Skarsgård ) offers to help him reach his full potential, but after a slight scuffle with the police, Lambeau will only offer his assistance if Will agrees to see a therapist.

Williams won his first and only Academy Award for his performance as Dr. Sean Maguire in Good Will Hunting . Damon recalled Williams' brilliant moments of improvisational that led to some of the movie's best moments, including Maguire's reaction after reading Will's letter at the end. Williams ad-libbed the final line , 'son-of-a-b****, he stole my line,' making it one of the best movie endings of all time.

Good Will Hunting

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• Robin Williams