To Die For

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2:17

To Die For

R

1995

1h 43m

Comedy

Drama

Mystery & Thriller

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Tomatometer

Popcornmeter

88%

Tomatometer

67 Reviews

66%

Popcornmeter

25,000+ Ratings

Suzanne Stone is a weather reporter at her small-town cable station, but she dreams of being a big-time news anchor. However, she feels that her middle-class husband is holding her back, so she decides to have him murdered. For this, she enlists Jimmy, a high school boy who is enamored with her. The plan doesn't work exactly as she intended, though, and her husband's family starts to suspect that she was involved in his death.

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Critics Consensus

Smart, funny, and thoroughly well-cast, To Die For takes a sharp - and sadly prescient - stab at dissecting America's obsession with celebrity.

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Jake Cole

Slant Magazine

03/22/2024

In the way it cavorts with teen melodrama, black comedy, and docu-realism to reflect Suzanne’s contradictory masks, To Die For is a comic precursor to Gus Van Sant’s Elephant.

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Anthony Lane

The New Yorker

06/12/2023

The film, adapted by Buck Henry from Joyce Maynard’s novel, is smartly structured, but Van Sant’s touch is uncertain: the story’s satirical bite begins to loosen as his camera lingers more and more on the disaffected teen-agers.

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Manohla Dargis

Spin

12/27/2022

Furiously paced and sharply funny, To Die For doesn't try for subtlety; its laughs are delivered with self-consciously heavy hands.

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Trace Thurman

Horror Queers Podcast

Oct 7

4.5/5

A star-making role for Kidman, who chews every bit of scenery she is in in Gus Van Sant's masterful satire.

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Mike Massie

Gone With The Twins

Aug 23

6/10

The script is quite clever.

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David Harris

Spectrum Culture

08/20/2024

Without Suzanne Stone, there would be no Paris Hilton or Kim Kardashian. And now, with social media, we can curate and broadcast our own existence – imagined or otherwise.

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Jerod S

@jeroduptown Dec 30

Kidman is obsessed with being on TV - and she is the original gaslighter in 90s glory.

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Olivia J

Oct 15

The film, adapted by Buck Henry from Joyce Maynard’s novel, is smartly structured, but Van Sant’s touch is uncertain: the story’s satirical bite begins to loosen as his camera lingers more and more on the disaffected teen-agers.

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Ed B

Jul 28

It’s an entertaining movie, but the story is quite inappropriate with the way it deals with the adult/teen relationship, so avoid if you are sensitive about this topic. It was interesting to see Nicole Kidman as a villain and such a young Joaquin Phoenix and Casey Affleck.

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Stephen C

@bob25009 Jul 1

Funny in 1 hour and 43 minutes.

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Cleveland E

@bdeneris Apr 13

Great acting, but too bad they did’t have a better script to work with. Probably the least humorous comedy I’ve ever watched

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Farah R

@Farah 09/19/2024

The positive reviews and compelling cast misled me to watching this utterly dull film. Despite Kidman’s excellent performance, my mind kept wandering and I couldn’t get invested in the plot or the characters. The strange editing choice of abruptly switching between scenes was annoying, and the gist of the story was predictable. This is not one I’d recommend.

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Gus Van Sant

Director

Nicole Kidman

Suzanne Stone Maretto

Matt Dillon

Larry Maretto

Joaquin Phoenix

Jimmy Emmett

Casey Affleck

Russel Hines

Illeana Douglas

Janice Maretto

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To Die For: Trailer 1

2:17

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Synopsis

Suzanne Stone is a weather reporter at her small-town cable station, but she dreams of being a big-time news anchor. However, she feels that her middle-class husband is holding her back, so she decides to have him murdered. For this, she enlists Jimmy, a high school boy who is enamored with her. The plan doesn't work exactly as she intended, though, and her husband's family starts to suspect that she was involved in his death.

Director: Gus Van Sant
Producer: Laura Ziskin
Screenwriter: Joyce Maynard, Buck Henry
Distributor: Columbia Tristar, Columbia Pictures
Production Co: Columbia Pictures Corporation
Rating: R
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Mystery & Thriller
Original Language: English
Release Date (Theaters): Sep 27, 1995, Original
Release Date (Streaming): May 1, 2013
Box Office (Gross USA): $20.5M
Runtime: 1h 43m
Sound Mix: Stereo

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