Fine generational drama-tragedy which helped give James Dean movie immortality.
Comment
02/22/08
Rebel Without a Cause (1955)
95 %
Reviews Counted: 42 Fresh: 40 Rotten:2 Average Rating: 8.2/10
Runtime: 2 hrs 27 mins
Synopsis: The classic film about alienated and rebellious youth that made James Dean an indelible icon. "Rebel without a Cause" focuses on a teenage social outcast searching for his identity. His dysfunctional parents (a milquetoast father and a cantankerous mom) can't help him and he shuns any form... [More]
Genre: Dramas
Starring: James Dean, Natalie Wood, Sal Mineo, Jim Backus, Dennis Hopper
Reviews
The drama and hepcat dialogue feel clunky now, but the movie's plea for dads to talk to their children -- what we now call emotional literacy -- is valid enough.
10/23/07
Top Critic
For all its faults this is still the teen angst melodrama to end them all, and Dean's performance established him as an icon, a legend and a myth.
10/23/07
In this powerful study of juvenile violence, Dean is riveting as a teenager groping for love from a society he finds alien and oppressive.
10/23/07
Here is a fairly exciting, suspenseful and provocative, if also occasionally far-fetched, melodrama of unhappy youth on another delinquency kick.
10/23/07
Top Critic
If ever a film was haunted, it's "Rebel Without a Cause," which burns as a bright memorial for stars James Dean, Natalie Wood and Sal Mineo.
06/17/07
Under Ray's dissecting eye, the suburban home itself becomes a battleground where parent and child must scream over each other to be heard
08/06/06
A fine script, dynamic direction, doomed romantic idealism and telling performances make this the most timeless of Ray's gripping, socially aware dramas.
04/01/06
Top Critic
Dean's finest film, hardly surprisingly in that Ray was one of the great '50s directors.
02/09/06
Like its hero, Rebel Without a Cause desperately wants to say something and doesn't know what it is. If it did know, it would lose its fascination.
01/20/06
Top Critic
People like to say that Dean was nothing but a Marlon Brando imitation, but Marlon never looked this young, this perfect.
12/06/05
When first released, neither studio nor critics knew what to make of it, failing to realize that it would become the most influential work in American film history
07/19/05
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