Blue VelvetMovie Reviews

Gifts + Promos

Fandango Gift Card

Give the gift of movies with Fandango Bucks Gift Certificates! Design your own gift card, or choose from our collection.

Avengers Gift Cards

Superhero fans! Don’t miss out on these Limited Edition Avengers gift cards!

Need Help?
Go
Avg. Critic Score: 75 out of 100 Generally favorable reviews Metascore® based on all critic reviews
Information for Parents:
17 not for kids
Read Common Sense Media review

Critic scores range from 0 to 100, with higher scores indicating more favorable reviews.

  • 100
    Village Voice |

    The last real earthquake to hit cinema was David Lynch's "Blue Velvet" -- I'm sure directors throughout the film world felt the earth move beneath their feet and couldn't sleep the night of their first encounter with it back in 1986. (Review of 20th Anniversary Re-Release) Read full review

  • 100
    Los Angeles Times | Sheila Benson

    The most brilliantly disturbing film ever to have its roots in small-town American life. [19 September 1986, Calendar, p.6-1] Read full review

  • 100
    The New York Times | Elvis Mitchell

    As fascinating as it is freakish. It confirms Mr. Lynch's stature as an innovator, a superb technician, and someone best not encountered in a dak alley. [19 September 1986] Read full review

  • 90
    L.A. Weekly | Scott Foundas

    What dazzles still about David Lynch's Blue Velvet is its total authority: Not a single false gesture. No shock delivered solely for its own sake. Read full review

  • 88
    Chicago Tribune | Gene Siskel

    One powerful, mesmerizing thriller, a masterful exercise in controlling an audience's attention. [19 September 1986, Friday, p.A] Read full review

  • 80
    Variety |

    Hopper creates a flabbergasting portrait of unrepentent, irredeemable evil. Read full review

  • 67
    Austin Chronicle | Marjorie Baumgarten

    You either think it's dementedly wild at heart or a lost highway to nowhere. Read full review

  • 50
    San Francisco Chronicle |

    Dark, menacing and sexual, with satanic overtones, like a Black Sabbath song, with many moments of genuine fright and harsh eroticism. [19 September 1986, Daily Notebook, p.76] Read full review

  • 30
    Washington Post |

    Doesn't progress or deepen, it just gets weirder, and to no good end. Read full review

  • 25
    Chicago Sun-Times | Roger Ebert

    So strong, so shocking and yet so audacious that people walk out shaking their heads; they don't know quite what to make of it. Read full review

View more reviews for Blue Velvet on Metacritic

Information for Parents
Common Sense Media says not for kids Surreal, graphic shocker of small-town sin.
What Parents Need to Know Parents need to know that this thriller portraying human corruption and aberrant sex features full female and nearly full male nudity, violent death, profanity, and alcohol/drug abuse. A seductive female character (a wife and mother) is abused and raped; though we learn little of her back story, all indications are that she has learned to accept and enjoy this mistreatment. While the young-man hero and his allies react with horror and shock, some critics have complained that this film exploits the twisted elements of darkness and evil.
  • Families can talk about the meaning of the movie. What are the close-ups of insects supposed to symbolize about this spiffy-clean looking community? Since the good guys look almost as bland and Boy-Scoutish as the villains are demonic, some critics have found the overall movie distasteful and exploitative -- like something the terrible Frank Booth would find "entertainment."  Do you agree? Do you think David Lynch has a little too much fun with the violence and weirdness? How do the director's G-rated The Straight Story and sinister TV series Twin Peaks compare? What traits do they share with this movie?
The good stuff
  • message true0 Positive messages: Lines between boyish goodness and depraved, sadistic evil seem clearly drawn with Jeffrey vs. Frank. Yet the young hero (a college guy who drinks beer) is not entirely innocent himself. He has sex with the victimized -- and married -- Dorothy and seems both fascinated as well as appalled that the exotic beauty equates passion with being abused and degraded. In the end, though, Jeffrey turns away from his "dark side" and winds up with the almost impossibly wholesome (and blonde) Sandy.
What to watch for
  • violence false4 Violence: Gunfire at close range, punchings and beatings, dead (and nearly dead) bloody bodies at a murder scene. Reckless and menacing driving. A cut-off human ear is found. A woman gets raped (by a fully-clothed man).
  • sex false4 Sex: Full nudity of the leading lady, near full nudity of the leading man, and the two have (adulterous) sex, though we don't actually see the act.
  • language false4 Language: Psycho bad guy Frank uses the f-word (and occasionally the s-word and the b-word) at least once in about every sentence.
  • consumerism false1 Consumerism: Mentions of Heineken and Pabst Blue Ribbon beer hard to miss.
  • drugsalcoholtobacco false3 Drinking, drugs and smoking: Drinking of beer representing innocence, and bourbon for the demented bad guy, who also pops pills and infamously inhales intoxicating gas (presumably nitrous oxide). Mention of drug deals.
An independent nonprofit dedicated to providing families the information they need to help kids thrive in a world of media and technology. © Common Sense Media Inc. 2010. All rights reserved.

Blue Velvet Featured Trailers + Video Clips

Watch All Videos

Facebook Movie Fans

Fan Fandango on Facebook