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Avg. Critic Score: 78 out of 100 Generally favorable reviews Metascore® based on all critic reviews
Information for Parents:
15 Iffy for 15+
Read Common Sense Media review

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

  • 100
    Austin Chronicle | Marjorie Baumgarten

    One of the most exciting movies of this, or any other, year. It's smart, funny, and wonderfully crafted and performed. Read full review

  • 100
    Rolling Stone | Peter Travers

    Linklater is a sly and formidable talent, bringing an anthropologist's eye to this spectacularly funny celebration of the rites of stupidity. His shitfaced "American Graffiti" is the ultimate party movie -- loud, crude, socially irresponsible and totally irresistible. Read full review

  • 91
    Entertainment Weekly | Ty Burr

    From the opening shot of a burnt-orange GTO cruising a high school parking lot to the strains of Aerosmith's ''Sweet Emotion,'' Richard Linklater's film nails mid-'70s adolescence so precisely that you'll need Clearasil by the end credits. Read full review

  • 90
    Washington Post | Desson Thomson

    Richard Linklater's satirical take on high school life in the 1970s is not only funny and entertaining. It's practically a historic document of life during the smiley-face button era. Read full review

  • 88
    USA Today | Mike Clark

    The "Age of Innocence" oozes anthropological dazzle, but Dazed and Confused may some day rate its own Smithsonian showings for clinically re-creating the High School Experience 1976. [20 Sept 1993] Read full review

  • 80
    Los Angeles Times |

    It's a highly enjoyable spree that doesn't add up to a whole lot by the end. But you don't necessarily want it to add up to anything -- that's part of its charm. [24 Sept 1993] Read full review

  • 75
    Chicago Sun-Times | Roger Ebert

    This is a good film, but it would not cheer people up much at a high school reunion. Read full review

  • 75
    San Francisco Chronicle |

    The movie's episodic view of a collection of interesting friends, sweethearts, and cliques often rings so true that it might be a documentary...It's so right, you might think Linklater has mastered time travel. [24 Sept 1993] Read full review

  • 70
    The New York Times | Elvis Mitchell

    Dazed and Confused has an enjoyably playful spirit, one that amply compensates for its lack of structure. [24 Sept 1993, p.C12] Read full review

  • 60
    Variety | Ken Eisner

    One-liners and dry sight gags still abound, but the ennui-sodden formlessness of "Slacker" doesn't fly as well in this $ 6 million, smoothly lensed package, which calls for shapelier narrative and resolution. Read full review

View more reviews for Dazed and Confused on Metacritic

Information for Parents
Common Sense Media says Iffy for 15+ Plenty of drug use with very little consequence.
What Parents Need to Know Parents need to know that this movie features drug use and petty vandalism with little consequence. Overindulgence in alcohol leads to a fistfight, and overindulgence in pot-smoking leads to stupidity, but casual use of both results in an alluring sense of camaraderie.
  • Families can talk about the deleterious effects of drug and alcohol use not depicted in the film. Where are Randall and Mitch likely to be 5 or 10 years after the close of this movie? How often do high school kids party like this? What has changed since the 1970s, in terms of the enforcement of drug laws and our knowledge of the long-term effects of drug and alcohol use?
The good stuff
  • message true0 Positive messages: Meanness is frowned upon, being laid-back rewarded.
What to watch for
  • violence false3 Violence: A fist-fight, several paddlings, and gun fired.
  • sex false3 Sex: Several references to sex.
  • language false5 Language: Frequent cursing.
  • consumerism false0 Consumerism: The soundtrack is as popular as the film.
  • drugsalcoholtobacco false5 Drinking, drugs and smoking: Extensive use of alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana with little negative effects.
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.

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