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Avg. Critic Score: 72 out of 100 Generally favorable reviews Metascore® based on all critic reviews
Information for Parents:
16 Iffy for 16+
Read Common Sense Media review

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

  • 90
    L.A. Weekly | Scott Foundas

    It is Lynch's most experimental endeavor in the 30 years since "Eraserhead," that it will do nothing to draw new fans to the director's work and that, after two viewings, I cannot wait to see it again. Read full review

  • 90
    The New York Times | Manohla Dargis

    One of the few films I've seen this year that deserves to be called art. Dark as pitch, as noir, as hate, by turns beautiful and ugly, funny and horrifying, the film is also as cracked as Mad magazine, though generally more difficult to parse. Read full review

  • 88
    Boston Globe | Ty Burr

    Inland Empire may be the most aggressively surreal feature film ever released to movie theaters in this country, and it's possibly close to the movie David Lynch carries around in his head. Read full review

  • 88
    Rolling Stone | Peter Travers

    My advice, in the face of such hallucinatory brilliance, is that you hang on. Read full review

  • 75
    San Francisco Chronicle | Walter Addiego

    The film is dazzling and bewildering in equal measure. Read full review

  • 50
    New York Magazine | David Edelstein

    Inland Empire is way, way beyond my powers of ratiocination. It's the higher math. Read full review

  • 50
    Washington Post | Ann Hornaday

    If anything, it's worth watching as yet another example of Lynch's extraordinary collaboration with Dern. It may be overstating things to call her performance heroic, but it's nothing if not brave, as she dares to embody Lynch's most brutal impressions of Hollywood -- not as a dream factory, but as the place where dreams come to die. Read full review

  • 50
    Variety |

    Inland Empire may mesmerize those for whom the helmer can do no wrong, but the unconvinced and the occasional admirer will find it dull as dishwater and equally murky. Read full review

  • 50
    Entertainment Weekly | Owen Gleiberman

    Inland Empire is so locked up in David Lynch's brain that it never burrows its way into ours. Read full review

  • 50
    Los Angeles Times | Carina Chocano

    Shot on grainy, often blown-out and distorted consumer-grade video, scored to a feedback distortion-heavy soundtrack that will be familiar to fans and tinnitus sufferers alike, and clocking in at one merciful minute under three hours, Lynch's much-anticipated follow-up to "Mulholland Drive" signals a hale swan-dive off the deep end, away from any pretense of narrative logic and into the purer realm of unconscious free association. I found myself pining for "The Elephant Man," but that's just me. Read full review


Information for Parents
Common Sense Media says Iffy for 16+ Trippy, twisty thriller is totally out to Lynch.
What Parents Need to Know Parents need to know that most teens probably won't want to see this strange, practically "underground" David Lynch movie, despite its cast of relatively well-known actors and the fact that Lynch himself has a certain cachet among teens who like their entertainment weird, grotesque, and cool. Much of it defies standard logic, comprehension, and all Hollywood rules of linear storytelling. Plus, although not all experimental movies are filled with adult, disturbing, and taboo material, this one has its fair share.
  • Families can talk about the way the story is told. Is it even clear what the story (or stories) is (or are)? Do you think Lynch could have made the movie simpler and easier to understand and still captured the dreamlike ambiance? Why do you think he chose not to? How is this movie similar to Lynch's other films? How is it different? Why do you think well-known actors would appear in such an unconventional production?
The good stuff
  • message true0 Positive messages: The "nice" version of the heroine, Nikki, cheats on her husband (or seems to), though their marriage shows no sign of warmth or companionship -- just jealousy and possession. Her alter ego, Susan Blue, is a trashy, foulmouthed woman who's into casual extramarital affairs. (Of course, neither one of the personalities may be real ... or both may be.) Characters worthy of emulation are in short supply.
What to watch for
  • violence false5 Violence: Shocking scenes of stabbing murder by screwdriver, with bleeding, a close up of the wound, and an excruciating death. A woman is beaten. A gun is brandished, but viewers don't see the outcome. Dialogue contains graphic accounts of rape and genital mutilation (male and female).
  • sex false3 Sex: A physically tame adulterous sex scene is rendered extremely lurid in the context of betrayal and desire. A number of scantily clad Hollywood Boulevard prostitutes recur in the film.
  • language false5 Language: "F--k," "s--t," and graphic sexual description.
  • consumerism false0 Consumerism: Not an issue
  • drugsalcoholtobacco false3 Drinking, drugs and smoking: Lots of drinking, talk of drug addiction.

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Inland Empire Movie Ratings + Reviews

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