KinseyMovie Reviews

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Avg. Critic Score: 79 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
    The Hollywood Reporter | Michael Rechtshaffen

    One of the year's most satisfying films. Read full review

  • 100
    Chicago Sun-Times | Roger Ebert

    The strength of Kinsey is finally in the clarity it brings to its title character. It is fascinating to meet a complete original, a person of intelligence and extremes. Read full review

  • 91
    Entertainment Weekly | Lisa Schwarzbaum

    Kinsey is patient and educational and never (darn it) rude or shocking. Read full review

  • 90
    The New York Times | Dana Stevens

    Mr. Condon's great achievement is to turn Kinsey's complicated and controversial career into a grand intellectual drama. Read full review

  • 90
    Los Angeles Times | Kenneth Turan

    Intelligently written and directed with a pleasing frankness by Bill Condon and well played by Liam Neeson, Laura Linney and a strong supporting cast, the film skillfully uses the forms of old Hollywood to tell a story that would have given heart failure to Harry Cohn and his fellow tycoons. Read full review

  • 88
    Rolling Stone | Peter Travers

    Scrappy, funny, hot-to-trot biopic. Read full review

  • 88
    USA Today | Mike Clark

    Linney is a match for Neeson, and the only thing that might keep Lithgow from getting a supporting-Oscar nomination is the brevity of the part. Read full review

  • 80
    Variety | Todd McCarthy

    Lively, sometimes funny and, inevitably, provocative. Read full review

  • 75
    San Francisco Chronicle | Mick LaSalle

    It's sober, never flashy or exciting but always engrossing. Read full review

  • 60
    Washington Post |

    For all its explosive material, this is a fairly straightforward telling. Read full review

View more reviews for Kinsey on Metacritic

Information for Parents
Common Sense Media says not for kids Great movie, but not for kids.
What Parents Need to Know Parents need to know that this movie has very graphic and explicit sexual references and situations, including clinical and informal discussions and depictions of a wide range of sexual experiences and activities, including adultery and homosexuality. Characters use extremely strong language including clinical and slang terms for sexual acts. Characters drink and smoke. The movie includes some tense emotional scenes and some minor scuffling. A strength of the movie is its depiction of early concerns about equal treatment for women and minorities, including gays and lesbians.
  • Families can talk about why Kinsey's work created such an uproar. How do we know -- how do we decide -- what "normal" means? Could anyone be as controversial today as Kinsey was in the 1950s? Why does Mac laugh after meeting Kinsey's parents? What does that tell you about her? What made it possible for Kinsey to be a different kind of father to his children than his father was to him? What did Kinsey learn from his interview with his father? Why were Kinsey and his staff so wrong about the impact that their sexual experimentation would have on their wives?
The good stuff
  • message true0 Positive messages: Not an issue
What to watch for
  • violence false0 Violence: Tense emotional confrontations, some scuffles.
  • sex false5 Sex: Very explicit sexual references and situations, clinical discussions of many sexual acts.
  • language false5 Language: Very strong language.
  • consumerism false0 Consumerism: Not an issue
  • drugsalcoholtobacco false3 Drinking, drugs and smoking: Drinking, smoking.
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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