American Pie

Universal Pictures | Release Date: July 9, 1999

CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION

58	METASCORE Mixed or average reviews based on 30 Critic Reviews

Positive:

Mixed:

Negative:

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Critic Reviews

Critic score Publication By date

Jack Mathews

The successful bits, along with an amiable cast of losers and their prom-night prey, make American Pie a winner. Read full review

Jonathan Rosenbaum

Another giggly gross-out comedy for teenagers. Read full review

Roger Ebert

It is not inspired, but it's cheerful and hard-working and sometimes funny, and--here's the important thing--it's not mean. Read full review

Carrie Rickey

Exceptionally funny, unexpectedly tender, and lewder than a teenage boy's dreams.

TNT RoughCutM. Meghan McCarthy

What is refreshing about this film is that most of the characters seem like real people.

100

Dallas ObserverGlenn Gaslin

It's painful, it's real, and it's probably the funniest thing you'll see this year...a teen sexploitation classic. Read full review

Marc Caro

Both funny and foul, alternately frank and full of it. Read full review

Mike Clark

The presence of "Election's" Chris Klein as the male contingent's most sensitive member only emphasizes how much smarter that high school comedy was. Read full review

Lawrence Toppman

The story was primitive, the characters unmemorable, the direction unsophisticated, the writing cliched, the photography and music drab, the pacing uneven, the acting varying from adroitly funny to exaggerated.

Film.comErnest Hardy

What really makes the film fall dead (although the preview audience I saw it with howled from beginning to end) are the actors and the way the characters have been scripted. Read full review

Todd McCarthy

Cheesy homage to a level of horniness Austin Powers could only imagine will be a dream movie for many a teenage boy. Read full review

Kenneth Turan

Unusual in its ability to mix bodily functions humor with a sincere and unlooked-for sense of decency. Read full review

TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonagh

Alternately sweet and raucous comedy. Read full review

Ann Hornaday

An uninteresting take on a tired formula that is only occasionally funny and usually pretty gross.

Rene Rodriguez

Guaranteed to beguile anyone who can remember the joy -- and agony -- of anticipating the first time.

Owen Gleiberman

A lively, disposable hybrid of the sincere and the synthetic. Read full review

William Arnold

Idiotic. Read full review

Film.comRobert Horton

The fact that isolated bits are amusing shouldn't keep us from strongly noting that this movie really is pretty awful -- not at all worthy of guilty pleasure status. Read full review

John Patterson

The movie lover in you will recoil; your inner sophomore will rejoice. Read full review

Mary Elizabeth Williams

I'd appreciate toilet humor more if it weren't so often so unimaginative. Read full review

100

Mick LaSalle

In addition to being extremely funny, the film has a warm spirit and respect for the characters. Read full review

Dennis Lim

Returns the teen movie to the uncomplicated glory days of "Porky's" and "Losin' It." Read full review

Wesley Morris

A limp excuse for a coming-of-age flick, more interested in sexploits than sex, more adept at gross-out than girls. Read full review

Stephen Holden

Among this year's bumper crop of shallow teen-age movies, it is the shallowest and the most prurient. Read full review

Shawn Levy

Distinct from others of its lowly stripe because of the credibly real-feeling performances by much of its youthful ensemble.

Jeff Giles

A surprisingly earnest and cautionary movie, careful to attract female viewers and not freak parents out too badly. Read full review

Jim Sullivan

Gross and tasteless...this high-school romp mixes the gross and tasteless with sentimental mush. Read full review

Jonathan Foreman

Vulgar and lewd and raunchy like you wouldn't believe, and absolutely hilarious from beginning to end.

Marc Savlov

A go-for-the-lowest-common-denominator grab bag of raunchy sex gags and freakish outbursts. The cool thing is that it works. Read full review

Mr. ShowbizKevin Maynard

Pie has some nice surprises and is enjoyable in a smutty, sitcom way. It offers up the outrageousness of "There's Something About Mary" without wallowing in cruelty.