Bagdad Cafe

Name: Bagdad Cafe
Genre: Drama, Comedy
Released: April 22, 1988
Duration: 95 min
Rating: 71
Cast: CCH Pounder, Jack Palance, Marianne Sägebrecht

1988

METASCORE

Generally favorable reviews based on 6 Critic Reviews

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USER SCORE

Generally favorable reviews based on 12 Ratings

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7.3

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7.3	User Score Generally favorable reviews based on 12 Ratings

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Movie Details & Credits

Island Pictures | Release Date: April 22, 1988 | PG

Starring: CCH Pounder, Jack Palance, Marianne Sägebrecht

Summary: A lonely German woman ends up in the most desolate motel on Earth and decides to make it brighter.

Director: Percy Adlon

Genre(s): Drama, Comedy

Rating: PG

Runtime: 95 min

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Critic Reviews

Kevin Thomas

Bagdad Cafe, which Adlon wrote with his wife, Eleonore, and Christopher Doherty, is a miracle of timing and control for all its aura of zany, off-the-cuff spontaneity. It is the work of a director who has such a clear idea of what he wants and where he's going that he can take his time to build up every joke for the maximum payoff. Read full review

TV Guide Magazine Staff [Not Credited]

Bagdad Cafe is a visually exhilarating and consciously modern film, more concerned with projecting an atmosphere or spirit than with telling a story. It's hard not to fall in love with this comic fable about the magic that develops at the meeting of two cultures. Read full review

Roger Ebert

The charm of Bagdad Cafe is that every character and every moment is unanticipated, obscurely motivated, of uncertain meaning and vibrating with life. Read full review

Dave Kehr

Much of the film`s charm resides in the fact that there is no reason for any of this to happen, except for the director`s sheer will that it be so. Read full review

Rita Kempley

With its foibles and quirks, it's something like a Sam Shepard play by way of the Black Forest. Read full review

Janet Maslin

Bagdad Cafe is too slow-paced to work as a comedy, and its screenplay manages simultaneously to be both shapeless and pat. Read full review

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User Reviews

alejandro970

Apr 1, 2023

Perhaps a defect of this film is its slow development, but it is compensated step by step with endearing characters and comic sequences, which leave a quite delicious and memorable ending.

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

TheKiddy

Aug 22, 2015

I just re-watched this film and remembered how much I liked it and was moved by it I was. It explores themes of home and family and culture clash with both humor and love. And oh that song. On it's own, it is so beautiful. But the filmmaker weaves it in in such an amazing way, it's as thoughI just re-watched this film and remembered how much I liked it and was moved by it I was. It explores themes of home and family and culture clash with both humor and love. And oh that song. On it's own, it is so beautiful. But the filmmaker weaves it in in such an amazing way, it's as though the two, the film and the song, were born together.… Expand

1 of 1 users found this helpful10

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