Big Night

Samuel Goldwyn Company, The | Release Date: September 20, 1996

CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION

80	METASCORE Generally favorable reviews based on 23 Critic Reviews

Positive:

Mixed:

Negative:

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Critic Reviews

Critic score Publication By date

100

Barbara Shulgasser

Big Night's beauty is the fact that it is about passion. Read full review

100

Mr. ShowbizF. X. Feeney

It is one of the most beautifully staged American movies in a very long time.

100

Roger Ebert

By the end of the movie, we have been through an emotional and a sensual wringer, in a film of great wisdom and delight. Read full review

100

Lisa Schwarzbaum

The real feast is in the mix of characters, each so finely and unschmaltzily delineated in a script so confident and controlled that even the most passing of participants comes alive. Read full review

Steve Davis

Big Night is, in a word, delicious. Read full review

James Berardinelli

In addition to their deft skill with light drama, the directors understand well-placed humor, and throw just the right amount of comedy into the mix to make Big Night fun without turning it into an outright farce. Read full review

Mike Clark

A robustly imaginative sleeper Read full review

John Petrakis

May not have the size and grandeur of some of the biographical and political epics being released this fall, but I defy you to find a better written, more honest -- or yes, more satisfying and delicious -- movie this year. [27 September 1996, Friday, p.C]

Film.comSean Means

It's so good, so jam-packed with delights, that it leaves you gorged -- and bemoaning the fatty glop that passes for moviemaking these days.

Richard Schickel

A movie that is both as real as food on the table and as hauntingly evanescent as its taste on one's tongue. Read full review

Todd McCarthy

This unlikely collaboration between actors Stanley Tucci and Campbell Scott is extremely well directed, making for a smartly made, delightfully acted period piece whose sensibility neatly straddles art films and the mainstream. Read full review

Desson Thomson

It's the moviegoing equivalent of great eating. Read full review

Staff (Not credited)

This little picture charms by virtue of its craft and patience. Read full review

Janet Maslin

The film is loaded with brotherly affection and with warm, funny and poignant evocations of a gentler time.[20 September 1996, p.C12] Read full review

Kenneth Turan

As delicately and deliciously prepared as the dishes it features, Big Night is a lyric to the love of food, family and persuasive acting. Read full review

Peter Stack

Both a delightful story and a great food movie that ranks with "Like Water for Chocolate'' or "Babette's Feast.'' Read full review

Film.comKeith Simanton

Like Primo's dishes, Big Night looks and tastes (yes, it does taste) like a labor of love.

Peter Travers

A feast of a film done on a low budget with a menu featuring top-grade acting, writing and direction. Read full review

Film.comJohn Hartl

There's an almost natty precision about this picture that's so rare these days in American movies that it provides satisfaction in itself.

New Times (L.A.)Peter Rainer

One of the few American independent films right now that actually deserves its high praise. Read full review

Rita Kempley

Big Night, a scrumptious tale of great food and grand passions, belongs on the menu with such mouth-watering movie fare as "Babette's Feast" and "Like Water for Chocolate." Read full review

TV Guide MagazineStaff (Not credited)

The script is shapeless and it all goes on far too long. Read full review

Film.comTom Keogh

The story, ultimately, is about the classic conflict between a desire to cherish and protect one's unique gifts from a brutal world and a more practical instinct to compromise beauty.