Copycat
Warner Bros. Pictures | Release Date: October 27, 1995 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
54
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 19 Critic Reviews
Positive:
10
Mixed:
7
Negative:
2
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
San Francisco ChroniclePeter Stack
Intelligent and crackling with crisp, provocative visual energy, Copycat, the new thriller starring Sigourney Weaver and Holly Hunter, is so creepy and dangerous-feeling that it's like a knife edge pressed against the jugular. Read full review
88
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
With its rare mixture of intelligent plotting, flawless acting, and start-to- finish tension, Copycat is a force to be reckoned with. Read full review
88
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
It creates original characters - Hudson and, especially, the little dynamo M. J. - and makes them more important than the plot. We care, and that's the key. Read full review
80
VarietyTodd McCarthy
Ending is on the conventional side, more so than anything else in the picture , but script by Ann Biderman and David Madsen keeps the tart surprises coming throughout most of the picture with only occasional lapses into red herrings and artificial manipulation. Read full review
75
San Francisco ExaminerBarbara Shulgasser
Copycat is as steady and reliable as a pulse and as exhilarating as a surge of adrenalin. Read full review
75
Entertainment WeeklyKen Tucker
The movie is, in short, a trash conundrum. What nearly redeems the movie is its acting. Read full review
75
TV Guide MagazineStaff(Not Credited)
Aside from some effective suspense sequences, the film's strengths lie in the relationship between the heroines, which is well developed and plausible by genre standards. Read full review
70
The New York TimesJanet Maslin
The screenplay for Copycat, by Ann Biderman and Jay Presson Allen from a story by David Madsen, is otherwise so crackling good that character development threatens to eclipse the actual crimes. Read full review
70
NewsweekDavid Ansen
Copycat is satisfyingly tense, but the disgusto factor is balanced by its obvious theatricality--neatly captured in the contrasting performaces of Weaver and Hunter, the one playing neurotic standard poodle to the other's tightly wound terrier. [6 Nov 1995, pg.86]
70
Washington PostRita Kempley
Jon Amiel, who previously directed "Sommersby," delivers a taut, gripping thriller and, with the help of his accomplished leads, succeeds in camouflaging some of the mammoth holes in Ann Biderman and David Madsen's otherwise intelligent and inventive screenplay. Read full review
50
Austin ChronicleSteve Davis
It's an occasionally entertaining ride, although one fraught with numerous logical holes. Read full review
50
Los Angeles TimesKenneth Turan
By having Sigourney Weaver and Holly Hunter play the maniacs' feisty antagonists, the filmmakers seem to believe that they've made a significant feminist statement, the movie's two hours-plus of almost continual sadistic abuse of women notwithstanding. Even in an industry known for self-delusion, that is quite a feat. Read full review
50
USA TodayMike Clark
Copycat, despite two tough-babe leads to kill for, flies in more directions than scattered kitty litter. [27 Oct 1995, pg.02D]
50
Christian Science MonitorDavid Sterritt
The acting is capable and the suspense is effective at times, but the gore is grisly and the climax is surprisingly hokey. Read full review
40
EmpireKim Newman
It must be hard for actresses as unconventional and gutsy as Weaver and Hunter to find scripts worth making. Although this offers them both meaty parts with plentiful neuroses and snappy lines, it is otherwise a completely mechanical load of old cods. Read full review
40
The New YorkerAnthony Lane
The plot would seem more ingenious if the movie itself didn't copy so many other thrillers (notably "The Silence of the Lambs"), and if it weren't so easy to spot every twist half an hour in advance. Read full review
40
TimeRichard Corliss
Copycat, directed by Jon Amiel ("The Singing Detective", "Sommersby"), means to be a Greatest Hits album of atrocities. A sick mind is a terrible thing to waste. [13 Nov 1995, pg.120]
25
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam Lacey
There's are nagging problems with the script, which feels like it has lost a few pages during its rewrites. Instead of an orderly, inexorable pressure of events, we get a surfeit of red herrings, followed by the rather uninteresting killer simply stepping out of hiding. Read full review
10
Chicago ReaderJonathan Rosenbaum
Holly Hunter and Sigourney Weaver, a cop and a shrink, are the main trackers, but so little is done in Ann Biderman and David Madsen's script to give them or their colleagues or even their prey interesting human dimensions that the overall ambience is chiefly pornographic. Read full review
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