Femme Fatale
Warner Bros. Pictures | Release Date: November 6, 2002 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
60
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 30 Critic Reviews
Positive:
16
Mixed:
10
Negative:
4
Watch Now
Stream On
Buy on

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
This is pure filmmaking, elegant and slippery. I haven't had as much fun second-guessing a movie since "Mulholland Drive." Read full review
90
Los Angeles TimesManohla Dargis
Here, the message is the moviemaking and the unparalleled joy you get from a film that can carry you off so completely, making you forget about everything save for the beautiful lies in front of you. Read full review
90
L.A. WeeklyJohn Powers
I haven't admired a De Palma film since "Carrie," or even enjoyed one since "Scarface," so it must mean something that Femme Fatale gave me one of the best times at the movies I've had this year. Read full review
90
SalonCharles Taylor
In his dazzling and luxuriant new thriller Femme Fatale, De Palma turns trash into chic. It's a sexy, violent, glamorous, sinfully funny movie with a surface as hard and brilliant as diamonds. Read full review
80
The New York TimesDana Stevens
The story, to the extent that it is comprehensible, is pretentious and banal, closer to "Vanilla Sky" than "Notorious." But Mr. De Palma proves that, in the absence of insight or ideas, some amazing things are possible. It is possible, for instance, to be entranced by a movie without believing it for a second. Read full review
80
Chicago ReaderJonathan Rosenbaum
If you decide at the outset that this needn't have any recognizable relationship to the world we live in, you might even find it an unadulterated delight. Read full review
80
The A.V. ClubScott Tobias
Much like David Lynch's "Mulholland Drive," which it resembles in more ways than one, Femme Fatale makes a rich bouillabaisse out of De Palma's trademark themes and obsessions, stacking references to the heavens and operating with an internal logic that may take several viewings to fully unpack. Read full review
78
Austin ChronicleMarjorie Baumgarten
A triumph of style over logic. Although this is not necessarily a good thing, it works spectacularly in this instance. Read full review
75
Seattle Post-IntelligencerSean Axmaker
It's hard to call it thrilling -- these aren't characters you actually care about and De Palma isn't as concerned with building tension as playing visual games -- but it sure sparkles. Read full review
70
VarietyLisa Nesselson
An extravagant suspense cocktail of wacky and lascivious ingredients that goes down fine. Read full review
70
New York Magazine (Vulture)Peter Rainer
It's a pure (guilty) pleasure trip. That's pleasure, De Palma–style -- twisted, dirty, voyeuristic, a vast glissando of amorality. Read full review
63
New York Daily NewsJami Bernard
Sexy, witty, energetic and gorgeous, but it is as stripped of the human element (in some of its production design, as well) as a minimalist Calvin Klein store. Read full review
63
Philadelphia InquirerSteven Rea
Femme Fatale is glossy, glamorous cinema as collage. Maybe all the pieces of a truly good film noir are here, but the filmmaker has opted simply to toss them into the air and let them fall where they may. Read full review
63
Chicago TribuneMichael Wilmington
The film is De Palma's tribute to film noir, to Paris and to the cinema itself. Read full review
63
Miami HeraldRene Rodriguez
Viewers who like their movies to adhere to some sort of reasonable logic, or to at least make sense, will not be pleased by Femme Fatale. For everyone else, it's playtime. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeTy Burr
Fatale is, truthfully, a mess - an absurdly overwritten Eurotrash thriller that beggars an audience's suspension of disbelief. It's also great over-the-top moviemaking if you're in a slap-happy mood. Read full review
60
Washington PostDesson Thomson
Mainly, Femme Fatale is really about De Palma's three favorite things: women, movies and women. And you can either share his guilty pleasures in all their living, breathing, power-edited, overextended glory, or you can get on with your life. Read full review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam Lacey
Even if it's accepted simply as glitter-sprayed trash, sophomorically plotted and incompetently acted, Femme Fatale is a uniquely De Palma kind of effluence, an exercise in auteur self-parody. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleEdward Guthmann
Sexy and passably entertaining, with a plot that's too clever by half. Read full review
50
Portland OregonianShawn Levy
Starts with a flourish, staggers along for a bit and finally collapses -- even die-hard De Palma fans, will be left hungry.
50
The New YorkerDavid Denby
Elegant nonsense. For some years, it's been clear that De Palma's work has lost the jolting intellectual energy and wit of his "Carrie" and "Dressed to Kill" days, and in Femme Fatale the Master is just diddling. [25 November 2002, p. 108]
50
Washington PostStephen Hunter
A passionate film buff's valentine to the two directors he loves most: Alfred Hitchcock and Brian De Palma. The film that this worship has inspired is pretty amusing when the director apes Hitchcock, and pretty awful when he apes himself. Read full review
50
Christian Science MonitorDavid Sterritt
May not always make sense, but it's crammed with flamboyant images and frisky cinematic pranks -- It's far from a great movie, but there's nothing like it on the current scene. Read full review
50
Village VoiceJ. Hoberman
A tricksy meta-thriller that, replete with the requisite homage to "Vertigo," sustains its dreamlike glide through a succession of cheesy coincidences and voluptuous cheap effects. Read full review
40
Film ThreatDon R. Lewis
Rebecca Romijn-Stamos is just plain HOT in this film and other than that...we got ourselves a stinker. Read full review
40
TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonagh
"Double Indemnity's" darkly poetic carnality is timeless. Trashy, throwaway fluff like De Palma's film can only look bad by comparison. Read full review
38
New York PostMegan Lehmann
De Palma fools around with split screens and slo-mo, but no amount of cinematic artifice can varnish over the fact that this is simply a bad film. Read full review
38
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
Nothing short of a disaster -– easily one of the worst movies of the year. Read full review
25
USA TodayClaudia Puig
It tries hard to be sexy, mysterious and dangerous, but ends up laughably inscrutable. Read full review
0
Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman
If you look hard, you can make out a story in Femme Fatale, but it has nothing to do with the senseless pileup of jewel thievery, shutterbug voyeurism, and leggy sex bombs so shallow and bad they seem to have come out of a 1978 copy of Hustler magazine. Read full review
More From This Movie

60 Critic Reviews

5.6 User Reviews

Details & Credits|Trailers

Current Movie Releases
By MetascoreBy User Score
1 81 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple
2 77 Project Hail Mary
3 75 Send Help
4 73 Hoppers
5 72 The Sheep Detectives
SEE ALL
Essential Links
New on Amazon Prime Video
New on Netflix
Coming Soon to DVD/Blu-ray
SEE ALL