Advanced Search >
Help Me Search

Movies

Weekend Box Office
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores

Wide Releases
Now In Theaters

sort by namesort by score

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Limited Releases
Now In Theaters

sort by namesort by score

58 (Untitled)
96 35 Shots of Rum
56 Adam
72 Adela
39 Adventures of Power
78 Afghan Star
61 After the Storm
66 Afterschool
xx All the Best
58 American Casino
72 Amreeka
48 Antichrist
73 Araya
62 Art & Copy
55 As Seen Through These Eyes
76 Baader Meinhof Complex, The
86 Beaches of Agnes, The
13 Beautiful Life, A
70 Beeswax
35 Beyond a Reasonable Doubt
71 Big Fan
66 Black Dynamite
51 Blind Date
xx Blind Pig Who Wants to Fly
76 Bliss
35 Blue Tooth Virgin, The
26 Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day, The
57 Boys Are Back, The
45 Brief Interviews with Hideous Men
81 Bright Star
70 Bronson
45 Burning Plain, The
xx Carriers
55 Casi Divas
57 Chelsea on the Rocks
62 Cloud 9
65 Coco Before Chanel
69 Cold Souls
59 Collapse
44 Confessionsofa Ex-Doofus-ItchyFooted Mutha
82 Cove, The
75 Crude
82 Damned United, The
67 Departures
xx Dil Bole Hadippa
71 Disgrace
xx Do Knot Disturb
70 Earth Days
24 Eating Out 3: All You Can Eat
85 Education, An
55 Endgame
xx Eulogy for a Vampire
xx Everyone Else
xx Fatal Promises
56 Fifty Dead Men Walking
62 Five Minutes of Heaven
74 Flame & Citron
49 Food Beware: The French Organic Revolution
80 Food, Inc.
28 Free Style
xx From Mexico with Love
50 Fuel
25 Gentlemen Broncos
50 Give Me Your Hand
58 Gogol Bordello Non-Stop
72 Good Hair
89 Goodbye Solo
52 Grace
66 Harmony and Me
81 Headless Woman, The
xx Heretics, The
63 Horse Boy, The
73 House of the Devil, The
xx How to Seduce Difficult Women
74 Humpday
94 Hurt Locker, The
29 I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell
16 If One Thing Matters: A Film About Wolfgang Tillmans
75 In Search of Beethoven
83 In the Loop
61 Intimate Enemies
42 Irene in Time
70 It Might Get Loud
46 Killing Kasztner
19 Labor Day
xx Laila's Birthday
41 Little Ashes
41 Little Traitor, The
66 Liverpool
34 Looking for Palladin
80 Lorna's Silence
83 Maid, The
xx Ministers, The
59 More Than a Game
67 Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers, The
34 Motherhood
62 My One and Only
xx Mystery Team
48 New York, I Love You
73 Night and Day
66 No Impact Man
47 Ong Bak 2: The Beginning
34 Other Man, The
xx Painter Sam Francis, The
54 Paper Heart
xx Paradise
68 Paranormal Activity
68 Paris
44 Peter and Vandy
35 Play the Game
77 Precious: Based on the Novel by Sapphire
xx Pretty Ugly People
65 Providence Effect, The
76 Rembrandt's J'accuse
69 September Issue, The
79 Serious Man, A
40 Shrink
61 Skin
77 Skin Too Few: The Days of Nick Drake, A
xx Skiptracers
46 Splinterheads
39 St. Trinian's
89 Still Walking
50 Stoning of Soraya M., The
55 Storm
65 Tetro
70 That Evening Sun
72 Thirst
xx Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas 3D (re-release)
61 Trucker
xx Turning Green
83 U2 3D
66 Unmade Beds
66 Unmistaken Child
70 Visual Acoustics
55 Walt & El Grupo
67 Way We Get By, The
69 We Live in Public
64 Wedding Song, The
64 Where is Where?
xx White on Rice
74 Woman in Berlin, A
69 World's Greatest Dad
70 Yes Men Fix the World
69 Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg
xx You, the Living

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Box, The

EMAILPRINTWarner Bros. Pictures

Box, The reviews
45
4.7 User Score:

Mixed or average reviews

Based on 20 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

Based on 17 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >

Movie Info

Genre(s): Horror  |  Sci-fi  |  Suspense/Thriller

Written by: Richard Kelly

Directed by: Richard Kelly

Release Date:
Theatrical: November 6, 2009

Running Time: 115 minutes, Color

Origin: USA

Summary

RATING: PG-13 for thematic elements, some violence and disturbing images

Starring Cameron Diaz, James Marsden, and Frank Langella

What if someone gave you a box containing a button that, if pushed, would bring you a million dollars...but simultaneously take the life of someone you don't know? Would you do it? And what would be the consequences? The year is 1976. Norma Lewis is a teacher at a private high school and her husband, Arthur, is an engineer working at NASA. They are, by all accounts, an average couple living a normal life in the suburbs with their young son...until a mysterious man with a horribly disfigured face appears on their doorstep and presents Norma with a life-altering proposition: the box. With only 24 hours to make their choice, Norma and Arthur face an impossible moral dilemma. What they don't realize is that no matter what they decide, terrifying consequences will have already been set in motion. They soon discover that the ramifications of this decision are beyond their control and extend far beyond their own fortune and fate. (Warner Bros.)

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

75

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

The Box is a mess, but it's a curiously haunting, intriguing, brain-tickling mess, and it delivers that "Donnie Darko" feeling in truckloads. Or should that be rocketloads?

Read Full Review >
75

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

This movie kept me involved and intrigued, and for that I'm grateful. I'm beginning to wonder whether, in some situations, absurdity might not be a strength.

Read Full Review >
75

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

The Box is the work of a visionary flirting with commercialism after having so grandly flouted it with “Southland Tales.’’ He doesn’t give in completely. Several trips to the megaplex might be required for The Box to make complete sense.

Read Full Review >
75

The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps

Whenever The Box threatens to crash, Kelly summons up another haunting image or heartfelt, albeit thin, moral inquiry. It’s an unwieldy, ambitious, one-of-a-kind film waiting for a cult to find it.

Read Full Review >
63

ReelViews James Berardinelli

Despite its flaws, The Box remains intriguing; however, as its mysteries are solved, the prevailing sense is one of frustration rather than satisfaction. That makes The Box worthy of the dubious label of "an interesting failure."

Read Full Review >
60

Film Threat Matthew Sorrento

The revelation of the film's mystery just barely makes sense. Yet, we dismiss it as an extended MacGuffin, and thus can delight in the film's devious turns.

Read Full Review >
50

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

What a shame that Kelly's pacing doesn't run as fast as his imagination. Instead of sweeping you along, The Box just sits there like something unclaimed at lost and found. Damaged goods.

Read Full Review >
50

The New York Times Manohla Dargis

Sincere and sinister and inevitably ambitious, a serious work that insists on its own seriousness even when it edges toward the preposterous.

Read Full Review >
50

Variety Jordan Mintzer

Kelly's trademark mix of sci-fi, surrealism and suburbia occasionally entertains.

Read Full Review >
50

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

Kelly is devoted to telling his stories visually -- except when he's not. And the second half of The Box, unfortunately, underscores everything Kelly, as a filmmaker, wants to be and just can't.

Read Full Review >
50

Slate John Swansburg

The Box plays like "The Pardoner's Tale" as retold by the conspiracy theorist haunting your neighborhood Radio Shack.

Read Full Review >
42

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

It's no coincidence that The Box plays like the world's murkiest Twilight Zone episode. It's loosely based on ''Button, Button,'' a short story by Richard Matheson, who wrote some of the series' greatest scripts.

Read Full Review >
40

Time Out New York Joshua Rothkopf

"Southland Tales" was a soporific mess, and while The Box (based on material by novelist Richard Matheson) is superior by a certain margin, Kelly derails his newfound discipline with the usual shimmering portals and hazy notions of apocalyptic sacrifice.

Read Full Review >
40

The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt

An artistic fiasco that cuts across genre lines and all logic to become, perhaps, an instant midnight movie.

Read Full Review >
38

USA Today Claudia Puig

The characters in The Box are like cardboard cutouts: Some have "foolish victim" labeled on them, and others fall into the category of absurdly creepy villain.

Read Full Review >
38

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

The pacing throughout is languid. Your eye becomes fixated on the hideous 70s wallpaper behind them. If only the story's interstellar narrative developments had the intensity of that wallpaper. Rod Serling might've gotten a great hour out of it (the story, that is, not the wallpaper). It simply is not two hours' worth, no matter how many quantum leaps into the unknown Kelly takes.

Read Full Review >
30

Village Voice J. Hoberman

The new Richard Kelly movie is basically a sock of coal for Christmas.

Read Full Review >
30

Los Angeles Times Betsy Sharkey

What the plot doesn't decimate, the film's slower-than-a-clogged-drain pacing does. Sadly, this is one box that's just not worth picking up off the porch, much less opening, not even for a million dollars.

Read Full Review >
25

New York Post Lou Lumenick

After a slightly promising start, this great-looking but ultimately deeply confusing and unscary sci-fi/horror opus turns into a quite boring rehash of M. Night Shyamalan's post-"Signs" films.

Read Full Review >
20

New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman

The Box is its own kind of awful, a disconnected mess that never finds its reason for being.

Read Full Review >

What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this movie is 4.7 (out of 10) based on 17 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Popular on CBS sites: SEC Football | NFL | Video Game Cheats | iPhone | Video Game Reviews | Notebooks | Antivirus Software

About CBS Interactive | Jobs | Advertise

© 2009 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved. | Privacy Policy | Terms of Use