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Parents' Guide to

Beautiful Girls

By Charles Cassady Jr., Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 16+

Talky '90s romance; kids may be "just not into" it.

Movie R 1996 112 minutes
Beautiful Girls Poster Image

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Community Reviews

age 15+

Based on 1 parent review

age 15+
This is an incredible movie--check out the IMDB (sp.?) for more intelligent reviews, with more than an ounce of thought or depth, than Common Sense gave it. While it is not my favorite movie of all time, it does contain the 2 best scenes of all time. Watch it and see if you don't agree. Natalie Portman is stunning; Timothy Hutton follows her lead and keeps up. This movie sadly illustrates the unfulfilled promise that is Natalie Portman's career--but enjoy it nonetheless. Other movies I like are Pan's Labyrinth, Once, Terms of Endearment, all the LOTR, The Orphanage, Fried Green Tomatoes, The Princess Bride, Secret of Roan Inish, The Breakfast Club, Moulin Rouge, The Rookie, The Age of Innocence, Usual Suspects, The Departed, Mystic Pizza, Mystic River, etc.

This title has:

Too much swearing
Great messages
Great role models
1 person found this helpful.

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say: (1 ):
Kids say: Not yet rated

Beautiful Girls is a decent but unspectacular specimen with an above-average cast. It has the benefit of sassy, savvy female characters as well, giving these barfly buddies the occasional verbal reality-check they deserve. If viewers invest attentively in, say, the first 30 minutes of Beautiful Girls, they'll have a reasonably fun time for the duration. Assuming, of course, a really hot, flashy action-blockbuster doesn't walk past and draw attention away...

It's the coarse Paul who gives BEAUTIFUL GIRLS one of its many do-people-really-talk-like-this? quotable moments, with an eloquent and poetic (and utterly out of character) defense of his wallpapering his bachelor-pad with supermodel layouts -- that idealized "beautiful girls" represent infinite possibilities and happiness for the unattached heterosexual male. With that he sums up the basic dynamic of the "guytalk movie," of which there were many in the 1980s and 90s. These were male-oriented, loosely-plotted comedies in which tribes of young, unwed guys weigh the advantages of committing to their same old, long-suffering girlfriends or holding out for the chance an electrifying hottie could walk into their lives (the unintentional gag here being a movie goddess like Mira Sorvino could be cast as the drab, ordinary choice). Such flicks provided actors (not to mention writers) with rich character parts and diverting bull-session dialogue.

Movie Details

  • In theaters: February 9, 1996
  • On DVD or streaming: April 20, 1999
  • Cast: Matt Dillon , Timothy Hutton , Uma Thurman
  • Director: Ted Demme
  • Inclusion Information: Female actors
  • Studio: Miramax
  • Genre: Comedy
  • Run time: 112 minutes
  • MPAA rating: R
  • MPAA explanation: strong language and nude pin-ups.
  • Last updated: June 8, 2023

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