1993 Directed by Jonathan Demme
Two competing lawyers join forces to sue a prestigious law firm for AIDS discrimination. As their unlikely friendship develops their courage overcomes the prejudice and corruption of their powerful adversaries.
Tom Hanks Denzel Washington Jason Robards Mary Steenburgen Antonio Banderas Ron Vawter Robert Ridgely Charles Napier Lisa Summerour Obba Babatundé Andre B. Blake Robert W. Castle Daniel Chapman Roger Corman Ann Dowd David Drake Karen Finley Charles Glenn Peter Jacobs Paul Lazar John Bedford Lloyd Roberta Maxwell Warren Miller Harry Northup Dan Olmstead Joey Perillo Lauren Roselli Anna Deavere Smith Lisa Talerico Show All…
Understand that any film we credit with changing the world is a distraction. Films don't change the world. They react to changes in the world. They reflect changes. There are films that can be shown to have had impact, especially in individual circumstances, but for the most part, films are a reflection of the times they are made. The reason for this is that most films, especially big studio films, rely on the financial backing of the ruling class. Some of that is different in other countries or in independent (or, these days, crowdfunded) films, but a film like this, a huge Oscar-bait major studio production, could only get made with the tacit approval of the ruling class.
The ruling…
I would watch a wisdom tooth extraction, if it were directed by Jonathan Demme.
growing up, whenever I started to explain something convoluted, my mom would make me stop and then she'd say, "explain it to me like I'm 6 years old... Denzel Washington, Philadelphia." needless to say, I felt predisposed to feel affection for this film and I felt a great deal of it. Ann Dowd!
as a queer man, this ripped my fucking heart out and made me cry harder than i can even describe. i can't even say how affecting and how perfect this is, i don't have the words for it. saw it for the first time about 5-6 years ago, when i was a child and not aware of my sexuality, my queerness, and it broke me completely, i sobbed over it for days. and seeing it now, as an openly bisexual man, i broke down in tears. it has such empathy and compassion, such beauty and humanity that it's impossible not to feel overwhelmed with emotion. i can't even describe how much this hit me. demme was the master of humanity, one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, and i'm so grateful to him for making this. miss him everyday.
* My pursuit of Denzel movies led to me The Manchurian Candidate. Which reminded me to explore director Jonathan Demme who also made The Silence of the Lambs. Thankfully I was able to pursue Denzel and Demme together as they collaborated in this extraordinary movie. 😊
* I read that this was one of the first mainstream Hollywood movies about homosexuality, HIV/AIDS and homophobia. Tom Hanks especially, Demme, Denzel, the rest of the cast and crew cannot be praised enough for this accomplishment. And I thought I can't love Tom Hanks more 😂 He totally deserved the Best Actor Oscar for this performance and his choice to do this role. Kudos to the Academy for a rare great decision.
*…
Philadelphia feels like a movie that is impossible to hate. It’s beautiful story, raw and rich performances, layered characters and heartbreaking feel allow it to be great. Tom Hanks earned a very deserved Oscar for his portrayal in this movie. The performance felt so subtle, yet so powerful. He tackled a demanding and difficult performance very well. Denzel provides the great co-lead role. He’s passionate and does exactly what he needs to. The screenplay pushes the movie to explore deeper areas of the subject matter, which forces the movie to become more emotional. The music theme is simple, but carries the emotional beats beautifully. If you are a member of the lgbt community, or not, this is a must watch.
1. The opening credits are 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥. That Springsteen song layered over Demme's montaging is as good as it gets.
2. Demme doesn't get enough credit for what he does with the camera. Never showy, mostly still, but always delicately probing. Intimate close ups. Sensitive floating. Tak Fujimoto doing God's work with the lighting. I mean, it looks like a Shyamalan film, in the best way.
3. I wasn't old enough in 1993 to comprehend how many barriers this film was knocking down with regards to homophobia and AIDS panic and especially with putting a black man at the center of struggling with this (who is arguably the real protagonist), but it feels like it provided a tectonic shift in a…
One of the first mainstream films in Hollywood to cover the issue of HIV/AIDS, Philadelphia is a sensibly told, brilliantly crafted & strongly performed cinema that's powerful, essential & heartbreaking at the same time and also works as a thought-provoking social commentary that has a lot to say about the society we live in.
Set in the titular town, Philadelphia tells the story of Andrew Beckett; a closet homosexual infected with AIDS who sues his former law firm after they fire him when they find out about his condition. Unable to find a lawyer to represent his case, Beckett is compelled to act as his own attorney but eventually finds an unlikely ally in a homophobic lawyer.
Directed by Jonathan Demme (known…
I'm always picking on Jean-Marc Vallée and The Dallas Buyers Club, and I'm afraid I'll need to do so one more time: here's a much better example of how to do a mainstream drama about the AIDS epidemic. Jonathan Demme is such an expert at treating the passage of time and the development of dramatic events with a steady hand. You never feel like things are contrived, there are no plot conveniences, there are simply people who enter a situation, engage with it, and then exit. That's not to suggest there isn't any dramatic artifice, but it's an artifice driven by natural human interactions rather than genre conventions. This isn't a heroic tale of a man's fight against circumstance, except…
Denzel Washington provides an incredible supporting performance in Jonathan Demme’s directed Philadelphia as homophobic Joe Miller, a personal injury lawyer who becomes confronted with his preconceived notions about gays and gay lifestyles as he represents Tom Hanks’ character, Andrew Beckett. Based on a true story and unfolding predominantly as a courtroom drama, it's of historical significance for being the first mainstream studio-produced film to come from Hollywood on AIDS.
Hanks gives a touching and reliable central performance, as well as being entirely convincing, as a senior associate at a corporate law firm who's dismissed by the firm's partners as a result of his diagnosis with AIDS. While the political and social point of view is relegated as it focuses on…
(I am having a bad headache right now so I'm gonna make this quick)
Denzel and Tom are good (Or Tom is just really loud), I don't like the cinematography, the editing is fine, the ending is sad but I expected it.
The acting was good. The script was good. But, there were no memorable showcases of camerawork. No iconic stills.
maybe my favorite “movie that makes me cry” movie, and yet the most lasting image of it in my mind is the way denzel eats the sandwich in the library, which i think about twice a week minimum. anyway just got done crying!
Jonathan Demme is really hit or miss with the POV technique in this movie. Not a super well directed movie, but never uninteresting and the performances are pretty darn great. Jonathan Demme is imo top 10 directors for actors ever. I just wish he was as good behind the camera (he's decent, but nothing exceptional)
It is so aggravating how under-appreciated Mr. Jonathan Demme is in film history. My god he’s such a master of camerawork. When the characters talk to the camera—ugh. It’s amazing. It’s engaging. It’s powerful. It’s what makes Demme, Demme.
Hanks is brilliant and Denzel is even better. A wonderfully risky turn by Denzel but definitely one of his greatest. Joe Miller is such a fascinating character and his dynamic with Hanks’s Andy Beckett starts so surface-level, but transforms into something amazing. One sequence that could sum up this relationship and the overall beauty of this film, frankly my favorite part of the film, is the opera sequence. Demme uses sound so brilliantly and Hanks is mind blowing in that scene.
I still haven’t cried while watching a film, but this came close to breaking that run. I also love how my film teacher showed this for our last film this year.
I literally hate courtroom dramas I only watched this one because it's #gay and I just ended up being traumatizing lmao.
It's just like the most "gay content for straight eyes" thing I've ever seen, but if straight audiences in the 90s needed to see severe gay suffering and disenfranchisement in order to become less hateful toward AIDS victims and gays in general then I'll let them have this one
Good film, not much to say other than it did it’s job effectively and is pretty much what you expect. Most standout element was weirdly the score, was surprised to learn it was Howard Shore!
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