Popular reviews

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  Review by Anna Imhof 🌸 ★★★★★ 11

  "I just gotta find another way to be alive."

  If there was ever a movie that truly broke my heart, it's this one. These broken characters, these actors who are running on their last breaths... how the line between cinema and reality gets blurrier and blurrier as the camera dances around them, trying to catch the last light of their souls. And how it succeeds because these people so desperately wanted to be seen. This isn't a movie, it's a poem in images, a prophecy and yet a memory. Everything makes sense, everything hurts, and everything shines on. The horses are running wild again, the tears are streaming down my face.

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  Review by cassandra ★★★ 5

  This film showed me that men are pigs and Marilyn Monroe is an angel. But we already knew that.

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  Review by theriverjordan ★★★★★ 6

  “The Misfits” is a film so utterly despondent; it could only have been made by the truly lost at heart. 

  John Huston’s “Misfits” was long ago eclipsed in artistic merit by its widespread infamy. The final completed film of Marilyn Monroe and Clark Gable; Huston himself was also consistently drunk and/or gambling while on location, and costar Montgomery Clift would suffer an untimely early death within five years of the movie’s release. 

  It’s hard, then, to view “Misfits” for its original intent; a Valentine to Monroe from Arthur Miller. It’s unfortunate, because Miller’s script is among his best writings, and Monroe gave her greatest acting performance in the film... even while she was in and out of rehab, and her…

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  Review by Carlos Valladares ★★★★★ 2

  The Misfits is one of those screamingly hopeless films that only occurs when the stars magically align. Said stars (Marilyn Monroe, Clark Gable, Montgomery Clift) are all shown on their last legs; within two days after the shoot wrapped up, Clark Gable would suffer a massive heart attack and die within the week; Monroe would die about a year later from a drug overdose in August 1962; Clift, too, would die in 1966 after a lifetime struggle with substance abuse. Scripted by Arthur Miller (Monroe’s soon-to-be-ex-husband) and directed by John Huston (who spent much of the shoot drunk, asleep or gambling himself into crippling debt), Miller and Huston make a work which traps, in a brief instant, pathetically dying embers.…

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  Review by Emalie ★★★★½ 2

  a bunch of awful, predatory, drunk man-babies and marilyn monroe with the patience of a saint.

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  Review by nora ★★★★

  this movie is everything i find interesting: deconstructions of old hollywood star personas, westerns that critique masculinity (especially when they border on the revisionist western genre), placing actors from the method school (monroe, clift, wallach) in scenes with traditional hollywood stars who rely more on persona than technique (gable & to some extent ritter), typecast stars giving grounded performances (this is monroe's BEST BEST BEST performance!!!! between this and DON'T BOTHER TO KNOCK i am forever pissed at the studio establishment for not giving her more to do onscreen.), people getting dragged by horses across the ground (desperate to know if gable was actually dragged à la barbara stanwyck in FORTY GUNS or not, if not, points for stany, again). anyway…

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  Review by 📀 Cammmalot 📀 ★★★★ 4

  Cinematic Time Capsule
  1961 Marathon - Film #17

  ”I think you're the saddest girl I ever met.”

  I’m sure there’s a message in there somewhere, but I was too busy watching three fascinating people with tears welling up in my eyes to ever notice.

  ”You ain’t kiddin’. Even when you’re kiddin’, you ain’t kiddin’.”

  
  Cinematic Time Capsule - 1961 Ranked

  The New York Times Book of Movies: The Essential 1,000 Films to See

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  Review by 𝙿𝚊𝚘𝚕𝚘 𝙼𝚊𝚌𝙶𝚞𝚏𝚏𝚒𝚗 | 🇮🇹 ★★★★ 6

  Arthur Miller writes the screenplay for The Misfits as a gift for his wife, carving out a role for her that highlights her qualities as a dramatic actress. John Huston proves to be very skilled in assembling and guiding a Marilyn Monroe suffering from frequent depressive crises and addicted to drugs, a Montgomery Clift in equally desperate conditions, and a Clark Gable whose health is already irremediably compromised. But more than the director's work, the film reveals the unmistakable trait of the famous playwright, here engaged in defining for Marilyn a complex, childish and naive character, certainly, but at the same time idealistic and passionate. In the background, a story apparently simple in its structure, actually aimed at enhancing an…

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  Review by Jesse Snoddon ★★★★

  "Honey, nothing can live unless something dies"

  After Rosalyn's (Marilyn Monroe) divorce, she finds herself adrift and searching for meaning. She meets and immediately connects with Gay (Clark Gable) and Guido (Eli Wallach), two men with similar holes in their lives. The three move out to Guido's country home to try and discover what's missing. Along the way they pick up the similarly afflicted Perce (Montgomery Clift), rounding out their group of misfits to 4. 

  Likely due to the real world losses of Clark Gable and Marilyn Monroe that followed not all that long afterwards, The Misfits is a film that feels imbued with a deep sadness. Each of the characters has unhealed wounds from the past. Gay misses the…

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  Review by Cormac 👑 ★★★★★ 12

  I’m lost. 

  You’re lost. 

  We’re all lost. But we try our best to keep moving anyway.

  I’m standing out in the midst of the wide open desert, the only sound in my ear is the crinkle of my skin against my clothes. Staring out into the void with dreams of running right out into it. At the same time, doing all in my power to stand right here. Avoid moving an inch too far in fear of falling in the wrong direction.  

  Looking forward while standing still. Looking to the end, staring the void in the eye, taunting it. Less a downward spiral than spinning round in the one spot, expecting some change to happen. At least if you’re…

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  Review by {Todd} ★★★★

  "If it wasn't for the nervous people in the world we'd all be eating each other" - Guido.

  Marilyn freakin' Monroe.... damn she was great.

  I really enjoyed this film quite a bit. It's about growing old and trying to find your place in the world and it just hit a lot of the right notes for me. The cinematography stands out and the cast is a true delight. It's a Western but has so much interesting to say about capitalism and gender that it avoids many of the genre's trappings that annoy viewers.

  We're all misfits.

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  Review by DNA cinephile🏳️‍🌈 ★★★★

  The Misfits. 1961. Directed by John Huston.

  John Huston directed The Misfits (1961) written by Arthur Miller. Marilyn Monroe (Roslyn Taper) and Montgomery Clift (Perce Holland) had substance abuse problems during filming and medics were on hand to help. Clark Gable (Gay Langland) died several days after production ended due to a coronary thrombosis. Nevertheless, John Huston managed to direct this struggling cast. The first act of the film is quite amusing almost comical. Then, as the real motives of Eli Wallach (Guido), Gay, and Perce are revealed, the film takes a dark turn. Thelma Ritter (Isabelle Steers) was the true comic relief and she only acted in the first half of the film. Overall, The Misfits had a circuitous…