Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

1966 Directed by Mike Nichols

You are cordially invited to George and Martha's for an evening of fun and games

A bitter, aging couple, with the help of alcohol, use a young couple to fuel anguish and emotional pain towards each other.

Elizabeth Taylor Richard Burton George Segal Sandy Dennis Agnes Flanagan Frank Flanagan

Alternative Titles

Kdo se bojí Virginie Woolfové?, ¿Quién teme a Virginia Woolf?, 谁怕弗吉尼亚·沃尔夫, 누가 버지니아 울프를 두려워하랴, Vem är rädd för Virginia Woolf?

drama

131 mins More details at IMDb TMDb Report this film

Popular reviews

Review by brat pitt ★★★★★ 5

"You're all flops. I am the Earth Mother and you are all flops."

my fav genre is upper class white people yelling at each other over nothing. i'm not being facetious or snarky -- it's genuinely so dramatic & fun!!! they never have to go that hard but they always do!!!
Review by Marian ★★★★ 8

when i said that i wanted to have kids, and you said you wanted me to have a vasectomy, what did i do? and then, when you said that you might want to have kids, and i wasn't so sure, who had the vasectomy reversed? and then when you said you definitely didn't want to have kids? who had it reversed back? SNIP SNAP! SNIP SNAP! SNIP SNAP! i did! you have NO idea the physical toll that three vasectomies have on a person!
Review by Lulu ★★★★½

the sheer power of elizabeth taylor's delivery of the line "i am the earth mother and you are all flops" knocked me on my ass so hard i left a dent on the floor
Review by fran hoepfner ★★★★★ 3

I know I say this about literally every movie but this is exactly what grad school is like
Review by siobhan ★★★★½

i just couldn't help but think the whole time about how amazing it is that elizabeth taylor got married 8 times (and TWICE to richard burton) and was the first actress to be paid one million dollars for a role. if that isn't BDE i don't know what is
Review by Sally Jane Black

There is a scene late in this one where Taylor and Burton square off for a moment. Earlier, Taylor had mocked Burton by relating a tale in which he avoided a boxing match of sorts. In the scene where they square off, they have just gotten out of a car and are howling at each other. They declare "total war" on each other. And for a moment, everything is framed just so that it looks like they are about to begin a boxing match. This moment perfectly encapsulates the entire film. It is sheer combat.
There are lies within lies here. There are verbal barbs coated with affection and sweet kisses coated in poison. It is an impossible maze of…
Review by Cassandra ★★★★

Planning on getting married? Don't watch this.
Review by Sam Meltzer🏳️‍🌈 ★★★★ 10

See guys, THIS is what happens when straight people get married 🙄🤦‍♂️
Review by Siegel™ ★★★★ 6

what if batman and the joker were actually married?
Review by CinemaClown ★★★½ 6

Absolutely relentless with its content, overflowing with charged emotions & sustaining its intensity from start to finish, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is a tour-de-force of sublime direction, ingenious writing & explosive performances that takes hold of your attention with its armour-piercing dialogues & never lets go until the very end.
The story concerns George & Martha; a middle-aged married couple, whose relationship over the years has turned very bitter & volatile. The plot covers one late evening in their lives when Martha invites a young couple for drinks but this new couple only find themselves caught in the verbal battle between Martha & George which escalates under the influence of alcohol as the night progresses.
Directed by Mike Nichols, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is…
Review by eli ★★★½ 2

i thought this was going to be about virginia woolf
Review by Justin Peterson ★★★★½

How about a delightful nightcap filled with resentful remarks, backhanded compliments, and jagged insults with the most toxic married couple on campus.
"You make me puke ... That wasn't a very nice thing to say, Martha."
When I heard 'Blue Valentine' was a downer to watch, this was the kind of malicious pointed dialogue I was expecting to hear the main characters unleashing on each other. Based on the cover and title I had assumed the hatefulness would mostly just be from Elizabeth Taylor's character Martha, but actually they dish it out equally with them pushing each other's buttons until the other lashes back out in return. In a series of arguments that they seem to enjoy having despite how…

Recent reviews

Review by Ryan Oliveira ★★★★★

Love a rewatch of my favorite.

I’m getting to ASM this show next summer at a downtown theatre, it’s my favorite stage play and I got to see it at Triad theatre in Greensboro. It was probably one of my favorite things I’ve ever seen on stage.

I watched this on DVD I own.
Review by Trevor ★★★★

"I swear if you existed I would divorce you!"
Review by Robert ★★★★½

Relationship goals <3
An undeniably brilliant tornado of a film that i can't see myself ever wanting to watch again. Liz's power is almost indescribable.
Review by FamousJasonLee ★★★★½

Probably the most uncomfortable movie watching experience one could have. So intimate and yet so nasty and horrible.
I am tempted to claim this is a masterpiece but the revealed character motivations are rickety and unbelievable.
Review by Michael Kamison

Liz Taylor was 1 year older than I am now when she filmed this.
Review by Alex Dawson ★★★

You bring out the best in me, baby :)
For such an abrasive movie this feels much quicker than its 130 minutes, almost entirely due to the drunken mastery of Richard Burtron.
Worth a watch.
Here's a better-said review (with spoilers) that I pretty much agree with.
Review by Jacob Roth ★★★

60/100
I am not 100% sure I fully understand the story that was told. I get the child thing but I'm so confused by all the games. The performances were all good but I just couldn't get into the story.
Review by Nick James ★★★★

Threatens to go off the rails early because, instead of gradually escalating, Taylor and Burton are practically at each other's throats from the first frame. It's no fun being in the company of drunks when you haven't had a drop yourself. But eventually things settle down (or at least, as much as they can in this scenario). Burton in particular gets one monologue that is quite sobering considering the state of things.
Review by T.H. Ponders ★★★★½

What a god damn movie. A God. Damn. Movie. I am a sucker for filmed plays, and this gave me all the good vibes of Long Days Journey Into Night. Plus it broke the Hays Code and launched Mike Nichols career.
Review by manaal ★★★★½

what an incredible thing to watch on screen...it was almost like seeing every single terrible relationship i've ever had with anyone grouped into one long dialogue. along with maybe every conversation i've watched my parents ever have. this is the exact marriage scenario that fills my nightmares. i was stressed the entire time and also felt an incredible urge to vomit at the moments that honey did. life is so terrible to all of us
Review by Mandela Namaste ★★★

Apparently, Richard Burton is one of Hollywood's greatest what-if cases. If not for booze, he'd have been mentioned in the same breath as Olivier, Brando, and the others. But it seems to me he lived up to his potential at least once, in this movie.
Elizabeth Taylor and Sandy Dennis both won Oscars for their performances here, and while I can get behind Taylor's trophy, it's absolutely baffling that her then-husband didn't claim one too. He wears the few surprises and endless disappointments of a decades-long relationship from his toes to his head, from the sleeves of his cardigan to his every facial tic, and unlike Taylor's mostly all-caps acting, Burton parcels out his fury in asides, shrugs, and eye…
Review by tala ★★★★★

i couldn’t take my eyes off the screen until this was over, every performance was so hypnotizing, Elizabeth Taylor captivated my attention from the moment she walked into that living room. The last act really stays with you, seeing these two people completely destroy every illusion they’d built around themselves to hide the wreckage that is their marriage and having to face reality in those last seconds of the film, having to finally accept their life for what it was felt just as hard and painful for the characters as it did for the viewers