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Dark City

R Released Feb 20, 1998 1h 41m Fantasy Sci-Fi List
76% Tomatometer 89 Reviews 85% Audience Score 100,000+ Ratings
John Murdoch (Rufus Sewell) awakens alone in a strange hotel to find that he is wanted for a series of brutal murders. The problem is that he can't remember whether he committed the murders or not. For one brief moment, he is convinced that he has gone completely mad. Murdoch seeks to unravel the twisted riddle of his identity. As he edges closer to solving the mystery, he stumbles upon a fiendish underworld controlled by a group of ominous beings collectively known as the Strangers. Read More Read Less
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Dark City

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Critics Consensus

Stylishly gloomy, Dark City offers a polarizing whirl of arresting visuals and noirish action.

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Critics Reviews

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Bill Boisvert Chicago Reader Real humanists may have misgivings. Rated: 1/4 Jun 16, 2022 Full Review Mike Clark USA Today Dark City is fascinating, visionary filmmaking that captures the sensation of dreaming and being unable to wake up. Rated: 3/4 Jan 9, 2018 Full Review Owen Gleiberman Entertainment Weekly City ultimately plays like one of those art-deco dystopian CD-ROM adventures of recent years. Rated: C+ Sep 7, 2011 Full Review Don Shanahan Every Movie Has a Lesson Dark City deftly creates a world both foreign and familiar at the same time to match the clouded tone of its story. Rated: 3/5 Apr 7, 2024 Full Review Brian Eggert Deep Focus Review This is an exceptionally stylish-looking production driving a story with grand aspirations, and though flawed, like the majority of Proyas’ work, it achieves most of what it sets out to do. Rated: 3/4 Aug 22, 2023 Full Review Dan DiNicola The Daily Gazette (Schenectady, NY) The movie's design is its only redeeming feature. This is one movie which seems to have been made almost exclusively for members of a Dungeons & Dragons fan club. Rated: C Jan 19, 2023 Full Review Read all reviews

Audience Reviews

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Jeremy _ My favorite Matrix movie. Rated 5 out of 5 stars 06/27/24 Full Review Emory E Such a cool movie. This film has influenced soo many movies. Rated 5 out of 5 stars 06/18/24 Full Review DanTheMan 2 Taking its cues from the film noir tales of the 40s and 50s, filled with neverending shadows, Dark City is an exceptionally stylish-looking production driving a story with grand aspirations. Unabashed in its eccentricities and relishes the hypnotic, mystifying world it creates. Director Alex Proyas drenches each shot with a unique feel and delivers a film with a visual sense with all the inventive, poetic power of Ridley Scott or Terry Gilliam firing on all cylinders. He expertly handles a story that's both dark and often violent and told with a remarkable sense of visual energy and imagination that defies logic and makes frightening, unexpected leaps that lead it down a path you couldn't predict. Superbly well acted and backed by incredible visual effects and a fantastic pulse pounder of a score by Trevor Jones, you often see Dark City unfavourably compared to The Matrix and yet this apocalyptic tale of alien abduction, telekinesis, amnesia, murder and love is an entertaining and unimaginable expedition through a cinematic phenomenon more than worthy of your time. Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars 05/16/24 Full Review Alec C The human soul is capable of incredible things and the mind can literally move mountains! As an amnesiac man wakes up wanted for multiple murders, he begins to discover the sinister machinations of a group of sinister aliens who control the surreal city where the sun never shines. A provocative, psychological, science-fiction film that manages to question the nature of humanity and the mysteries of the unknown! Rated 5 out of 5 stars 04/16/24 Full Review Conrad G Interesting and cool film that doesn't get much attention. Rated 5 out of 5 stars 04/15/24 Full Review E K This is one of my favorite late 90s Sci-Fi movies 😁 Rated 5 out of 5 stars 04/14/24 Full Review Read all reviews
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Movie Info

Synopsis John Murdoch (Rufus Sewell) awakens alone in a strange hotel to find that he is wanted for a series of brutal murders. The problem is that he can't remember whether he committed the murders or not. For one brief moment, he is convinced that he has gone completely mad. Murdoch seeks to unravel the twisted riddle of his identity. As he edges closer to solving the mystery, he stumbles upon a fiendish underworld controlled by a group of ominous beings collectively known as the Strangers.
Director
Alex Proyas
Producer
Andrew Mason, Alex Proyas
Screenwriter
Alex Proyas, Alex Proyas, Lem Dobbs, David S. Goyer
Distributor
New Line Cinema
Production Co
New Line Cinema, Mystery Clock Cinema
Rating
R (Violent Images|Some Sexuality)
Genre
Fantasy, Sci-Fi
Original Language
English
Release Date (Theaters)
Feb 20, 1998, Wide
Release Date (Streaming)
Jul 1, 2008
Box Office (Gross USA)
$14.3M
Runtime
1h 41m
Sound Mix
Dolby Stereo, Dolby A, SDDS, Surround, Dolby Digital, Dolby SR
Aspect Ratio
Scope (2.35:1)
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