To Die For

R

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1h 43m

Comedy

Drama

Mystery & Thriller

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88%

64 Reviews

Tomatometer

66%

25,000+ Ratings

Audience Score

Suzanne Stone (Nicole Kidman) is a weather reporter at her small-town cable station, but she dreams of being a big-time news anchor. However, she feels that her middle-class husband (Matt Dillon) is holding her back, so she decides to have him murdered. For this, she enlists Jimmy (Joaquin Phoenix), a high school boy who is enamored with her. The plan doesn't work exactly as she intended, though, and her husband's family starts to suspect that she was involved in his death.

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Critics Consensus

Smart, funny, and thoroughly well-cast, To Die For takes a sharp - and sadly prescient - stab at dissecting America's obsession with celebrity.

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Test T

I tried to watch this on DVD recently. I say tried because my mind started wandering after about 20 minutes because of the odd way the movie is structured. It leaps between past, present and future story lines at will, and from biography, documentary, news feature, crime thriller, love story and probably others seemingly at random. I found the presentation very irritating and distracting. I like to get a good grasp of a storyline by following the lead characters on their main thread, but this film won't let you do that. Instead, it leaves clues all around like scattering jigsaw pieces for you to put together later. I didn't like it at all, and now I'm writing the review instead of watching the movie which says it all! I might be being unfair, so I am going to give it a neutral rating for now. I'm going to try and watch it again at some point when I have more patience, and see if I can appreciate it more, but for now it's a confusing mess I can't recommend.

Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars

04/18/24

Full Review

Ava S

To Die For played it a bit safer than one might desire, but it remains an enticingly satirical exploration of the fixation on fame and narcissism, laced with dark comedy.

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

01/08/24

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Alec B

Kidman's performance is perfect, equal parts terrifying and hilarious. This might be the only portrait of a psychopath where the psychopath is not some cunning genius, but a rather vacuous moron.

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

11/10/23

Full Review

Audience Member

Based on the book by Joyce Maynard Director Gus Van Sant tells a black comedy/dark satire story of the ultimate plan to get away with murder and become a star. Nicole Kidman, Matt Dillon, and a very young Joaquin Phoenix. Suzanne is a tv anchor but she wants more than to report the weather. She asks help of a delinquent youth to kill her husband Larry. From her point of view Larry is holding her back and regulating her leaving the home life. From there she becomes an overnight sensation but how long before it starts catching up to her? The movie is another example of someone wanting so much fame and having it backfire. Some people go too far to extra lengths to get in the headlines. There’s a difference between being famous and getting some attention. You’re not anybody in America unless you’re on tv. If everybody was on tv all the time there’d be no one left to watch. I didn't know Danny Elfman did the score and even for this it sounds so out of place. The movie itself is edited much like a celebrity documentary but with small doses of scenes of what actually lead to the giant incident. Is this the real America where criminals get to be celebrities and celebrities get away with murder? Gus Van Sant makes a more comedic version of celebrity scandal that goes so far Given that it’s based on the fictionalized true story of Pamela Smart it’s more wickedly funny and does some break-the-fourth wall breaking having Suzanne narrate to the audience. From what we see here she’s irredeemable from every angle talking advantage of everything to further her career. Failure was not part of her vocabulary so she made sure of it. Kidman owns this role playing a manipulative money grubbing fame seeker. Van Sant is genius here making a movie about the fascination with the celebrity and television so kooky it’s hard not to pay attention

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

10/09/23

Full Review

Charles T

Nicole Kidman stars as a local television personality who will stop at nothing to get what she wants, but it is Gus Van Sant's direction that really shines. Kidman plays Suzanne, a none-to-bright woman who decides she wants to be a giant media personality. She marries Larry (Matt Dillon), a restaurateur, and settles for doing the weather at a dead-end television station. Suzanne sees that Larry is not behind her career, and uses a trio of teens to kill him. She begins her plan by befriending them while shooting a documentary, then begins sleeping with James (Joaquin Phoenix), who in turn conspires with Russell (Casey Affleck) and Lydia (Alison Folland). Most of the film is told in flashback by the killers and families of Suzanne and Larry, and Suzanne herself. "To Die For" is a strange film. Acting wise, the professional cast is saddled with one-note characters. While top-heavy with supporting players, Suzanne never really changes much, or offers enough menace to feel anything for her. Dillon fades into the background as Larry, trying too hard to make him normal. Buck Henry's screenplay is full of fits and starts, never gathering enough darkness to become a successful dark comedy, nor enough edge to become a successful satire. This is a shame, since celebrity due to murderous acts is such a part of our lives today. The film never takes that final step and calls the media on the carpet, instead trying to get the viewer caught up in the mechanics of Suzanne and Jim's relationship, and Suzanne's progressively strange certainty that she will be famous. Gus Van Sant's direction is absolutely fantastic. The interior of Larry and Suzanne's home is hysterical. His camera always finds the perfect tone of a scene, even if the scene is not especially well-written. I am one of the few who did not think much of "Drugstore Cowboy," although I do appreciate many of the films Van Sant has done since. "To Die For" gets the viewer geared up for a no-punches-pulled look at popular culture, then throws in the towel before the bell even rings. I cannot recommend it, despite the fine direction, the rest is a disappointment.

Rated 3 out of 5 stars

09/27/23

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Pilar P

"To Die For" gives you a front-row seat to the world of a beautiful sociopath, played brilliantly by Nicole Kidman. Her portrayal of Suzanne is both funny, eerie and scary. When Suzanne's life takes a scandalous turn with the arrival of her teenage lover, Jimmy (Joaquin Phoenix), the film gets a deliciously unpredictable twist. While the movie has its predictable moments, they're enjoyable. The ending is a a satisfying twist that ties everything together.

Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars

08/21/23

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Gus Van Sant

Director

Nicole Kidman

Suzanne Stone Maretto

Matt Dillon

Larry Maretto

Joaquin Phoenix

Jimmy Emmett

Casey Affleck

Russel Hines

Illeana Douglas

Janice Maretto

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To Die For: Trailer 1

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Jake Cole

Slant Magazine

In the way it cavorts with teen melodrama, black comedy, and docu-realism to reflect Suzanne’s contradictory masks, To Die For is a comic precursor to Gus Van Sant’s Elephant.

Mar 22, 2024

Full Review

Anthony Lane

New Yorker

The film, adapted by Buck Henry from Joyce Maynard’s novel, is smartly structured, but Van Sant’s touch is uncertain: the story’s satirical bite begins to loosen as his camera lingers more and more on the disaffected teen-agers.

Jun 12, 2023

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Manohla Dargis

Spin

Furiously paced and sharply funny, To Die For doesn't try for subtlety; its laughs are delivered with self-consciously heavy hands.

Dec 27, 2022

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Jeff Beck

The Blu Spot

Boasts an impressive cast that includes three future Oscar winners and a tale of unbridled ambition that could've made for a riveting experience, but sadly it's all undone by a rather inexplicable, puzzling structure that reveals far too much too early.

Rated: 3/5

Apr 2, 2024

Full Review

Scott Nye

Battleship Pretension

The more I revisit the film, though, it’s Joaquin Phoenix and Alison Folland as James and Lydia, the teens most closely involved with Suzanne, who really give it its exceptional shape.

Mar 20, 2024

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Rob Gonsalves

Rob's Movie Vault

"To Die For" has a crisp professional snap, as if the producer had splashed cold water on Van Sant between takes.

Rated: B

Sep 1, 2022

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Synopsis

Suzanne Stone (Nicole Kidman) is a weather reporter at her small-town cable station, but she dreams of being a big-time news anchor. However, she feels that her middle-class husband (Matt Dillon) is holding her back, so she decides to have him murdered. For this, she enlists Jimmy (Joaquin Phoenix), a high school boy who is enamored with her. The plan doesn't work exactly as she intended, though, and her husband's family starts to suspect that she was involved in his death.

Director: Gus Van Sant
Producer: Joseph M. Caracciolo, Jonathan T. Taplin
Screenwriter: Joyce Maynard, Buck Henry
Distributor: Columbia Tristar, Columbia Pictures
Production Co: Columbia Pictures Corporation
Rating: R
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Mystery & Thriller
Original Language: English
Release Date (Theaters): Sep 27, 1995, Original
Release Date (Streaming): May 1, 2013
Box Office (Gross USA): $20.5M
Runtime: 1h 43m
Sound Mix: Stereo

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