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Bee Season

Play trailer Poster for Bee Season PG-13 2005 1h 45m Drama Play Trailer Watchlist
Watchlist Tomatometer Popcornmeter
44% Tomatometer 107 Reviews 35% Popcornmeter 10,000+ Ratings
In the Naumann household, 11-year-old Eliza (Flora Cross) feels she has little to offer in a family of overachievers. All that changes when she wins the spelling bee, much to the surprise of everyone. Now her father (Richard Gere), a professor of Judaism, devotes attention to her as fanatically as he does to his religious studies. With this dynamic shift, family issues, including those of Eliza's mother (Juliette Binoche) and brother (Max Minghella), come to light.

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Bee Season

Bee Season

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Critics Consensus

Bee Season is an intelligent, but frustratingly distant and diffuse drama about family dysfunction.

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Critics Reviews

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Sara Michelle Fetters MovieFreak.com 12/06/2005
1/4
No, Bee Season is just plain awful. That's right, awful, A-W-F-U-L, awful, and if that doesn't spell out my feelings succinctly I don't know what will. Go to Full Review Kimberley Jones Austin Chronicle 12/06/2005
2/5
This is second-rate Hallstrm, drama plus whimsy that, when rubbed together, creates not friction and fire, but a nubbing-down of both elements. Go to Full Review Peter Travers Rolling Stone 11/22/2005
2/4
Fine directors Scott McGehee and David Siegel (The Deep End) take a detour into mumbo jumbo. Go to Full Review Richard Propes TheIndependentCritic.com 09/02/2020
3.5/4.0
A film about these shards of life experience and our often desperate attempts to collect them, assemble them, make sense of them or simply live with them without disruption. Go to Full Review Robert Julian Bay Area Reporter 05/09/2020
Bee Season is an intelligent, mesmerizing, thought-provoking work, so extraordinary in its content and presentation it is hard to believe it ever got made. Go to Full Review Chelsea Bain Boston Herald 10/21/2006
2/4
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Audience Reviews

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Chris P @RT06285801 01/06/2025 Worth the watch. Good movie, great acting. See more KB B @Okbullard 11/30/2023 It was pretty compelling but there was too much Jewish mysticism spouted off by the Dad. It's an interesting watch but I didn't like the abrupt ending. See more 11/22/2014 Can you spell horrid? I can. B E E S E A S O N. See more 10/16/2014 Possibly the worst Richard Gere movie ever and that's saying something. The movie is not really about spelling bees or mysticism or anything else. Terrible. See more 08/16/2014 A movie with more promise than it lives up to. Everyone gives fine performances, but the story and character development just don't provide much that's emotionally compelling. Juliette Binoche's character is just confusing and unclear until 2/3 of the way through, which was frustrating as I watched it. And Flora Cross' 11-year old Eliza is not fully believable in her seemingly continual state of pouting and sadness. There doesn't seem to really be anything for her to be that sad about. And the mystical/magical elements in the film just distract from what could have been a more straight forward drama in the hands of a better writer. But the cinematography and editing are interesting as always with films from McGehee and Siegel. See more 06/23/2014 Bee Season is boring and misleading, falling flat immediately and never developing any warmth. It believes it's intelligent, when in fact it's just pretentious. Its cast do nothing to help its overwhelmingly dull tone, Minghella coming across as one-dimensional, Binoche as unsure of her portrayal, and Gere as not believable. Don't waste your time on Bee Season; it overwhelms and under-delivers. See more Read all reviews
Bee Season

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Cast & Crew

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Scott McGehee

Director

David Siegel

Director

Richard Gere

Saul Naumann

Juliette Binoche

Miriam Naumann

Flora Cross

Eliza Naumann

Max Minghella

Aaron Naumann

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Bee Season

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Movie Info

Synopsis In the Naumann household, 11-year-old Eliza (Flora Cross) feels she has little to offer in a family of overachievers. All that changes when she wins the spelling bee, much to the surprise of everyone. Now her father (Richard Gere), a professor of Judaism, devotes attention to her as fanatically as he does to his religious studies. With this dynamic shift, family issues, including those of Eliza's mother (Juliette Binoche) and brother (Max Minghella), come to light.
Director
Scott McGehee, David Siegel
Producer
Albert Berger, Ron Yerxa
Screenwriter
Scott McGehee, David Siegel, Naomi Foner
Distributor
Fox
Production Co
Fox Searchlight, Searchlight Pictures, Bona Fide Productions
Rating
PG-13 (Scene of Sensuality|Brief Strong Language|Thematic Elements)
Genre
Drama
Original Language
English
Release Date (Theaters)
Nov 11, 2005, Original
Release Date (Streaming)
Oct 1, 2014
Box Office (Gross USA)
$1.2M
Runtime
1h 45m
Sound Mix
Surround