Rotten Tomatoes
Cancel Movies Tv shows RT App News Showtimes

Radio Free Albemuth

Play trailer Poster for Radio Free Albemuth R 2014 1h 51m Sci-Fi Mystery & Thriller Play Trailer Watchlist
Watchlist Tomatometer Popcornmeter
40% Tomatometer 10 Reviews 53% Popcornmeter 250+ Ratings
A music executive (Jonathan Scarfe), author Philip K. Dick (Shea Whigham) and a mysterious woman (Alanis Morissette) join forces to expose the dangerous truth about a corrupt regime.

Critics Reviews

View More
Louis B. Parks Houston Chronicle 12/04/2014
Modestly budgeted but professional, this film has some imaginative visuals and a strong cast. Go to Full Review
Jason Anderson Toronto Star 12/04/2014
Simon hews closely to his source. That decision is likely to endear him to Dick fans. Go to Full Review
Jeannette Catsoulis New York Times 06/26/2014
A quaint labor of love blinkered by fidelity to an outdated text. Go to Full Review
MaryAnn Johanson Flick Filosopher 10/10/2020
[L]acks the atmosphere and human feeling it demands to work on any level... Go to Full Review
Kelly Vance East Bay Express 07/08/2014
Flavorless ordinariness. Go to Full Review
Anne Thompson Thompson on Hollywood 06/30/2014
It's an odd bird, but accomplished, and essential for Philip K. Dick purists. Go to Full Review
Read all reviews

Audience Reviews

View More
09/21/2021 It's a great movie, just has a lower budget. Philip K Dick gets a little different in this but as usual centers around drugs and paranoia of fascism. Still a cool movie. Good cast. Katheryn Winnick is a fox. See more 02/06/2021 Horrendous movie. A $3.9 million dollar budget and $5,600 in box office revenues. That says it all. If you done something wrong and feel the need to punish yourself watch this mess. Until I watched this "How It Ends" was my choice for worst movie ever made. This is far worse. Do yourself a favor and eat broken glass. See more 01/26/2020 Let me start off by saying I am a huge PKD fan. I've read over half of his novels and tons of his short stories. I was excited to see that one of my favorite books of his got made into a movie. Sadly, I wish it hadn't. "Radio Free Albemuth" on paper is such a great story - full of intrigue, conspiracy, plot twists and surprises. This film version falls flat though. The acting is wooden, it looks worse than a student film and the music is awful. That last point is especially key because music features in this story in an important way! Please heed my warning and stay away from this movie if you're a fan of the book. Or even if you're a fan of movies! It's such a waste of time. I wish I could have been warned beforehand because I regret subjecting myself (and my poor wife) to it! See more 12/06/2018 Fun, faithful adaptation of a late PKD work. Not my favorite novel, but a top contender for best real adaptation of his work to the screen. Sad indeed that it's never caught on, since it's so extremely relevant in 45's Amurrukuh. See more corkball 05/08/2018 It held my interest late at night. Maybe in the day I would have wandered off. Some interesting ideas, but the plotline was a but muddled and didn't always make sense. They were mashing up politics of today with that of Rome, and there were references and parallels to the Roman Christians, etc. It was a bit too much of a mash up that didn't work. Acting was so-so, and the lack of extras and background noise was distracting (why are 2 guys playing basketball in a gym during the day BY THEMSELVES???). Obviously low budget as well, although they obviously weren't going for blockbuster. See more 04/23/2018 Back when Ridley Scott made Blade Runner, it wasn't that well-received by critics, and for many years ended up relegated to being a "cult classic". That seems to be the fate that awaits adaptations of Phillip K Dick's stories into movies that try to keep sight of the Question behind them Radio Free Albemuth, at its core, involves real people like you, me, your neighbor down the road, that kid you knew in grade school. In a time when "gritty realism" in movies is neither gritty nor realistic, it eschews the usual "enhancements" demanded by entertainment to stay true to the original story. Part of that is undoubtedly because as an Indiefilm it was budget constrained, but it is more trying to stay true to the source material without adding in the bells and whistles people demand. RFA isn't a movie you can just watch and come away feeling good about yourself after, but it *is* PKD - given Shea Wigham seems to have been channelling PKD while playing him in the movie, just watch his performance and you'll see what I mean :) Blade Runner is no longer a "cult classic", now it's "visionary" and "prophetic". To some, Radio Free Albemuth already qualifies RFA is about a group of normal people, flawed warts and all, in an impossible situation, trying to figure out a way to live when the odds are against them. In retelling that story the movie keeps to one precept of PKD's works that most movie adaptations seem to have forgotten: Real life doesn't come with a soundtrack See more Read all reviews
Radio Free Albemuth

My Rating

Read More Read Less POST RATING WRITE A REVIEW EDIT REVIEW
Synchronicity 48% 34% Synchronicity Watchlist TRAILER for Synchronicity Branded 9% 24% Branded Watchlist TRAILER for Branded The Happening 17% 24% The Happening Watchlist The Jacket 44% 73% The Jacket Watchlist TRAILER for The Jacket Monsters 75% 53% Monsters Watchlist Discover more movies and TV shows. View More

Movie Info

Synopsis A music executive (Jonathan Scarfe), author Philip K. Dick (Shea Whigham) and a mysterious woman (Alanis Morissette) join forces to expose the dangerous truth about a corrupt regime.
Director
John Alan Simon
Producer
Stephen Nemeth, Dale Rosenbloom, John Alan Simon
Screenwriter
John Alan Simon
Distributor
Freestyle Releasing
Production Co
Open Pictures, John Alan Simon
Rating
R (Brief Violence|Some Language|Drug Use)
Genre
Sci-Fi, Mystery & Thriller
Original Language
English
Release Date (Theaters)
Jun 27, 2014, Limited
Release Date (Streaming)
Aug 10, 2016
Box Office (Gross USA)
$5.6K
Runtime
1h 51m