Sweet Home Alabama

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2:21

Sweet Home Alabama

PG-13

2002

1h 48m

Romance

Comedy

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Tomatometer

Popcornmeter

38%

Tomatometer

159 Reviews

78%

Popcornmeter

250,000+ Ratings

Separated from her Southern husband, an engaged New York fashion designer confronts him about a divorce.

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Critics Consensus

Reese Witherspoon is charming enough, but the road to Alabama is well-traveled.

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Nell Minow

Common Sense Media

12/28/2010

4/5

Witherspoon's charm keeps this movie afloat.

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Andrew Sarris

Observer

11/06/2002

Would be an unendurable viewing experience for this ultra-provincial New Yorker if 26-year-old Reese Witherspoon were not on hand to inject her pure fantasy character, Melanie Carmichael, with a massive infusion of old-fashioned Hollywood magic.

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Rex Reed

Observer

10/02/2002

It's as preposterous and phony as a Confederate C-note, but Reese Witherspoon has so much natural beauty, talent and charm she guarantees more fun than the day the hogs ate Willie.

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Noah Berlatsky

Everything is Horrible (Substack)

05/14/2023

The movie doesn’t express overt racism. But its implicit whitewashing of Southern history fits neatly into very racist neo-Confederate myths.

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Eddie Harrison

film-authority.com

03/20/2021

3/5

...fluffy, shallow but bright and easy-going, idiotic and yet hard to hate...

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Rachel Wagner

Rachel's Reviews (YouTube)

06/27/2019

[Reese Witherspoon's] just such a great actress.

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yza b

Nov 22

Are we really normalizing cheating and hurting people’s feelings just to realize that u still love someone from the past

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Grant W

Nov 22

Honestly should have just watched hoodwinked

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Edward L

Nov 20

So a married woman that grew up in a trailer in Alabama estranges her husband. She meets a rich guy in New York City. He proposes, for some reason she says yes. Then she finally goes home after 7 years to get divorced. When she sees her husband has a lot of money in their checking account, she has second thoughts about divorcing him, but steals it all anyway. He finally signs the divorce papers, but when she finds out he has a successful business, she dumps the New York guy at their lavish wedding. Nice.

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Rob A

Oct 9

I love Reese, but I just now watched this (Oct. 2025) as I always felt the film wasn't made for me. I'm a New Yorker born and raised - a Yankee. And as it turns out I was right, I wasn't the target audience. Still, the movie was OK, with an all-star cast. I just really didn't like the ending. It was lame and predictable and unrealistic all at once. 3 stars if it had the unpredictable, yet proper ending.

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Martin C.

@CharlesMartin98 Oct 5

This movie deserves less than a star. I will say that Reese Witherspoon did a great job because I disliked her character so much. The plot was horrible, Melanie’s actions were uncalled for (Especially the bar scene) and Jake and Andrew deserved better than her. I think the 38% provided by Rotten Tomato is too high of a score and it should be nothing above a 15% rated movie.

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Gretchen B

Oct 4

Watching it in 2025 is a very different thing than when I first saw it in 2002. The subtext in the narrative gave me the ick. The writing is disjointed and the fate of Witherspoon's character is just sad... I'd hate to see where she ended up over 20 year later.

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Andy Tennant

Director

Reese Witherspoon

Melanie

Josh Lucas

Jake

Patrick Dempsey

Andrew

Candice Bergen

Kate

Mary Kay Place

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Sweet Home Alabama: Trailer 1

2:21

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Synopsis

Separated from her Southern husband, an engaged New York fashion designer confronts him about a divorce.

Director: Andy Tennant
Producer: Neal H. Moritz, Stokely Chaffin
Screenwriter: Douglas J. Eboch, C. Jay Cox
Distributor: Touchstone Pictures
Production Co: Original Film, Pigeon Creek Films
Rating: PG-13 (Some Sexual References|Some Language)
Genre: Romance, Comedy
Original Language: English
Release Date (Theaters): Sep 27, 2002, Wide
Release Date (Streaming): Jan 1, 2014
Box Office (Gross USA): $127.2M
Runtime: 1h 48m
Sound Mix: Dolby SR, DTS, Dolby Stereo, Surround, SDDS, Dolby A, Dolby Digital
Aspect Ratio: Scope (2.35:1)

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