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      The Rules of the Game

      Now Playing 1h 50m Comedy Drama List
      97% Tomatometer 59 Reviews 89% Audience Score 10,000+ Ratings André is having an affair with Christine, whose husband Robert is himself hiding a mistress. Christine's married maid is romantically entangled with the local poacher. At a hunting party, the passions of servants and aristocrats dangerously collide. Read More Read Less Now in Theaters Now Playing Buy Tickets

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      The Rules of the Game

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      Critics Consensus

      Its genius escaped many viewers at the time, but in retrospect, The Rules of the Game stands as one of Jean Renoir's -- and cinema's -- finest works.

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      Critics Reviews

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      Pauline Kael New Yorker Jean Renoir’s The Rules of the Game is a love roundelay that accelerates and intensifies until it becomes a rare mingling of lyric poetry and macabre farce. Feb 5, 2024 Full Review David Denby New Yorker The word "Mozartean"... gets thrown around a little too eagerly by critics, but one movie, as almost everyone agrees, deserves this supreme benediction -- Jean Renoir's The Rules of the Game. Jun 3, 2014 Full Review Mark Chalon Smith Los Angeles Times On the surface, a lace of flirtations, insinuations and rejections compose the basic plotting. But Renoir uses flashes of accelerating drama to amplify his bigger points. Jun 3, 2014 Full Review Penelope Gilliatt Observer (UK) Renoir's script, a perfect complex mechanism that runs with the confidence of a Rolls-Royce engine, is one of the few sophisticated films about love that achieve irony without a stain of malignity. Mar 6, 2024 Full Review David Harris Spectrum Culture Part scathing critique of the bourgeoisie, part sex romp, part tragedy, The Rules of the Game dances on the edge of a volcano like its characters, skirting easy classification. Feb 6, 2024 Full Review Jeff Beck The Blu Spot It may take its time in establishing its characters and their deeply-intermingled circumstances, but once the sparks start to fly, it becomes a remarkably entertaining satire that will have you transfixed with its shocking revelations and other surprises. Rated: 4/5 Jun 19, 2023 Full Review Read all reviews

      Audience Reviews

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      bob c too convoluted for me Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars 02/23/24 Full Review George B I'm going to be in the minority here. I found Rules of the Game to be mildly amusing in places, but overall boring. And lacking in consistent tone. It's been hailed as a masterpiece. I thought it a mediocrepiece. Rated 3 out of 5 stars 11/10/23 Full Review acsdoug D I understand this film's place in cinematic history. In 1939 it must have been pretty groundbreaking, what with its advanced cinematic techniques and a plot where everybody is screwing everybody else. Eighty-four years later, however, it didn't have much impact on me. If this is how the French were then it's no wonder the Germans had so little trouble rolling through France a year later. Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars 09/24/23 Full Review Thomas V This is a great film. Brilliant social satire that is lively, funny and all around entertaining, but with a message about class and the interaction between haves and have nots. Noone is spared from the satire though, and thats what is so interesting. Rated 5 out of 5 stars 02/12/23 Full Review Audience Member On a surface level, "Rules of the Game" seems deceptively trivial; even the comedy feels sporadic and inconsistent. The passive fashion in which the film regards sudden moments of tragedy and callousness is jarring, and we're left with a sense of a film that is figuring itself out in the process of unfolding. Yet looming in the background is our knowledge of the wartime carnage that was to come, and the uneven nature of the work produces a wholly unique impact when one accounts for Renoir's likely premonitions of the darkness facing the nation and indeed the world at large. Dialogue is generally casual and yet slyly revealing and insightful, and the playfully unorthodox choreography of the film hits right at the center of Renoir's mockery of superficial elegance. We laugh, we are shocked, we squirm, and we reflect. If ever there were a film stubbornly resistant to being pigeonholed in every technical, thematic, and aesthetic aspect, "Rules of the Game" surely fits the bill. Transcending such limitations, the film acquires an ability to increasingly dazzle us with repeated viewings, and is second to none in its capability of yielding up new revelations and insights every time. Rated 5 out of 5 stars 02/14/23 Full Review dave s Set in the days before the start of World War II, Jean Renoir's The Rules of the Game is a scathing satire of French aristocracy. Over the course of a weekend at an opulent country estate, the wealthy gather to indulge in infidelity, boorish behavior, hunting and, ultimately, murder, all under the watchful eyes of a plentitude of servants. On a technical level, it is masterful. The blocking of the shots is amazing, the editing is remarkable, and Renoir's subtle but effective camera movement is effective in capturing the antics of the characters. If there is a fault with The Rules of the Game (is that cinematic sacrilege?), it is the size of the cast. There are so many characters, many of whom seem to serve no purpose, that it is often difficult to determine the nature of the relationships. On the bright side, things make more sense with a second viewing, which isn't always a bad thing. Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 03/30/23 Full Review Read all reviews Post a rating

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      The Rules of the Game

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      Movie Info

      Synopsis André is having an affair with Christine, whose husband Robert is himself hiding a mistress. Christine's married maid is romantically entangled with the local poacher. At a hunting party, the passions of servants and aristocrats dangerously collide.
      Director
      Jean Renoir
      Screenwriter
      Carl Koch, Jean Renoir
      Distributor
      Criterion Collection, Cine Classics
      Production Co
      Nouvelles Éditions de Films (NEF)
      Genre
      Comedy, Drama
      Original Language
      French (France)
      Release Date (Theaters)
      Jul 8, 1939, Original
      Release Date (Streaming)
      Jul 21, 2009
      Runtime
      1h 50m
      Aspect Ratio
      35mm, Flat (1.37:1)
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