The Exorcist | Rotten Tomatoes (original) (raw)

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Critics Consensus

The Exorcist rides its supernatural theme to magical effect, with remarkable special effects and an eerie atmosphere, resulting in one of the scariest films of all time.

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Tom Huddleston Time Out It remains genuinely unnerving to this day -- ridiculous in places, faintly despicable in others, but gorgeous to look at and possessed with a sense of absolute, ruthless gravity. Rated: 5/5 Dec 12, 2024 Full Review Adam Nayman The Ringer Perhaps the most influential American horror movie ever made, The Exorcist was a Rorschach test when it came out. Fifty years later, it still sticks with us. Oct 6, 2023 Full Review Richard Roeper Chicago Sun-Times The scariest movie ever made... Sep 30, 2023 Full Review Alan Jones Radio Times The macabre, obscene demonstrations of manifest evil still retain their power to startle and nauseate, particularly Linda Blair's "head-turning" antics as the possessed child. Rated: 5/5 Jul 9, 2024 Full Review James Baldwin The Devil Finds Work The mindless and hysterical banality of the evil presented in The Exorcist is the most terrifying thing about the film. The Americans should cer­tainly know more about evil than that; if they pre­tend otherwise, they are lying. May 1, 2024 Full Review Dennis Harvey 48 Hills The Exorcist more conspicuously pushed into the mainstream a hitherto disreputable genre. Jan 2, 2024 Full Review Read all reviews

Steven M Still freaks you out decades later. Rated 5 out of 5 stars 10/31/24 Full Review Bryan D The Exorcist is a timeless horror film that still captivates and scares today after 50 years , recommend highly. Rated 5 out of 5 stars 10/31/24 Full Review Gabriel W Best Horror movie of all time!! Rated 5 out of 5 stars 10/27/24 Full Review Spencer Nielsen “There are no experts.” Rated 4 out of 5 stars 09/22/24 Full Review Dione R Theatre didn't have the correct movie downloaded, never got to actually see the movie!! Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars 10/23/23 Full Review Orlando C I was curious about the 78% critics rating. Obviously, this horror masterpiece should be rated in the high 90s, if not a perfect 100. So I started clicking into these reviews to see when they were written. Apparently, Rotten Tomoatoes did a dump of newspaper review clippings from the time of the movie's release (almost all of them have the same 2023 date). Practically all the negative reviews are in this same format. Almost no contemporary negative reviews. I forgot, when this movie came out it was extremely controversial and polarizing. Many audiences and critics alike hated it because it was so shocking and gratuitous, they had trouble processing what they had just witnessed so they slammed it. It was just too visceral. Watching this movie today is still shocking, one of the most disturbing movies of all time. But after 50 years of modern horror, a lot of it built upon the very broad shoulders of The Exorcist, the shock value has definitely lost its edge. But imagine watching this in a dark theater for the first time in the early 1970s, and nothing else had ever come before it quite like this. It would've been a shock indeed. Rated 5 out of 5 stars 02/28/25 Full Review Read all reviews

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Linda Blair. Linda Blair and Ellen Burstyn. Jason Miller and Max Von Sydow. Max Von Sydow and Linda Blair. View more photos

Synopsis One of the most profitable horror movies ever made, this tale of an exorcism is based loosely on actual events. When young Regan (Linda Blair) starts acting odd -- levitating, speaking in tongues -- her worried mother (Ellen Burstyn) seeks medical help, only to hit a dead end. A local priest (Jason Miller), however, thinks the girl may be seized by the devil. The priest makes a request to perform an exorcism, and the church sends in an expert (Max von Sydow) to help with the difficult job.

Director

William Friedkin

Producer

William Peter Blatty

Screenwriter

William Peter Blatty

Distributor

Warner Bros. Pictures

Production Co

Warner Brothers, Hoya Productions

Rating

R

Genre

Horror

Original Language

English

Release Date (Theaters)

Dec 26, 1973, Original

Release Date (Streaming)

Jul 24, 2014

Box Office (Gross USA)

$441.4M

Runtime

2h 2m

Sound Mix

Surround

Aspect Ratio

Flat (1.85:1)

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