MOVIEmeter
SEE RANK
Down 582 this week

The War of the Roses (1989)

 -  Comedy | Drama  -  8 December 1989 (USA)
6.7
Your rating:
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 -/10 X  
Ratings: 6.7/10 from 26,477 users   Metascore: 79/100
Reviews: 85 user | 42 critic | 17 from Metacritic.com

A married couple try everything to get each other to leave the house in a vicious divorce battle.

Director:

Writers:

(novel), (screenplay)
Watch Trailer
0Check in
0Share...

User Lists

Related lists from IMDb users

a list of 2309 titles created 5 months ago
 
a list of 974 titles created 10 Mar 2012
 
a list of 374 titles created 17 Apr 2011
 
a list of 10000 titles created 3 months ago
 
a list of 397 titles created 24 Jan 2011
 

Connect with IMDb


Share this Rating

Title: The War of the Roses (1989)

The War of the Roses (1989) on IMDb 6.7/10

Want to share IMDb's rating on your own site? Use the HTML below.

Take The Quiz!

Test your knowledge of The War of the Roses.
Nominated for 3 Golden Globes. Another 2 wins & 6 nominations. See more awards »

Videos

Photos

Learn more

People who liked this also liked... 

Serial Mom (1994)
Comedy | Crime | Thriller
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 6.5/10 X  

A sweet mother takes a little too much at heart for the defence of her family.

Director: John Waters
Stars: Kathleen Turner, Sam Waterston, Ricki Lake
The Guard (2011)
Comedy | Crime | Thriller
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.3/10 X  

An unorthodox Irish policeman with a confrontational personality is teamed up with an uptight FBI agent to investigate an international drug-smuggling ring.

Director: John Michael McDonagh
Stars: Ronan Collins, Brendan Gleeson, Don Cheadle
High Anxiety (1977)
Comedy | Thriller
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 6.5/10 X  

Dr. Richard Thorndyke arrives as new administrator of the Psychoneurotic Institute for the Very, VERY Nervous to discover some suspicious goings-on. When he's framed for murder, Dr. ... See full summary »

Director: Mel Brooks
Stars: Mel Brooks, Madeline Kahn, Cloris Leachman
Comedy | Thriller
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 5.1/10 X  

The story of a girl who is willing to do anything to become Valedictorian, even if it means murdering the teacher that stands in her way.

Director: Kevin Williamson
Stars: Helen Mirren, Katie Holmes, Jeffrey Tambor
After Hours (1985)
Comedy | Drama | Thriller
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.6/10 X  

An ordinary word processor has the worst night of his life after he agrees to visit a girl in Soho whom he met that evening at a coffee shop.

Director: Martin Scorsese
Stars: Griffin Dunne, Rosanna Arquette, Verna Bloom
Comedy | Thriller
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 5.4/10 X  

A man picked randomly out of a crowd is made the target of CIA survelliance and pursuit.

Director: Stan Dragoti
Stars: Tom Hanks, Dabney Coleman, Lori Singer
Get Shorty (1995)
Comedy | Crime | Thriller
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 6.8/10 X  

A mobster travels to Hollywood to collect a debt and discovers that the movie business is much the same as his current job.

Director: Barry Sonnenfeld
Stars: John Travolta, Gene Hackman, Rene Russo
Go (1999)
Comedy | Crime | Thriller
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.2/10 X  

Go! tells the story of the events after a drug deal, told from three different points of view.

Director: Doug Liman
Stars: Sarah Polley, Scott Wolf, Jay Mohr
Comedy | Horror | Thriller
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 5.4/10 X  

Another spoof from the mind of Mel Brooks. This time he's out to poke fun at the Dracula myth. Basically, he took "Bram Stoker's Dracula," gave it a new cast and a new script and made a big... See full summary »

Director: Mel Brooks
Stars: Leslie Nielsen, Peter MacNicol, Steven Weber
Comedy | Crime | Drama
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 5.8/10 X  

A detective must adopt the dog of a dead man to help him find the murderer.

Director: Roger Spottiswoode
Stars: Tom Hanks, Mare Winningham, Craig T. Nelson
Comedy | Crime | Thriller
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 6.1/10 X  

An eccentric, if not charming Southern professor and his crew pose as a band in order to rob a casino, all under the nose of his unsuspecting landlord: a sharp old woman.

Directors: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen
Stars: Tom Hanks, Irma P. Hall, Marlon Wayans
Fright Night (1985)
Comedy | Horror | Thriller
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 6.9/10 X  

When a teenager learns that his next door neighbour is a vampire, no one will believe him.

Director: Tom Holland
Stars: Chris Sarandon, William Ragsdale, Amanda Bearse
Edit

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
Peter Donat ...
Jason Larrabee
...
Man in Chair
Gloria Cromwell ...
Mrs. Marshall
Harlan Arnold ...
Mr. Dell
Mary Fogarty ...
Mrs. Dell
Rika Hofmann ...
Patricia Allison ...
Maureen
Peter Brocco ...
Elderly Mourner
Edit

Storyline

The Roses, Barbara and Oliver, live happily as a married couple. Then she starts to wonder what life would be like without Oliver, and likes what she sees. Both want to stay in the house, and so they begin a campaign to force each other to leave. In the middle of the fighting is D'Amato, the divorce lawyer. He gets to see how far both will go to get rid of the other, and boy do they go far.. Written by Rob Hartill

Plot Summary | Plot Synopsis

Plot Keywords:

divorce | couple | lawyer | law | love | See more »

Taglines:

Once in a lifetime comes a motion picture that makes you feel like falling in love all over again. This is not that movie.

Genres:

Comedy | Drama

Certificate:

R | See all certifications »

Parents Guide:

 »
Edit

Details

Country:

Language:

Release Date:

8 December 1989 (USA)  »

Also Known As:

Der Rosenkrieg  »

Box Office

Gross:

$83,699,711 (USA)
 »

Company Credits

Show detailed on  »

Technical Specs

Runtime:

Sound Mix:

Color:

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1
See  »
Edit

Did You Know?

Trivia

Cher was considered for the role of Barbara Rose. See more »

Goofs

When Barbara cartwheels down the stairs, the stairs are clearly flat, slanting downwards, making it easier for the stunt performer to perform the cartwheels. Additionally, they are standing on a curved staircase, but the stairs on which the stunt person does the cartwheels appear to be perfectly straight. See more »

Quotes

[first lines]
Gavin: [Gavin is talking to a client] You have some valid reasons for wanting a divorce.
[blows his nose with a handkerchief]
Gavin: Excuse me. My sinuses are very sensitive to irritants.
[sprays nasal decongestant up his nostrils]
Gavin: In the past five months, I think I've breathed freely with both sides working maybe a week total.
[pulls a cigarette out of a pack]
Gavin: I gotta cut this out. It's gonna kill me.
[lights his cigarette]
Gavin: I hadn't smoked for thirteen years. I kept the last cigarette from my last ...
[...]
See more »

Connections

Referenced in Tomorrow by Midnight (2001) See more »

Soundtracks

"We Wish You a Merry Christmas"
Arranged by Sam Pottle
Performed by Sesame Street Cast
Courtesy of Children's Television Workshop
See more »

Frequently Asked Questions

See more (Spoiler Alert!) »

User Reviews

 
HE is HER victim
16 October 2002 | by (Vienna, Austria) – See all my reviews

A classic feature of Danny DeVito's (far too few) works as a director is that they are utterly evil. Cruel. Wicked. Merciless to their characters and merciless to the viewer. Although this is often combined with slight exaggeration, it is exactly what I love about them.

After seeing The War of the Roses the second time after having grown a little older, I still feel that particular satisfaction. But this time, there are a few more things I think about, a few more questions I ask myself. For instance: who is the bad guy in the film? Who is `to blame'? And although it's clear that the Roses both have extremely unmoveable and stubborn characters, which partly leads to the catastrophe, I came to the conclusion that Barbara is the driving force of the whole divorce story. She announces her wish to divorce upon grounds that are not quite convincing. Maybe people who do not like Michael Douglas can sympathize with her but her reasons are not fair. She invariably follows her instinct without paying any respect to other people. Kathleen Turner portrays her most believably in this insufferable phase.

Oliver Rose, on the other hand, is one of those people who are proud of doing everything in a perfectly correct manner. He is therefore very sensitive and easily confronted if one doesn't acknowledge his correct behavior. He then becomes completely helpless and unable to react properly. That makes him an ideal `victim' to Barbara's striking egoism.

I'm mentioning this only because it is a new aspect I found during second viewing, and I am sure it was also DeVito's intention to develop characters like this, so for him, the turbulent divorce story is not just a parable on how stupid people are in general. He of course reserved the best role in the film for himself – he is the wise man who tells the parable and who emerges victorious in the end.

The War of the Roses with its merciless cruelness remains one of my favourite comedies of all time.


37 of 50 people found this review helpful.  Was this review helpful to you?

Message Boards

Recent Posts
Why do people think that all conflicts among couples are like this? heidegg-1
Did part of her still love him? jcloud28
Worst movie I've ever seen! Project_mayhem17
Am I the only one who thinks Michael Douglas is hillarious. rbostic84
Waste of Time !!! harry_potter_fan62
Dan Castellaneta gary1001
Discuss The War of the Roses (1989) on the IMDb message boards »

Contribute to This Page

Create a character page for:
?