MOVIEmeter
SEE RANK
Up 4 this week

The Player (1992)

 -  Comedy | Crime | Drama  -  10 April 1992 (USA)
7.7
Your rating:
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 -/10 X  
Ratings: 7.7/10 from 31,022 users   Metascore: 86/100
Reviews: 130 user | 59 critic | 20 from Metacritic.com

A studio executive is being blackmailed by a writer whose script he rejected but which one? Loaded with Hollywood insider jokes.

Director:

Writers:

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

User Lists

Related lists from IMDb users

a list of 2369 titles created 4 months ago
 
a list of 10000 titles created 2 months ago
 
a list of 1269 titles created 6 months ago
 
a list of 3627 titles created 1 month ago
 
a list of 57 titles created 2 months ago
 

Connect with IMDb


Share this Rating

Title: The Player (1992)

The Player (1992) on IMDb 7.7/10

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

Take The Quiz!

Test your knowledge of The Player.
Nominated for 3 Oscars. Another 30 wins & 12 nominations. See more awards »

Videos

Photos

Learn more

People who liked this also liked... 

Mystic River (2003)
Crime | Drama | Mystery
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 8/10 X  

With a childhood tragedy that overshadowed their lives, three men are reunited by circumstance when one loses a daughter.

Director: Clint Eastwood
Stars: Sean Penn, Tim Robbins, Kevin Bacon
Crime | Drama | Thriller
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.6/10 X  

Detective Philip Marlowe tries to help a friend who is accused of murdering his wife.

Director: Robert Altman
Stars: Elliott Gould, Nina van Pallandt, Sterling Hayden
Comedy | Crime | Drama
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.6/10 X  

During his final days, a dying man is reunited with old friends, former lovers, his ex-wife, and his estranged son.

Director: Denys Arcand
Stars: Rémy Girard, Stéphane Rousseau, Marie-Josée Croze
Chinatown (1974)
Crime | Drama | Mystery
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 8.4/10 X  

A private detective investigating an adultery case stumbles on to a scheme of murder that has something to do with water.

Director: Roman Polanski
Stars: Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway, John Huston
The Thin Man (1934)
Comedy | Crime | Mystery
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 8/10 X  

Nick and Nora Charles, a former detective and his rich, playful wife, investigate a murder case mostly for the fun of it.

Director: W.S. Van Dyke
Stars: William Powell, Myrna Loy, Maureen O'Sullivan
Biography | Comedy | Crime
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.1/10 X  

An adaptation of the cult memoir of game show impresario Chuck Barris, in which he purports to have been a CIA hitman.

Director: George Clooney
Stars: Sam Rockwell, Drew Barrymore, George Clooney
Suicide Kings (1997)
Comedy | Drama | Mystery
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 6.9/10 X  

A group of youngsters kidnap a respected Mafia figure.

Director: Peter O'Fallon
Stars: Mark Watson, Christopher Walken, Denis Leary
Rear Window (1954)
Mystery | Thriller
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 8.7/10 X  

A wheelchair bound photographer spies on his neighbours from his apartment window and becomes convinced one of them has committed murder.

Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Stars: James Stewart, Grace Kelly, Wendell Corey
Crime | Drama | Mystery
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 8.4/10 X  

As corruption grows in 1950s LA, three policemen - the straight-laced, the brutal, and the sleazy - investigate a series of murders with their own brand of justice.

Director: Curtis Hanson
Stars: Kevin Spacey, Russell Crowe, Guy Pearce
Badlands (1973)
Crime | Drama
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.9/10 X  

Based on the Starkweather-Fugate killing spree of the 1958, in which a fifteen-year-old girl and her twenty-five-year-old boyfriend slaughtered her entire family and several others in the Dakota badlands.

Director: Terrence Malick
Stars: Martin Sheen, Sissy Spacek, Warren Oates
Vertigo (1958)
Mystery | Romance | Thriller
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 8.5/10 X  

A retired San Francisco detective suffering from acrophobia investigates the strange activities of an old friend's much-younger wife, all the while becoming dangerously obsessed with her.

Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Stars: James Stewart, Kim Novak, Barbara Bel Geddes
Crime | Drama | Mystery
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.3/10 X  

A law firm brings in its "fixer" to remedy the situation after a lawyer has a breakdown while representing a chemical company that he knows is guilty in a multi-billion dollar class action suit.

Director: Tony Gilroy
Stars: Tom Wilkinson, Michael O'Keefe, Tilda Swinton
Edit

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
...
...
...
...
...
Larry Levy
...
...
Bonnie Sherow
...
David Kahane
...
Andy Civella
...
Tom Oakley
...
Dick Mellon
...
Detective DeLongpre
...
...
Jan
...
Sandy
Edit

Storyline

A studio script screener gets on the bad side of a writer by not accepting his script. The writer is sending him threatening postcards. The screener tries to identify the writer in order to pay him off so he'll be left alone, and then in a case of mistaken identity gone awry, he accidentally gives the writer solid ammunition for blackmail. This plot is written on a backdrop of sleazy Hollywood deals and several subplots involving the politics of the industry. Written by Ed Sutton <esutton@mindspring.com>

Plot Summary | Add Synopsis

Taglines:

Making movies can be murder. See more »


Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for language, and for some sensuality | See all certifications »

Parents Guide:

 »
Edit

Details

Country:

Language:

Release Date:

10 April 1992 (USA)  »

Also Known As:

Las reglas del juego  »

Box Office

Gross:

$21,706,100 (USA)
 »

Company Credits

Show detailed on  »

Technical Specs

Runtime:

Sound Mix:

Color:

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1
See  »
Edit

Did You Know?

Trivia

The opening tracking shot (8 minutes) includes people talking about famous long tracking shots in other movies. The scene was rehearsed for a day, shot for half a day. Fifteen takes were done, five were printed, and the third one was used in the film. The entire sequence was unscripted, and all the dialogue is improvised. See more »

Goofs

In a tracking shot during the confrontation between Mill and the screenwriter, the camera and cameraman are reflected in the black paint of the SUV. See more »

Quotes

[first lines]
Man 1: [voiceover] Quiet on the set.
Woman: [voiceover] OK, everybody, quiet on the set.
Man 2: [voiceover] Scene 1, take 10. Marker.
Man 1: [voiceover] And - action!
See more »

Crazy Credits

This film recorded digitally in a THX Sound System Theatre See more »


Soundtracks

"DRUMS OF KYOTO"
Written & Performed by Kurt Neumann
Copyright Lla-Mann Music
See more »

Frequently Asked Questions

See more (Spoiler Alert!) »

User Reviews

 
Tinseltown Memoirs
18 October 2005 | by (Dallas, Texas) – See all my reviews

Screen writing is a craft, one of many in Hollywood that builds or supports the towering edifice upon which our glamorous "stars" ... sit. Without a screenplay, actors, directors, and others in Hollywood might otherwise grovel for beans and potatoes at the local soup kitchen.

And so, director Altman gives us "The Player", a film about a screen writing executive (well played by Tim Robbins) who listens to story ideas, and makes decisions about what you and I see, and don't see, at the local multiplex. For every idea that evolves into a film, billions and billions of other ideas wither and die, along with the careers of the writers who conceived those ideas. Inevitably, some of those writers get miffed, and that is the premise of "The Player".

It's actually a weak premise, because in reality the business of screen writing is fairly bland, and the conflict, which exists mostly in people's heads, is fairly tame. To rev up the drama, and to qualify the film as a "thriller", the filmmakers here insert some contrived conflict, in the form of threatening postcards. If you watch this film for the "thriller" element only, you may be disappointed.

This film works, not so much as a thriller, but rather as a classy, semi-inside peak into the back rooms of Hollywood decision making. There's lots of humor, some obvious, some subtle. And the film's plot is filled with satirical irony. In addition to Robbins' fine performance, Whoopi Goldberg is great as a tampon obsessed detective.

The best approach to "The Player" is to absorb the Tinseltown setting, and watch the characters as they maneuver for selfish advantage. I really liked the inclusion of dozens of real-life Hollywood celebrities, just being themselves. You get to see them in their natural habitat. This element adds texture and authenticity, and thus helps to prop up the weak story.

Although the contrived plot falters somewhat in the middle Act, it's the overall Tinseltown setting and real-life ambiance that make "The Player" an entertaining and insightful film.


17 of 25 people found this review helpful.  Was this review helpful to you?

Message Boards

Recent Posts
Could somebody please explain the twist ending to me here? dhchevalier
June Gudmundsdottir/Greta Stcacchi magnuskrog_9
Question and theory tim_sf3
What does the ending mean? potato2
nude scene rosedawson-2
Garbage! lojack_ii
Discuss The Player (1992) on the IMDb message boards »

Contribute to This Page

Create a character page for:
?