MOVIEmeter
Top 5000
Down 396 this week

Fish Tank (2009)

 -  Drama  -  11 September 2009 (UK)
7.3
Your rating:
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 -/10 X  
Ratings: 7.3/10 from 28,901 users   Metascore: 81/100
Reviews: 92 user | 233 critic | 31 from Metacritic.com

Everything changes for 15-year-old Mia when her mum brings home a new boyfriend.

Director:

Writer:

Watch Trailer
0Check in
0Share...

User Lists

Related lists from IMDb users

a list of 444 titles created 28 May 2011
 
a list of 2364 titles created 4 months ago
 
a list of 702 titles created 03 May 2011
 
a list of 10000 titles created 2 months ago
 
a list of 104 titles created 6 months ago
 

Connect with IMDb


Share this Rating

Title: Fish Tank (2009)

Fish Tank (2009) on IMDb 7.3/10

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

Take The Quiz!

Test your knowledge of Fish Tank.
Won 1 BAFTA Film Award. Another 18 wins & 22 nominations. See more awards »

Videos

Photos

Learn more

People who liked this also liked... 

Shame (2011)
Drama
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.3/10 X  

In New York City, Brandon's carefully cultivated private life -- which allows him to indulge his sexual addiction -- is disrupted when his sister arrives unannounced for an indefinite stay.

Director: Steve McQueen
Stars: Michael Fassbender, Lucy Walters, James Badge Dale
An Education (2009)
Drama
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.3/10 X  

A coming-of-age story about a teenage girl in 1960s suburban London, and how her life changes with the arrival of a playboy nearly twice her age.

Director: Lone Scherfig
Stars: Carey Mulligan, Olivia Williams, Alfred Molina
Half Nelson (2006)
Drama
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.3/10 X  

An inner-city junior high school teacher with a drug habit forms an unlikely friendship with one of his students after she discovers his secret.

Director: Ryan Fleck
Stars: Ryan Gosling, Jeff Lima, Shareeka Epps
Drama
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.8/10 X  

A Turkish man travels to Istanbul to find the daughter of his father's former girlfriend.

Director: Fatih Akin
Stars: Baki Davrak, Gürsoy Gemec, Gengiz Daner
The Class (2008)
Drama
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.5/10 X  

Teacher and novelist François Bégaudeau plays a version of himself as he negotiates a year with his racially mixed students from a tough Parisian neighborhood.

Director: Laurent Cantet
Stars: François Bégaudeau, Agame Malembo-Emene, Angélica Sancio
Drama
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.9/10 X  

Drama about a woman who assists her friend to arrange an illegal abortion in 1980's Romania.

Director: Cristian Mungiu
Stars: Anamaria Marinca, Laura Vasiliu, Vlad Ivanov
Drama
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 8.5/10 X  

Lester Burnham, a depressed suburban father in a mid-life crisis, decides to turn his hectic life around after developing an infatuation for his daughter's attractive friend.

Director: Sam Mendes
Stars: Kevin Spacey, Annette Bening, Thora Birch
Drama
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 8.8/10 X  

Upon admittance to a mental institution, a brash rebel rallies the patients to take on the oppressive head nurse, a woman he views as more dictator than nurse.

Director: Milos Forman
Stars: Michael Berryman, Peter Brocco, Louise Fletcher
Boogie Nights (1997)
Drama
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.9/10 X  

The story of a young man's adventures in the Californian pornography industry of the 1970s and 1980s.

Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
Stars: Luis Guzmán, Burt Reynolds, Julianne Moore
A Separation (2011)
Drama
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 8.5/10 X  

A married couple are faced with a difficult decision - to improve the life of their child by moving to another country or to stay in Iran and look after a deteriorating parent who has Alzheimer's disease.

Director: Asghar Farhadi
Stars: Payman Maadi, Leila Hatami, Sareh Bayat
Drama
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.6/10 X  

The lives of two Danish families cross each other, and an extraordinary but risky friendship comes into bud. But loneliness, frailty and sorrow lie in wait.

Director: Susanne Bier
Stars: Mikael Persbrandt, Wil Johnson, Markus Rygaard
Tyrannosaur (2011)
Drama
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.5/10 X  

Joseph, a man plagued by violence and a rage that is driving him to self-destruction, earns a chance of redemption that appears in the form of Hannah, a Christian charity shop worker.

Director: Paddy Considine
Stars: Peter Mullan, Archie Lal, Jag Sanghera
Edit

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
...
Mia
...
...
Joanne
Rebecca Griffiths ...
...
Billy
Sydney Mary Nash ...
Keira
Carrie-Ann Savill ...
Tyler's Friend
Toyin Ogidi ...
Tyler's Friend
Grant Wild ...
Keeley's Dad
Sarah Bayes ...
Charlotte Collins ...
Tall Dancing Girl
Kirsty Smith ...
Dancing Girl
Chelsea Chase ...
Dancing Girl
Brooke Hobby ...
Dancing Girl
...
Billy's Brother
Edit

Storyline

Mia, an aggressive fifteen-year-old girl, lives on an Essex estate with her tarty mother, Joanne, and precocious little sister Tyler. She has been thrown out of school and is awaiting admission to a referrals unit and spends her days aimlessly. She begins an uneasy friendship with Joanne's slick boyfriend, Connor, who encourages her one interest, dancing. Written by don @ minifie-1

Plot Summary | Add Synopsis

Taglines:

Live, love and give as good as you get.

Genres:

Drama

Certificate:

Not Rated | See all certifications »

Parents Guide:

 »
Edit

Details

Official Sites:

Country:

|

Language:

Release Date:

11 September 2009 (UK)  »

Also Known As:

Akvarij  »

Filming Locations:

 »

Box Office

Opening Weekend:

$32,619 (USA) (15 January 2010)

Gross:

$373,060 (USA) (7 May 2010)
 »

Company Credits

Show detailed on  »

Technical Specs

Runtime:

Sound Mix:

Color:

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1
See  »
Edit

Did You Know?

Trivia

Katie Jarvis, who plays Mia, had never acted before this film. A casting director spotted her having a fight with her boyfriend at a train station and offered her the role. See more »

Goofs

When Mia takes the alcohol bottle from the woman at one of the parties, it is almost empty. Later, Mia is seen drinking from the bottle in her mother's bedroom and the bottle is half full. See more »

Quotes

[first lines]
[Mia calls Keeley using a cellphone]
Keeley: [from an answering machine] Hey, it's Keeley. Leave me a message.
Mia: Keeley, it's me. What's going on? I've left like three messages. I said sorry, didn't I? You know what I'm like. I was pissed off. Ring me back, you bitch.
See more »


Soundtracks

"Get Up Offa That Thing"
Performed by James Brown
Written by Deanna Brown / Deidra Jenkins / Yamma Brown
Published by Dynatone Publishing Company (BMI)
All rights administered by Warner/Chappell Music Publishing Ltd.
All rights reserved
Courtesy of Polydor Records (United States)
Under licence from Universal Music Operations Ltd
See more »

Frequently Asked Questions

See more (Spoiler Alert!) »

User Reviews

 
A step beyond the kitchen sink
5 February 2010 | by (Baltimore) – See all my reviews

As an American who used to be a fan of British "kitchen sink" drama I can say this film not only eclipsed those films, it eclipsed that whole genre, which was about poverty-stricken males who vented their rage against whoever crossed their path, usually females. "Fish Tank" turns all that inside out. This is "grrrrrl" kitchen sink.

Katie Jarvis cannot get enough kudos for her performance as a teenager called Mia. She's angry at the world. She fits in nowhere. Her mother is an advanced-age party animal who resents Mia for reminding her she's a mom.

Mia's poor. In the U.S., she would live in the projects. Here, it's called council flats.

The plot is fairly simple ... at first. Mia falls in love with her mother's studly boyfriend. He knows she lusts after him. She knows ... The movie is not really about the outcome of these lustful/familial issues as it is about how Mia will overcome/survive them. The movie goes in unpredictable directions.

One wonderful observation about this film is the economy of scenes. Every scene counts. An American version would have included at least one music video. Here, no BS. Every scene counts.

And the movie is about survival. Kids can survive bad backgrounds. We root for Mia all the way to the end.

Mike Leigh and Ken Loach, say hi to Andrea Arnold.


60 of 74 people found this review helpful.  Was this review helpful to you?

Message Boards

Recent Posts
The scene where they all dance was heartbreaking jeronavdg
Visit England JackBluegrass
Was Mia a virgin? reece_hanrahan
what was Mia's plan with the daughter? minkus782
Mia's dancing kandas29
If you loved Fish Tank, then you'll like... zubidoo
Discuss Fish Tank (2009) on the IMDb message boards »

Contribute to This Page

Create a character page for:
?