CNET Networks Entertainment GameSpot | GameFAQs | SportsGamer | Metacritic | MP3.com | TV.com
Home | About Metacritic | About Metascores | What's New | Wireless Versions | Discussion Forums | Advertising Inquiries | Contact Us | RSS
Metacritic.com: We Deal With Criticism
     Help
> Switch to Advanced Search  
Film Video/DVD Music Games TV

Film

Upcoming Release Calendar
Weekend Box Office
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores
How Metascores Are Calculated
Discuss Film In Our Forums

 

Wide Releases

sort by name sort by score

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

 

Limited Releases

sort by name sort by score

xx All of Us
53 Allah Made Me Funny: Live in Concert
57 Amazing Truth About Queen Raquela, The
63 Appaloosa
68 Ashes of Time Redux
68 August Evening
62 Baghead
81 Ballast
55 Battle in Seattle
xx Beer for My Horses
xx Billy: The Early Years
63 Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story
56 Bottle Shock
50 Breakfast with Scot
61 Brick Lane
xx Call and Response
49 Children of Huang Shi, The
47 Choke
43 Choose Connor
41 Cthulhu
62 Duchess, The
85 Edge of Heaven, The
66 Elegy
80 Encounters at the End of the World
26 Everybody Wants to Be Italian
64 Fall, The
28 Fireproof
65 Flow: For Love of Water
37 Forever Strong
82 Frozen River
73 Girl Cut in Two, A
73 Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson
51 Good Dick
82 Happy-Go-Lucky
44 Henry Poole is Here
31 Hounddog
53 Humboldt County
72 I Served the King of England
71 I.O.U.S. A
40 Igor
64 In Search of a Midnight Kiss
xx Just Buried
62 Kabluey
63 Kit Kittredge: An American Girl
78 Last Mistress, The
xx Lower Learning
63 Man Named Pearl, A
89 Man on Wire
62 Mister Foe
86 Momma's Man
80 Moving Midway
53 Nights and Weekends
73 Obscene
xx Phoebe in Wonderland
55 Ping Pong Playa
76 Pool, The
82 Rachel Getting Married
55 Religulous
57 RocknRolla
55 Save Me
72 Secret, A
45 Shoot on Sight
57 Sixty Six
82 Tell No One
63 Thousand Years of Good Prayers, A
57 Towelhead
72 Transsiberian
83 Trouble the Water
83 U2 3D
84 Up the Yangtze
52 Virtual JFK: Vietnam If Kennedy Had Lived
79 Visitor, The
xx W.
61 Wackness, The
xx Whaledreamers
66 When Did You Last See Your Father?

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

 



Printer-Friendly Version Email This Page Discuss In Our Forums

American Teen
Paramount Vantage

American Teen reviews
Critic Score
Metascore: 66 Metascore out of 100
User Score  
8.0 out of 10
based on 29 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
based on 4 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

MPAA RATING: PG-13 for some strong language, sexual material, some drinking and brief smoking-all involving teens

Starring Hannah Bailey, Colin Clemens, Megan Krizmanich, Mitch Reinholt, and Jake Tusing

AMERICAN TEEN is the touching and hilarious Sundance hit that follows the lives of four teenagers - a jock, a popular girl, a heartthrob, an artsy girl and a geek – in one small town in Indiana through their senior year of high school. We see the insecurities, the cliques, the jealousies, the first loves and heartbreaks, and the struggle to make profound decisions about the future. (Paramount Vantage)


GENRE(S): Documentary  
WRITTEN BY: Nanette Burstein  
DIRECTED BY: Nanette Burstein  
RELEASE DATE: Theatrical: July 25, 2008 
RUNNING TIME: 95 minutes, Color 
ORIGIN: USA 

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100
San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle
Shows how a documentary can be as moving and suspenseful as the best narrative feature.
Read Full Review
100
Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow
The documentary American Teen is the most realistic movie you will see all summer.
Read Full Review
91
Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum
The players are timelessly familiar in American Teen, too. But filmmaker Nanette Burstein tells their stories with a distinctly 21st-century pop and audacity.
Read Full Review
90
Film Threat Zack Haddad
Never has a film captured the spirit of being a teenager better.
Read Full Review
88
TV Guide Ken Fox
The kids are real and their stories enthralling: When it comes to drama, there's nothing quite like high school.
Read Full Review
88
Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey
So authentic are the subjects, so raw their emotions.
Read Full Review
83
The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias
Though it's compelling enough as soap opera, American Teen digs deeply into why kids grudgingly accept the roles they've been given and the brutal consequences that come with straying outside the lines.
Read Full Review
75
USA Today Claudia Puig
Though it could work as effectively as a television vehicle, American Teen is revealing, funny and involving.
Read Full Review
75
Rolling Stone Peter Travers
Reality tv, welcome to the multiplex. If "The Hills" went back to high school and developed wit, perception and a conscience, it might play something like Nanette Burstein's wallop of a doc.
Read Full Review
75
Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold
An entertaining slice-of-life documentary that gets ever more fascinating as it moves along.
Read Full Review
75
Boston Globe Ty Burr
Parents are another matter. Almost to a man and woman they lay expectations on their children that ignore who those children are.
Read Full Review
75
Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
American Teen isn't as penetrating or obviously realistic as her "On the Ropes," but Burstein has achieved an engrossing film.
Read Full Review
75
Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips
As close to fraudulent as a documentary can get and still be worth seeing.
Read Full Review
70
Washington Post Desson Thomson
What makes Nanette Burstein's movie so powerful is its uncanny sense of familiarity.
Read Full Review
70
Village Voice Ella Taylor
Even when it's ripping off "Juno" and "The Hills," American Teen is fascinating in the way of every good documentary--the more time you spend with anyone, the more they surprise you.
Read Full Review
67
Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer
Like much reality TV, sections of American Teen seem patently staged, or coached, for the camera.
Read Full Review
63
ReelViews James Berardinelli
The movie is entertaining on a superficial level, but there's little beneath the surface.
Read Full Review
63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen
So is the result just a case of life imitating pop art, or has the director shaped the footage to enhance the imitation?
Read Full Review
60
The New York Times A.O. Scott
This is the kind of movie the people in it might have made, which means that its revelatory power as an investigation of teenage life in America is limited.
Read Full Review
60
The Hollywood Reporter James Greenberg
For all of its access and exposure, American Teen seems skin-deep. It's well shot, with good production values and lots of cool music. But it's fun and facile in much the same way reality TV is.
Read Full Review
60
Variety Dennis Harvey
Undeniably entertaining for its zippy presentation.
Read Full Review
60
New York Magazine David Edelstein
The movie does get under your skin (the tremulous misfit girl, Hannah, might be a breakout role model), but the way it has been put together reminds me of those animal shows where the crew nudges the gazelles in the direction of the lions with multiple cameras standing by.
Read Full Review
60
New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman
The kids here do come across as genuine people, struggling with issues everyone can understand.
Read Full Review
50
Los Angeles Times Michael Ordona
Here are casual cruelty, crushing heartbreak and pressure from parents and peers, all of which can involve the viewer but are nothing revelatory.
Read Full Review
50
New York Post Lou Lumenick
The poster art for Nanette Burstein's American Teen, which follows five students through their senior year at a high school in Indiana, is modeled after the one for "The Breakfast Club." So, to a large extent, is this ultra-slick and predictable documentary.
Read Full Review
50
NPR Bob Mondello
The students all say and do more than they should in the filmmaker's presence, which certainly makes them watchable -- sort of a slow-motion train wreck.
Read Full Review
50
Portland Oregonian M. E. Russell
Unsurprisingly, the formulaic "Breakfast Club" casting yields a formulaic narrative.
Read Full Review
50
Chicago Reader J.R. Jones
This being senior year, Burstein can't help but capture some genuine drama, but there's a stage-managed quality to the movie that reminded me of MTV reality shows.
Read Full Review
20
Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten
At times it's almost like "Lord of the Flies," with the camera serving as the flypaper dipped in the honey of the promised land of celebrity.
Read Full Review

What Our Users Said

Vote Now!The average user rating for this movie is 8.0 (out of 10) based on 4 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Marc D. gave it a9:
It's amazing how the whole Hannah & Mitch storyline was mirrored the Andie & Blaine storyline from Pretty in Pink. Except not even Blaine would do what Mitch did.

Preston Melbourne-W. gave it an8:
Though I am about to embark on my senior year, and this at times seemed more like watching a mirror than a movie screen, i found the film entertaining and well done. Some scenes seemed like they could have been staged, but all-in-all, it felt real. Teens, coming from one, can be nasty, and this film is in no way shy about that. We can also be sweet, intelligent, and lovable, all aspects that are shown. I hope that this movie can get us teens a little more credit for what we're going through by reminding adults what a hellish time being in high school can be. That being said, I recommend this film.

Discuss this movie in our forums

Return to top of page
Home | FILM | DVD/VIDEO | MUSIC | GAMES | TV | Forums | About Metacritic metacritic.com

Popular on CBS sites: Fantasy Football | Miley Cyrus | MLB | iPhone 3G | GPS | Recipes | Shwayze | NFL

About CNET Networks | Jobs | Advertise

© 2008 CNET Networks, Inc., a CBS Company. All rights reserved. | Privacy Policy | Terms of Use