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Rushmore

Rushmore

Comedy · Drama · 1998

When a beautiful first-grade teacher arrives at a prep school, she soon attracts the attention of an ambitious teenager named Max, who quickly falls in love with her. Max turns to the father of two of his schoolmates for advice on how to woo the teacher. However, the situation soon gets complicated when Max's new friend becomes involved with her, setting the two pals against one another in a war for her attention.

Movie details

Rushmore

“Love. Expulsion. Revolution.”

1998 Comedy · Drama 1h 33m

Critical arithmetic

The consensus, allegedly.

IMDb

7.6 / 10

208.2K votes

Rotten Tomatoes

90 %

Tomatometer

Metacritic

87 / 100

Metascore

TMDB

7.4 / 10

Community rating

External scores via OMDb · CC BY-NC 4.0. Values normalized for display; availability varies by title.

When a beautiful first-grade teacher arrives at a prep school, she soon attracts the attention of an ambitious teenager named Max, who quickly falls in love with her. Max turns to the father of two of his schoolmates for advice on how to woo the teacher. However, the situation soon gets complicated when Max's new friend becomes involved with her, setting the two pals against one another in a war for her attention.

CriticWise case file

What this film says about your taste.

Not a recommendation score. A measure of how closely the film’s taste signals resemble yours.

The archetype split

Who fights over Rushmore?

The split comes from the same five-axis model used by the test, not audience ratings or review sentiment.

Taste neighbourhood

Nearby on the taste map.

TMDB supplies the candidates. CriticWise reorders them by craft, strangeness, prestige, emotion, and pace.

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Where it lives

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Names above the title

The people responsible.

Directed by

Wes Anderson

Written by

Wes Anderson · Owen Wilson

Jason Schwartzman

Jason Schwartzman

Max Fischer

Bill Murray

Bill Murray

Herman Blume

Olivia Williams

Olivia Williams

Rosemary Cross

Seymour Cassel

Seymour Cassel

Bert Fischer

Brian Cox

Brian Cox

Dr. Nelson Guggenheim

Mason Gamble

Mason Gamble

Dirk Calloway

Sara Tanaka

Sara Tanaka

Margaret Yang

Court is in session

Put Rushmore on trial.

Two incompatible taste archetypes. One film. Read the arguments, then issue a completely binding cultural ruling.

The defence The Prestige Tourist

“Sincerity is not manipulation.”

The film risks embarrassment to make emotion communal, and that openness is harder than fashionable detachment.

The prosecution The Popcorn Loyalist

“The strings are showing.”

Every cue tells you exactly what to feel and when, leaving sentiment to do the work character should have done.