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Piranha

Piranha

Horror · Science Fiction · Comedy · 1978

When flesh-eating piranhas are accidentally released into a summer resort's rivers, the guests become their next meal.

Movie details

Piranha

“A hideous death lurked unseen in the river...”

1978 Horror · Science Fiction · Comedy 1h 34m

Critical arithmetic

The consensus, allegedly.

IMDb

5.9 / 10

26.4K votes

Rotten Tomatoes

72 %

Tomatometer

Metacritic

71 / 100

Metascore

TMDB

6.0 / 10

Community rating

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

When flesh-eating piranhas are accidentally released into a summer resort's rivers, the guests become their next meal.

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 Piranha?

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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Streaming availability data supplied by JustWatch.

Names above the title

The people responsible.

Directed by

Joe Dante

Written by

John Sayles · Richard Robinson

Bradford Dillman

Bradford Dillman

Paul Grogan

Heather Menzies

Heather Menzies

Maggie McKeown

Kevin McCarthy

Kevin McCarthy

Dr. Robert Hoak

Keenan Wynn

Keenan Wynn

Jack

Dick Miller

Dick Miller

Buck Gardner

Barbara Steele

Barbara Steele

Dr. Mengers

Belinda Balaski

Belinda Balaski

Betsy

Court is in session

Put Piranha on trial.

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

The defence The Arthouse Gremlin

“Its refusal to behave is the point.”

The strange choices create the kind of friction that follows you out of the theatre and into the argument.

The prosecution The Prestige Tourist

“Oddness is not depth.”

A film can break every rule and still leave nothing behind but the memory of how hard it tried to be singular.