The defence The Sentimental Softie
“Sincerity is not manipulation.”
The film risks embarrassment to make emotion communal, and that openness is harder than fashionable detachment.
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Adam's Rib
Comedy · Romance · 1949
A woman's attempted murder of her uncaring husband results in everyday quarrels in the lives of Adam and Amanda, a pair of happily married lawyers who end up on opposite sides of the case in court.
Movie details
Adam's Rib
“It's The Hilarious Answer To Who Wears The Pants!”
1949 Comedy · Romance 1h 41m
Critical arithmetic
The consensus, allegedly.
Scores change. Arguments endure.
IMDb
7.4 / 10
23.3K votes
Rotten Tomatoes
96 %
Tomatometer
Metacritic
87 / 100
Metascore
TMDB
7.1 / 10
Community rating
External scores via OMDb · CC BY-NC 4.0. Values normalized for display; availability varies by title.
A woman's attempted murder of her uncaring husband results in everyday quarrels in the lives of Adam and Amanda, a pair of happily married lawyers who end up on opposite sides of the case in court.
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 Adam's Rib?
For the defence
The Sentimental Softie
“You came to feel something, and you will.”
Read their case For the prosecution
The Cool Ironist
“Feeling things is a little embarrassing.”
Read their objectionThe 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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Social Animals
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How to Be Single
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New York City is full of lonely hearts seeking the right match, and what Alice, Robin, Lucy, Meg, Tom and David all have in common is the need to learn how to be single in a world filled with ever-evolving definitions of love.
Where it lives
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Names above the title
The people responsible.
Cast & crew
Directed by
George Cukor
Written by
Ruth Gordon · Garson Kanin
Spencer Tracy
Adam Bonner
Katharine Hepburn
Amanda Bonner
Judy Holliday
Doris Attinger
Tom Ewell
Warren Attinger
David Wayne
Kip Lurie
Jean Hagen
Beryl Caighn
Hope Emerson
Olympia La Pere
Court is in session
Put Adam's Rib on trial.
Two incompatible taste archetypes. One film. Read the arguments, then issue a completely binding cultural ruling.
The prosecution The Cool Ironist
“The strings are showing.”
Every cue tells you exactly what to feel and when, leaving sentiment to do the work character should have done.