The defence The Popcorn Loyalist
“It owes the canon nothing.”
The movie pursues immediacy and audience pleasure without begging institutions to certify its worth.
Back to trending 
Soapdish
Comedy · 1991
Celeste Talbert is the star of the long-running soap opera "The Sun Also Sets." With the show's ratings down, Celeste's ruthlessly ambitious co-star, Montana Moorehead, and the show's arrogant producer, David Seton Barnes, plot to aggravate her into leaving the show by bringing back her old flame, Jeffrey Anderson, and hiring her beautiful young niece, Lori Craven.
Movie details
Soapdish
“All that glitter... All that glamour... All that dirt.”
1991 Comedy 1h 37m
Critical arithmetic
The consensus, allegedly.
Scores change. Arguments endure.
IMDb
6.6 / 10
18.6K votes
Rotten Tomatoes
74 %
Tomatometer
Metacritic
65 / 100
Metascore
TMDB
6.3 / 10
Community rating
External scores via OMDb · CC BY-NC 4.0. Values normalized for display; availability varies by title.
Celeste Talbert is the star of the long-running soap opera "The Sun Also Sets." With the show's ratings down, Celeste's ruthlessly ambitious co-star, Montana Moorehead, and the show's arrogant producer, David Seton Barnes, plot to aggravate her into leaving the show by bringing back her old flame, Jeffrey Anderson, and hiring her beautiful young niece, Lori Craven.
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 Soapdish?
For the defence
The Popcorn Loyalist
“Big screen, big feelings, no apologies.”
Read their case For the prosecution
The Big-Idea Head
“You watch with your brain, not your gut.”
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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Where it lives
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Streaming availability data supplied by JustWatch.
Names above the title
The people responsible.
Cast & crew
Directed by
Michael Hoffman
Written by
Robert Harling · Andrew Bergman
Sally Field
Celeste Talbert
Kevin Kline
Jeffrey Anderson
Robert Downey Jr.
David Seton Barnes
Cathy Moriarty
Montana Moorehead
Teri Hatcher
Ariel Maloney
Paul Johansson
Bolt
Elisabeth Shue
Lori Craven
Court is in session
Put Soapdish on trial.
Two incompatible taste archetypes. One film. Read the arguments, then issue a completely binding cultural ruling.
The prosecution The Big-Idea Head
“Easy pleasure, short half-life.”
It moves efficiently through the moment but offers little reason to keep arguing once the credits end.