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North Dallas Forty

North Dallas Forty

Comedy · Drama · 1979

A semi-fictional account of life as a professional football player. Loosely based on the Dallas Cowboys team of the early 1970s.

Movie details

North Dallas Forty

“Wait till you see the weird part.”

1979 Comedy · Drama 1h 59m

Critical arithmetic

One number, for now.

TMDB

6.7 / 10

Community rating

A semi-fictional account of life as a professional football player. Loosely based on the Dallas Cowboys team of the early 1970s.

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 North Dallas Forty?

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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Somewhere in Queens

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Intermission

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Comedy · 2003

A raucous story of the interweaving lives and loves of small-town delinquents, shady cops, pretty good girls and very bad boys. With Irish guts and grit, lives collide, preconceptions shatter and romance is tested to the extreme. An ill-timed and poorly executed couple's break-up sets off a chain of events affecting everyone in town.

Where it lives

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Names above the title

The people responsible.

Directed by

Ted Kotcheff

Written by

Ted Kotcheff · Frank Yablans · Peter Gent

Nick Nolte

Nick Nolte

Phillip Elliott

Mac Davis

Mac Davis

Seth Maxwell

Charles Durning

Charles Durning

Coach Johnson

Dayle Haddon

Dayle Haddon

Charlotte Caulder

Bo Svenson

Bo Svenson

Jo Bob Priddy

John Matuszak

John Matuszak

O. W. Shaddock

Steve Forrest

Steve Forrest

Conrad Hunter

Court is in session

Put North Dallas Forty on trial.

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

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.

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.