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.
Back to trending 
Cradle Will Rock
Drama · 1999
A true story of politics and art in the 1930s USA, centered around a leftist musical drama and attempts to stop its production.
Movie details
Cradle Will Rock
“Art is never dangerous... unless it tells the truth.”
1999 Drama 2h 12m
Critical arithmetic
The consensus, allegedly.
Scores change. Arguments endure.
IMDb
6.8 / 10
9.6K votes
Rotten Tomatoes
65 %
Tomatometer
Metacritic
64 / 100
Metascore
TMDB
6.5 / 10
Community rating
External scores via OMDb · CC BY-NC 4.0. Values normalized for display; availability varies by title.
A true story of politics and art in the 1930s USA, centered around a leftist musical drama and attempts to stop its production.
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 Cradle Will Rock?
For the defence
The Prestige Tourist
“You like your greatness pre-approved.”
Read their case For the prosecution
The Popcorn Loyalist
“Big screen, big feelings, no apologies.”
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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Won't Back Down
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Bound for Glory
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A biography of Woody Guthrie, one of America's greatest folk singers. He left his dust-devastated Texas home in the 1930s to find work, discovering the suffering and strength of America's working class.
Synecdoche, New York
Drama · 2008
A theater director struggles with his work, and the women in his life, as he attempts to create a life-size replica of New York inside a warehouse as part of his new play.
Gigi & Nate
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Genius
History · 2016
New York in the 1920s. Max Perkins, a literary editor is the first to sign such subsequent literary greats as Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald. When a sprawling, chaotic 1,000-page manuscript by an unknown writer falls into his hands, Perkins is convinced he has discovered a literary genius.
Where it lives
Watch in your region.
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Names above the title
The people responsible.
Cast & crew
Directed by
Tim Robbins
Written by
Tim Robbins
Hank Azaria
Marc Blitzsetin
Rubén Blades
Diego Rivera
Joan Cusack
Hazel Huffman
John Cusack
Nelson Rockefeller
Cary Elwes
John Houseman
Philip Baker Hall
Gray Mathers
Cherry Jones
Hallie Flanagan
Court is in session
Put Cradle Will Rock on trial.
Two incompatible taste archetypes. One film. Read the arguments, then issue a completely binding cultural ruling.
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.