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Bad Times at the El Royale

Bad Times at the El Royale

Thriller · Mystery · Crime · 2018

Lake Tahoe, 1969. Seven strangers, each one with a secret to bury, meet at El Royale, a decadent motel with a dark past. In the course of a fateful night, everyone will have one last shot at redemption.

Movie details

Bad Times at the El Royale

“Seven strangers. Seven secrets. All roads lead here.”

2018 Thriller · Mystery · Crime 2h 21m

Critical arithmetic

The consensus, allegedly.

IMDb

7.1 / 10

176.7K votes

Rotten Tomatoes

75 %

Tomatometer

Metacritic

60 / 100

Metascore

TMDB

6.8 / 10

Community rating

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

Lake Tahoe, 1969. Seven strangers, each one with a secret to bury, meet at El Royale, a decadent motel with a dark past. In the course of a fateful night, everyone will have one last shot at redemption.

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 Bad Times at the El Royale?

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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Names above the title

The people responsible.

Directed by

Drew Goddard

Written by

Drew Goddard

Jeff Bridges

Jeff Bridges

Father Daniel Flynn / Dock O'Kelly

Cynthia Erivo

Cynthia Erivo

Darlene Sweet

Lewis Pullman

Lewis Pullman

Miles Miller

Dakota Johnson

Dakota Johnson

Emily Summerspring

Cailee Spaeny

Cailee Spaeny

Rose Summerspring

Jon Hamm

Jon Hamm

Laramie Seymour Sullivan / Dwight Broadbeck

Chris Hemsworth

Chris Hemsworth

Billy Lee

Court is in session

Put Bad Times at the El Royale on trial.

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

The defence The Auteur Devotee

“Form is the argument.”

Every composed frame and deliberate cut is evidence that control can be thrilling in its own right.

The prosecution The Popcorn Loyalist

“Technique in search of a pulse.”

Immaculate construction is still construction. The film may be too busy proving its craft to feel alive.