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Weekend at Bernie's

Weekend at Bernie's

Comedy · Crime · 1989

Two young insurance corporation employees try to pretend that their murdered employer is alive by puppeteering his dead body, leading a hitman to attempt to track him down to finish him off.

Movie details

Weekend at Bernie's

“Bernie may be dead, but he's still the life of the party!”

1989 Comedy · Crime 1h 38m

Critical arithmetic

The consensus, allegedly.

IMDb

6.4 / 10

67.6K votes

Rotten Tomatoes

52 %

Tomatometer

Metacritic

32 / 100

Metascore

TMDB

6.4 / 10

Community rating

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

Two young insurance corporation employees try to pretend that their murdered employer is alive by puppeteering his dead body, leading a hitman to attempt to track him down to finish him off.

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 Weekend at Bernie's?

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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Bandits

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Buddy Buddy

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The Parole Officer

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The Thursday Murder Club

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Where it lives

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Names above the title

The people responsible.

Directed by

Ted Kotcheff

Written by

Robert Klane

Andrew McCarthy

Andrew McCarthy

Larry Wilson

Jonathan Silverman

Jonathan Silverman

Richard Parker

Catherine Mary Stewart

Catherine Mary Stewart

Gwen Saunders

Terry Kiser

Terry Kiser

Bernie Lomax

Don Calfa

Don Calfa

Paulie, Vito's Hit Man

Catherine Parks

Catherine Parks

Tina, Vito's Girl

Eloise DeJoria

Eloise DeJoria

Tawny

Court is in session

Put Weekend at Bernie's on trial.

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

The defence The Adrenaline Seeker

“It owes the canon nothing.”

The movie pursues immediacy and audience pleasure without begging institutions to certify its worth.

The prosecution The Prestige Tourist

“Easy pleasure, short half-life.”

It moves efficiently through the moment but offers little reason to keep arguing once the credits end.