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 
Starman
Science Fiction · Drama · Romance · 1984
When an alien takes the form of a young widow's husband and asks her to drive him from Wisconsin to Arizona, the government tries to stop them.
Movie details
Starman
“In 1977 Voyager II was launched into space, inviting all lifeforms in the universe to visit our planet. Get ready. Company's coming.”
1984 Science Fiction · Drama · Romance 1h 55m
Critical arithmetic
The consensus, allegedly.
Scores change. Arguments endure.
IMDb
7.0 / 10
55.5K votes
Rotten Tomatoes
83 %
Tomatometer
Metacritic
70 / 100
Metascore
TMDB
6.9 / 10
Community rating
External scores via OMDb · CC BY-NC 4.0. Values normalized for display; availability varies by title.
When an alien takes the form of a young widow's husband and asks her to drive him from Wisconsin to Arizona, the government tries to stop them.
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 Starman?
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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City of Angels
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A Love Song
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Two childhood sweethearts, now both widowed, share a night by a lake in the mountains.
Equals
Drama · 2015
A futuristic love story set in a world where emotions have been eradicated.
Upstream Color
Drama · 2013
A man and woman are drawn together, entangled in the lifecycle of an ageless organism. Identity becomes an illusion as they struggle to assemble the loose fragments of wrecked lives.
After Yang
Sci-fi · 2022
When his young daughter's beloved companion — an android named Yang — malfunctions, Jake searches for a way to repair him. In the process, Jake discovers the life that has been passing in front of him, reconnecting with his wife and daughter across a distance he didn't know was there.
Her
Romance · 2013
In the not so distant future, Theodore, a lonely writer, purchases a newly developed operating system designed to meet the user's every need. To Theodore's surprise, a romantic relationship develops between him and his operating system. This unconventional love story blends science fiction and romance in a sweet tale that explores the nature of love and the ways that technology isolates and connects us all.
Where it lives
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Names above the title
The people responsible.
Cast & crew
Directed by
John Carpenter
Written by
Bruce A. Evans · Raynold Gideon
Jeff Bridges
Starman / Scott Hayden
Karen Allen
Jenny Hayden
Charles Martin Smith
Mark Shermin
Richard Jaeckel
George Fox
Robert Phalen
Major Bell
Tony Edwards
Sergeant Lemon
J
John Walter Davis
Brad Heinmuller
Court is in session
Put Starman 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.