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Griffin Dunne, Rosanna Arquette, Verna Bloom, Tommy Chong, Linda Fiorentino ... see more see more... , Teri Garr , John Heard , Cheech Marin , Catherine O'Hara , Will Patton , Robert Plunket , Bronson Pinchot , Frank Aquilino , Victor Argo , Larry Block , Clarence Felder , Robin Johnson , Dick Miller , Murray Moston , Rockets Redglare , Charles Scorsese , Rocco Sisto , Margo Winkler , Vic Magnotta , Martin Scorsese , Henry Baker , Victor Bumbalo , Rand Carr , Maree Catalano , John Codiglia , Bill Elverman , Clarke Evans , Joel Jason , Stephen J. Lim , Paula Raflo , Mary Colquhoun

A Manhattan Yuppie's night out becomes a comic nightmare, courtesy of director Martin Scorsese. Griffin Dunne and Rosanna Arquette star in a "wild, funny and wonderful original" (Judith Crist) Year: 1... read more read more...985 Director: Martin Scorsese Starring: Griffin Dunne, Rosanna Arquette, Verna Bloom

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85% liked it

19,826 ratings

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89% liked it

38 critics

R, 1 hr. 36 min.

Directed by: Martin Scorsese

Release Date: September 13, 1985

Keywords: funny

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DVD Release Date: August 17, 2004

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Flixster Reviews (1,165)

  • hobster1
    May 9, 2012
    hobster1
    After Hours is an absolute delight. The theme concerns one night in New York City, and although what transpires could happen in any major metropolitan area, the trappings are distinctly New York. It's funny how Scorsese is able to satirize the city while still celebrating its cos... read moremopolitan atmosphere. The genius is the method in which the action slowly unfolds getting progressively more ridiculous as time goes on. We sense something is amiss right from the very start. Notice how Marcy's roommate Kiki answers the phone when he rings her up. Kiki's disembodied voice dripping with annoyance. That's merely the beginning. His odyssey becomes nightmarish in its development. The brilliance is that he takes the saga to places we don't anticipate. Creatively building layer upon layer of insanity to form a perfectly realized vision of hell on earth. It's hilarious, weird and uncomfortable at once. Throughout it all, Dunne grounds the picture in an air of normalcy that radiates safety for the viewer. And just when you fear that this cruel paean to the Big Apple cannot end in any meaningful way, it does. The story comes full circle intelligently referencing events we've seen before. It's an intricately constructed tale that simply gets better with age.
  • cosmo313
    February 28, 2012
    cosmo313
    Paul Hackett (Griffin Dunne) is your average 1980s New York yuppie. One night after work he has a chance encounter with a woman whom he makes a bit of a connection with. A little while later he decides to meet up with her in SoHo. As soon as he starts making his way to the neighb... read moreorhood though, what should have been a straightforward and simple "date" of sorts turns into a bizarre madcap misadventure where Paul's attempts to get back home get weirder and worse as the night goes on.

    Plotwise, that's pretty much it: guy goes out, tries to go home, shit hits the fan. The movie is a delightfully odd and darkly funny trip through the nuttier side of urban life in the wee hours of the morning. It's less of a character study, than a study in weirdness propelled by some increasingly ecclectic and odd characters, played by an impressive lineup of performers including Rosanna Arquette, Verna Bloom, Cheech and Chong, Linda Fiorentino, Teri Garr, John Heard, and Catherine O'Hara among others.

    This is an atypical film for Scorsese, and it seems weird at first having him direct something like this. It's not really his thing, and seems more like the perfect fit for the Coen Brothers. Yet, while watching it, the viewer realizes that, atypical or not, Scorsese is the right fit for such a project because he knows New York, he knows New York at night, and he's great at having movies that have a nightmarish tone filled lots of paranoia and craziness. What makes it stick out is the overall tone, the dark comedy element. This is probably the closest Scorsese will come to making a comedy, even if it isn't a "pure" one per se.

    I've mentioned some of the actors who play the side characters, but let's diiscuss their performances. They're great. All of them. Dunne excels as playing the increasingly harried and Kafkaesque protagonist Paul, while all the others do a godo job (and have lots of fun) playing all sorts of odd balls whose actions aren't always explained. That's another element that really makes this film sing is that it leaves some things unexplained or untouched, and it works better as a result, and adds to the proceedings instead of being too vague for the sake of too vague.

    Howard Shore's music is both fun and perfectly fitting of the atmosphere, Michael Ballhaus has done some excellent work as cinematographer for a numebr of Scorsese films, and he adds another one to that list with his work here. The lighting, camera moves, and various neat angles are well executrd and only add to the film instead of being just for show. Thelma Schoonmaker does a great as usual job with the editing, and Scorsese does a terrific job with his directing, proving that, even with a slightly lighter tone than the rest of his work, he can still pull off something spectacular.

    Give this one a shot. it's weird, nutty, and all kinds of random, but it's hilarious, super entertaining, and extremely well made. Bravo.
  • fb100002359227440
    January 1, 2012
    fb100002359227440
    Martin Scorsese's After Hours, it's a surreal and great black comedy, with a very good screenplay and actings. A film showing, that even in the most forgotten movie, Scorsese always is terrific.
  • aSpaceCowboy
    November 30, 2011
    aSpaceCowboy
    A hilarious, maniacal misadventure where every event is connected with each other.
  • phubbs1
    July 20, 2011
    phubbs1
    Unusual type of film for Mr Scorsese this one which he hasn't really been back to explore since which is a shame as this is one of those quirky interesting cult films that is pretty good, weird and bad all at once.

    Griffin Dunne is a great character actor and really shines here ... read moreas a regular guy just trying to get home, although its his own fault he gets into all these sticky situations. A myriad of circumstances all rain down upon Dunne as he wanders from street to street in 80's New York (when NY was grotty too) which do leave you feeling quite uncomfortable or uneasy as he tries to solve problems and help people in order to gain trust or simply afew bucks to get the subway.

    Its brilliantly done by Scorsese as you really do feel for Dunne's character and find yourself talking to the screen as you get a hunch of the trouble that's coming his way, you just want him to get his keys back or finish one errend before he gets caught up in another hehe

    Great ensemble cast throughout with a perfect grimy almost spooky look and feel to it, not a perfect film gotta say, has its ups n downs, alittle dull in spots. I wonder why Dunne isn't in much else, he did this and 'American Werewolf' and that's about it really.
  • ajv2688
    January 19, 2011
    ajv2688
    A fantastically quirky comedy drama adventure movie from Scorsese. I loved it, it's very cool, and I highly recommend it.
  • gokhale1
    January 18, 2011
    gokhale1
    Martin Scorsese never fails to amaze me! I have always believed that Stanley Kubrick is the only person who has managed to deliver masterpieces (note..not just 'good' films, but 'great' films) in diverse genres.
    I mean..let's face it; Scorsese's best and/or best-known pictures a... read morere either Crime dramas or grave character dramas or De Niro dramas! But with "After Hours" Scorsese proves that he can pull off a tongue-in-cheek dark comedy with lesser known actors pretty well.

    Written by Joseph Minion, this eventful tale called "After Hours" chronicles the strange experiences in the life of Paul Hackett (Griffin Dunne) occurring in one fateful night when just about everything seems to go wrong for him. It all begins in the late hours, with a chance conversation with an attractive girl Marcy (Rosanna Arquette) in a coffee shop. She mentions about staying with her friend, a sculptress, Kiki (Linda Fiorentino) who is also making and selling plaster of Paris paperweights the shape of donuts, bagels, etc!

    Paul is clearly more interested in the girl than in the paperweights and after going home for the night he calls up the number she gives him. To his joy she invites him over. A crazy cab ride and his accidental losing of his only $20 bill is only the beginning of the long chain of hellish misadventures that he goes through in the remainder of the night...

    Scorsese doesn't waste much time into getting right to it, and you are instantly sucked into the drama. There is something in the way he shoots his scenes..you just know that something exciting or different is going to happen any minute the moment he meets with Marcy in the shop. Even the smallest, most trivial of conversations seem to hold our interest! He captures New York City by night, beautifully, with the lit, empty streets partly wet with the rains, the empty diners and coffee shops just make you feel like going there and living the New York night! The otherwise bustling city that never sleeps gets an eerie ghost-town like feel!

    We are also introduced to a bunch of loony characters who all seem to be slight nutcases! So there's the peculiar looking taxi driver who drives at breakneck speed which makes the taxi ride seem like a roller coaster ride; Kiki the sculptress also comes across as anything but normal with her weird dressing sense and mannerisms; Marcy seems to have some emotional problems of her own..

    There are a lot of such colourful characters that Paul meets in his night of a lifetime. These characters don't get much screen time yet they are so well written, cast and directed that they stay in your memory long after the film has ended. That is where the Scorsese magic lies; he knows how to make the best of the characters he has at hand and does a wonderful job of smoothly fitting them all in this strange narrative. A particularly interesting character in this oddball ensemble is the poker-faced bouncer (Clarence Felder) at the gates of the nightclub 'Club Berlin' who looks like an ogre and mouths seemingly senseless dialog while denying a frustrated Paul an entry into the club.


    But like other films in the genre, "After Hours" is yet another comedy that has to rely on that magical phenomenon called "chance" to further its story. So it is no surprise really that SoHo (the place where most of the events happen) is an extremely small place and Paul just happens to cross paths with several individuals at least twice in a single night! Furthermore these several individuals also happen to run into each other at other times! Add to that the fact that by sheer coincidence, some of these individuals even know each other very well! The convenient twists like these do tend to mar the viewing experience slightly, but not entirely!


    That apart, Griffin Dunne is excellent in the only role I've seen him in! Familiar faces like the hot Rosanna Arquette, the not-so-hot Linda Fiorentino, Teri Garr, Catherine O'Hara and Cheech Marin appear briefly in this crazy venture that is so unlike anything Scorsese has ever done before. Scorsese does his trademark cameo too in one hysterically funny scene.


    Do watch "After Hours", Scorsese's depiction of one wild night in our unlucky hero's life, for all its craziness. It will certainly keep you captivated right 'til the even nuttier yet clever climax...
  • arashxak
    March 25, 2010
    arashxak
    Easily my favourite Scorsese film after Taxi Driver, A fun nightmarish ride that never goes overboard, Griffin Dunne is perfect as the main character
  • DragonEyeMorrison
    February 14, 2010
    DragonEyeMorrison
    Fun film, seems that this has more imitatiors from what i can remember. Linda Fiorentino is topless too.
  • ythelastman89
    November 18, 2009
    ythelastman89
    A really underrated Scorsese film in my opinion. It's got such an interesting and multilayered plot. The acting was really good and the characters are very believable. It's such a bizarre story that is really sort of frightening at times. The offbeat humor and dysfunctional roman... read morece was fun to watch.

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Critic Reviews

Richard Schickel
January 25, 2010
Richard Schickel, TIME Magazine

The result is a delirious and challenging comedy, a postmodern Ulysses in Nighttown. Full Review

Variety Staff
March 31, 2008
Variety Staff, Variety

Anxiety-ridden picture would have been pretty funny if it didn't play like a confirmation of everyone's worst fears about contemporary urban life. Full Review

Dave Kehr
March 31, 2008
Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader

Scorsese's orchestration of thematic development, narrative structure, and visual style is stunning in its detail and fullness; this 1985 feature reestablished him as one of the very few contemporary ... Full Review

Vincent Canby
August 30, 2004
Vincent Canby, New York Times

After Hours is not, ultimately, a satisfying film, but it's often vigorously unsettling. In this season of homogenized pap, that should be read as praise. Full Review

Roger Ebert
January 1, 2000
Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

This is the work of a master filmmaker who controls his effects so skillfully that I was drained by this film. Full Review

Nick Davis
July 7, 2011
Nick Davis, Nick's Flick Picks

[Scorsese's] tendency toward hollow showboating has rarely been more in evidence ... Ends as a tolerable but annoyingly atonal exercise made by artists with little if anything on their minds. Full Review

Ian Nathan
March 31, 2008
Ian Nathan, Empire Magazine

Martin Scorsese's take on NYC puts a hip spin on Joe Minion's cleverly constructed nightmare. Full Review

March 31, 2008
Film4

During the 80s there was a slew of yuppie revenge flicks where film-makers visited horrors on the heads of young urban professionals and this is probably the best of that mini-genre. Full Review

Geoff Andrew
June 24, 2006
Geoff Andrew, Time Out

Inventive film-making of the first order. Full Review

Emanuel Levy
May 30, 2006
Emanuel Levy, EmanuelLevy.Com

A SoHo version of Ulysses? A male rendition of Alice in Wonderland? In Scorsese's noir comedy, a bored, repressed Everyman becomes an alien in his own town, subjected to one surreal nightmare after an... Full Review

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After Hours Trivia

  • Which of these businesses does Takeshi Kaneshiro's character in Wong Kar Wai's Fallen Angels NOT break into after hours to run as his own?  Answer »
  • Who directed the movies After Hours, Boxcar Bertha and Kundun?  Answer »
  • In which movie does Griffin Dunne go on the run from an angry mob led by Catherine O'Hara, after he's wrongly accused of burglary?  Answer »
  • Baby meets Johnny who teaches dance at the family summer camp and after hours dirty dances with the other dancers. She learns a routine when one of the women is recovering from an abortion, and becomes Johnny's lover. Who plays Baby in Baby "Dirty Dancing" (1987)?   Answer »
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