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Sean Gullette, Mark Margolis, Ben Shenkman, Pamela Hart, Stephen Pearlman ... see more see more... , Samia Shoaib , Samia Shoaie , Pam Hart , Sean Guillette , Ajay Naidu , Joanne Gordon , Kristyn Mae-Anne Lao

Darren Aronofsky scripted and made his directorial debut with this experimental feature with mathematical plot threads hinting at science-fictional elements. In NYC's Chinatown, recluse math genius Ma... read more read more...x (Sean Gullette) believes "everything can be understood in terms of numbers," and he looks for a pattern in the system as he suffers headaches, plays Go with former teacher Sol Robeson (Mark Margolis), and fools around with an advanced computer system he's built in his apartment. Both a Wall Street company and a Hasidic sect take an interest in his work, but he's distracted by blackout attacks, hallucinations, and paranoid delusions. Filmed in 16mm black-and-white, the Kafkaesque film features music by Clint Mansell (of the UK's Pop Will Eat Itself band). Shown at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival where Aronofsky won the drama directing award. ~ Bhob Stewart, Rovi

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85% liked it

100,493 ratings

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86% liked it

50 critics

R, 1 hr. 25 min.

Directed by: Darren Aronofsky

Release Date: July 10, 1998

Keywords: white, casual

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DVD Release Date: January 12, 1999

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Flixster Reviews (7,761)

  • 5oclockcoffee
    May 11, 2012
    5oclockcoffee


    "Pi" starts with an hyperactive song and opening intro (why it did remind me of Run Lola Run?). A disturbed mind, a math genius, the number Pi as the key to the universe. Drastic camera angles and contrast lighting; the chaos.

    I´ve always liked mathematics. Once yo... read moreu really learn it, going beyond memorized formulas, it becomes fascinating, but more than mathematics I´ve always been amazed by minds. If it was possible, I would definitely buy a trip to a genius´one. A genius´one. Between Max Cohen and Robert Llewelyn (from John Madden´s Proof), I would still pick out Robert´s insanity.

    After watching "Pi", the promising embryo, I´m sure that none of the trips to Aronofsky´s mind worths its price. Take off the astonished soundtrack and chaotically beautiful black-an-white photography and you have nothing. Nothing but the lost promise of "geniality", as it happens with his last work Black Swan.

    Like Rob Nelson said in his review that Pi is about nothing but its ambition - the tale of an obsessive math genius who finds clues to the universe everywhere he looks, told by an indie filmmaker who's convinced that every point-of-view shot signifies something really deep.






  • blkbomb
    March 19, 2012
    blkbomb
    Maximillian Cohen: When I was a little kid, my mother told me not to stare into the sun, so when I was six I did... 

    "There will be no order, only chaos."

    Darren Aronofsky is easily one of the most interesting directors making movies right now. Pi was his debut, and an amazing ... read moreone at that. It's a bizarre film, like you'd expect from Aronofsky if you've seen any of his later works. Pi includes many signatures that he would go on to use for many of his films. Pi is definitely his most interesting film, but not his best. It's shot in gritty black and white, it's short, and it's crazy. It's a mind fuck of a film, and for some will seem boring and maybe a little too crazy. 

    I don't want to go into plot details because I don't think it is really necessary. If I explained the plot in great detail it would just confuse you and me in the process. It seems a lot simpler when you just watch it, instead of read about it. Just know there are many slow moments and periods, where if you are bored easily, you could become detached from the film.

    In many ways Aronofsky's debut feels a lot like Nolan's debut, Following. Their both extremely short and are shot in black in white. But they both also have a feeling of independence from rational filmmaking. They seem like they just want to do their own thing and don't care about the normal way a story is told. Both also debut and show off the director's talents and begin to give us an idea as to how talented they are, even before they hit their true strides.

    I've now seen every film Aronofsky has made. It's weird that I waited to watch his very first until last, but sometimes that's how it goes. I think in regards to favorites of his, this falls below Requiem For a Dream, Black Swan, and The Wrestler. It's a film that is at times hard to watch, but when it is at it's best it is amazing, and despite the fact that I like some of his other movies more, I would still say this his most important and most interesting.

    So much is shown off that he would use later on in other movies. The bizarreness of some of the character's encounters feels so much like Black Swan. The way he shows the characters routines in sped up form is exactly the same way he showed them in Requiem For a Dream. There's just so much as an Aronofsky fan that you can trace back to here, that makes the experience even more rewarding.
  • jamers2011
    March 14, 2012
    jamers2011
    Good film!...
  • fb573414556
    March 7, 2012
    fb573414556
    Boggling. If you are able to understand all of 'Pi' you must be some kind of genius. Aronofsky's debut is an experimental foray into the mind of a genius and one that definetely leaves you feeling like you've gone as mental as the protaginist.

    Thiller codes and conventions meet ... read moremathematics in order to create something new and a pleasent change from lt of films around today. It definetely has a few annoying moments but it's outlandishness makes up for them. Give it a watch if you feel like something a bit different. God, I hate maths.
  • paulkoh110
    December 9, 2011
    paulkoh110
    Its psycho mathematics! This film examines the aggressive and irrational side to the stock market along with crazy hallucinations! Aronofsky's first film makes a great debut!
  • garyX
    November 22, 2011
    garyX
    The worlds of religion and big business clash over the talents of a mathematics prodigy who becomes obsessed with finding a formula that can explain the underlying pattern of existence. Pi was Darren Aronofsky's debut film and is an experimental little affair that reminded me in ... read morea lot of ways of David Lynch's Eraserhead. It has the same grainy, black and white photography and surreal, almost nightmarish quality. It contains a lot of theoretical sounding scientific jargon, but to me it felt a bit more like new age hoodoo than genuine science making it far from the profound experience I was expecting. It's certainly an interesting film with some effective imagery and quality performances and shows the potential Aronofsky possessed in the field of film making. More a taster than a complete package that's a little pretentious but brief enough to not test the patience. I doubt I'll have any desire to sit through it again though.
  • fb1710827246
    June 23, 2011
    fb1710827246
    Ignorance is bliss, is it what it's all about? I thought to myself. Then I realize that we fail to see the bigger picture when we focus beyond regular means and become obsessive on the way. The visual was not particularly likable, but then again, this is an indie film, and the un... read moreique visual style worked to deliver a bizarre, macabre atmosphere reminiscent of Kubrick films. At times disgustingly suspenseful then profoundly beautiful, it is a success.
  • FrizzDrop
    May 20, 2011
    FrizzDrop
    In a year that gave us The Matrix, Pi uses the same elements and makes a broader and more intellectual film. One of Aronofsky's early efforts, Pi uses the concept of mathematical prevalence in mapping the human existence. Aided by a group of Jews looking through the Torah, and a ... read morelarge scale agency (stays unnamed) which is looking to steal a 216 digit number that will unlock the key to all civilization and unearth the patterns that exist in the world at large. Driving himself utterly insane is the protaganist Max, a mathematician locked away in his lab of an apartment, treking across town to receive sage advice from his mentor, and the man who mapped Pi, Sol. He starts hallucinating, becoming enraptured in finding this bogus, thrown away number that everyone is trying to kill him to retrieve. The lucidity of his life is edged out by his obsession, resulting in a very demented character study, but also an intricate mind-bender.
  • bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb1
    December 20, 2010
    bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb1
    A very complex and original movie. I really liked it. I didn't get a lot of the movie but I think that's the point. The movie really makes you think. Max is crazy and he's trying to find a pattern with math. If he can find this pattern then he thinks he can understand and predic... read moret everything like the stockmarket but also some bigger things like life or even god. This pattern probably doesn't exist but it might and Max thinks he close to finding it. A brilliant movie.

    Grade: B+
  • ScoopOnline
    December 13, 2009
    ScoopOnline
    faith in chaos

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Critic Reviews

Richard Corliss
March 29, 2009
Richard Corliss, TIME Magazine

Aronofsky, who has parlayed this movie's Sundance success into two Hollywood deals, is that rare indie filmmaker who doesn't want to make hip romantic sitcoms. He's a genuine experimenter with a spook... Full Review

Dennis Harvey
June 6, 2007
Dennis Harvey, Variety

It's remarkable to what extent Aronofsky has rendered the cerebral kinetically intense. The film's imaginative, diverse images create a mind's-eye urban claustrophobia. Full Review

Liam Lacey
July 12, 2002
Liam Lacey, Globe and Mail

Audacious and bursting with ideas. Full Review

Laura Miller
December 19, 2001
Laura Miller, Salon.com

The movie's low-budget look neatly matches the claustrophobia of Max's life, but the filmmakers have also devised some special shooting methods for certain scenes. These sequences -- breathless and ja... Full Review

Stephen Holden
January 1, 2000
Stephen Holden, New York Times

As smart as it is, 'Pi' is awfully hard to watch. Filmed with hand-held cameras in splotchy black-and-white and crudely edited, it has the style and attitude of a no-budget midnight movie. Full Review

James Berardinelli
January 1, 2000
James Berardinelli, ReelViews

Transports us to a world that is like yet unlike our own, and, in its mysterious familiarity, is eerie, intense, and compelling. Full Review

Bob Graham
January 1, 2000
Bob Graham, San Francisco Chronicle

It all leads to a very strange place, and I'm particularly impressed with the economical means, both financially and artistically, by which Aronofsky gets there. Full Review

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

The seductive thing about Aronofsky's film is that it is halfway plausible in terms of modern physics and math. Full Review

Bill Boisvert
January 1, 2000
Bill Boisvert, Chicago Reader

Pi turns what should be a metaphoric relationship into a stupefyingly literal-minded thriller. Full Review

Rob Nelson
August 21, 2009
Rob Nelson, City Pages, Minneapolis/St. Paul

Both story and style reveal the calculations of an artist so desperate to get noticed that he forgot to cover his id. Full Review

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Facts

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    • Sol Robeson: Have you met Archimedes? The one with the black spots, you see? You remember Archimedes of Syracuse, eh? The king asks Archimedes to determine if a present he's received is actually solid gold. Unsolved problem at the time. It tortures the great Greek mathematician for weeks - insomnia haunts him and he twists and turns in his bed for nights on end. Finally, his equally exhausted wife - she's forced to share a bed with this genius - convinces him to take a bath to relax. While he's entering the tub, Archimedes notices the bath water rise. Displacement, a way to determine volume, and that's a way to determine density - weight over volume. And thus, Archimedes solves the problem. He screams "Eureka" and he is so overwhelmed he runs dripping naked through the streets to the king's palace to report his discovery.
    • Marcy Dawson: It's survival of the fittest, Max, and we've got the fucking gun.
    • Max Cohen: One: Mathematics is the language of nature. Two: Everything around us can be represented and understood through numbers. Three: If you graph the numbers of any system, patterns emerge. Therefore, there are patterns everywhere in nature.
    • Max Cohen: 9:13. Personal note. When I was a little kid, my mother told me not to stare into the sun. So once, when I was six, I did. The doctors didn't know if my eyes would ever heal.I was terrified, alone in that darkness. Slowly, daylight crept in through the bandages and I could see. But something else had changed inside me.
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  • The rotting brain used in 1998's Pi is real.  Answer »
  • I have played the part of a P.I., a homeless guy, an uncle and a bobsleigh coach, who am I?  Answer »
  • What is the name of the director of the movies 'Requiem for a Dream', 'Pi' and 'The Fountain'.  Answer »
  • I use to be a P.I I was force to take care of a baby I was once know as Mr. Baseball  Answer »
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