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Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline, Peter MacNicol, Rita Karin, Stephen D. Newman ... see more see more... , Greta Turken , Josh Mostel , Günther Maria Halmer , Katharina Thalbach , Karlheinz Hackl , Ulli Fessl , Melanie Pianka , Robin Bartlett , Adrian Kalitka , Jennifer Lawn , Joseph Leon , Marcell Rosenblatt , Moishe Rosenfeld , John Rothman , David Wohl , Eugene Lipinski , Josef Sommer , Vida Jerman , Eugeniusz Priwieziencew , Joseph Tobin , Alixe Gordin , Armand Dahan

The year is 1947. Aspiring southern author Stingo (Peter MacNichol) heads to New York to seek his fortune. Moving into a dingy Brooklyn boarding house, Stingo strikes up a friendship with research che... read more read more...mist Nathan Landau (Kevin Kline) and Nathan's girlfriend, Polish refugee Sophie Zawistowska (Oscar-winner Meryl Streep). There is something unsettling about the relationship; Nathan is subject to violent mood swings, while Sophie seems to be harboring a horrible secret. Stingo soons learns that both Nathan and Sophie are strangers to truth; the audience is likewise led down several garden paths by a series of sepia-toned flashbacks, depicting Sophie's ordeal in a wartime concentration camp. The scene in which we discover the facts behind Sophie's "choice" is a gut-wrenching one; it might have been even more powerful had not the film taken so long to get there. It is betraying nothing to reveal that the character of Stingo is the alter ego of William Styron, upon whose best-selling novel the film was based. The film is rated R, due in great part to a disposable scene wherein Stingo tries to put the make on a "liberated" female intellectual. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

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86% liked it

19,251 ratings

Critics

81% liked it

26 critics

R, 2 hr. 37 min.

Directed by: Alan J. Pakula

Release Date: December 8, 1982

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DVD Release Date: August 17, 1999

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Stats: 1,263 reviews

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Flixster Reviews (1,263)

  • moonrivers
    August 31, 2011
    moonrivers
    In Brooklyn in the years following WWll and a young Southern writer falls for a refugee of Auschwitz who is herself embroiled with a charismatic American Jew, only all is not rosy. Everyone is carrying baggage and the film opines that the choices we make (especially with relatio... read morenships) are directly related to the baggage we carry. Its a mouthful to relay in the space of a film but the actors make it easier, lead by Streep who is at her most luminous.
  • cosmo313
    July 14, 2011
    cosmo313
    Hmm, let's see here: this hasn't aged well, but it's still a decent film filled with excellent performances. Hoenstly, that's really the highlight here. Essentially this film is just high melodrama with a Holocaust stroy thrown in as a way to make a love triangle seem more intere... read moresting. That is, of course, a simplification, but not too far from the truth.

    I did like this film though, even if I don't see it as beign a real cinematic masterpiece or anything. Maybe had the film focused more on the Holocaust stuff and less on the post war stuff, or maybe had they taken the titular moment and made it the real centerpiece or something I could find this film to be more brilliant, or at least as brilliant as the performances.

    That's all anyone seems ot talk about here are the performances, well, mostly Streep's. It's true, this is her greatest achievement as an actress, and this is a beuatiful turn she gives as a Holocaust survivor with a really dark past. The others are good too though. I used to think that peter MacNicol was only good at playing the creep in Ghostbusters II; I'm happy to report that he does a really good job here as well. Kevin Kline gives a remarkable performance as a really unbalanced man with whom you can never predict what he will say or do next. They both get overshadowed by Streep, but that's kinda understandable.

    I liked the music, and the look was decent, but the stroy just didn't quite have me like maybe it should have. I'm no ogre. The scene where the film gets it's title is a very heartbreaking and emotional scene-I just wish the rest of the film could have been as focused and stirring. Maybe they could have trimmed some of the running time in the process.

    All in all, a decent film, but nothing extremely remarkable, although that goes for the film as a whole, and not the individual parts that make it up. You should see this if only for the acting. One may think that such a statement is overrated, but I disagree. The work here (mostly Streep's) will forever be one of the greatest examples of successful acting ever committed to film.
  • FireStormStudios
    October 18, 2010
    FireStormStudios
    Sophie's Choice takes you on quite a memorable rollercoaster ride of emotion. It's a film that has great characters and great actors to back them up. You really feel for these individuals and go through all their pains as well as their happy times.

    It's not a 'feel good' mov... read moreie if that is what you are looking for, but it is an interesting perspective on what many people have gone through from a war-torn era.

    It's almost like 2 films in one, or at least two storylines in one film, therefore it makes it quite a long one, but it is necessary and leads to an entertaining film.
  • hunterjt13
    September 9, 2010
    hunterjt13
    What high drama! Sure: the eponymous "choice" is intense, but what makes this film so finely balanced is the subplots with Nathan and Stingo. There is enough light-hearted action to prevent this from becoming a two-and-a-half-hour downer, and the contrasting elements - the ligh... read moret frivolity of Nathan, Sophie's enraptured, co-dependent love for him, and Stingo's gentle, Southern demeanor - make the heavy moments of the film - Nathan's eventual break down and mood swings and the now-famous choice - all the more effective. All of the performances are excellent, but what probably gets lost in the shuffle of Kline's energy and Streep's effortless, bilingual portrayal is MacNicol's steady, heartfelt nature. His performance is so natural and he listens with such a relaxed demeanor that I daresay his is the finest work in this film.
    That said, there are moments when the film wanders. There are occasions - albeit few - when I wondered about the film's heavy concentration on the flashbacks, which were not leveraged to the degree they could have been.
    Overall, though, it's not the depressing, maudlin tear-jerker I expected and avoided for so long, and the film is better for it.
  • 76Majikat
    May 8, 2010
    76Majikat
    An enjoyable film throughout, whether it be the relationships between the main characters, the flashbacks or the actual theme of the film.

    Streep is fantastic and whilst I can't assume her accent to be perfect , it came across authentic. Kevin Kline was the was the biggest sr... read moreuprise for me, (having only seen him in Comedy Roles before) who gave a truly good performance.

    An intriguing tale with many tangents.
  • smith44
    August 7, 2009
    smith44
    Not only Meryl Streep's greatest role, but quite possibly the greatest female lead role ever performed. An absolutely devastating film.
  • mwilliams078
    December 16, 2007
    mwilliams078
    This is one of my all time favs of Meryl Streep's. What a wonderful film that discusses the harsh reality of a woman trying to move on after being part of a concentration camp in WWII. This is a MUST SEE!
  • jjnxn
    September 23, 2007
    jjnxn
    Brilliantly acted, throughly depressing.
  • dreamfaeries
    October 10, 2006
    dreamfaeries
    It was okay.
  • fb20312798
    September 17, 2007
    fb20312798
    If it wasn't for Meryl Streep, I think this film would have been completely terrible. See it for her and nothing else. The scene were Sophies Choice is revealed is one of the most heartwrenching things ever put on film and it is all because of streeps performance. The rest of the... read more film is rather dull an unintersting, but worth your time for it's one great performance.

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Critic Reviews

Variety Staff
June 26, 2007
Variety Staff, Variety

Astoundingly tedious. Full Review

Dave Kehr
June 26, 2007
Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader

The picture is completely devoid of cinematic interest, adopting instead a tiresome theatrical aesthetic in which showy monologues are filmed in interminable, usually ill-chosen long takes. Full Review

Roger Ebert
October 23, 2004
Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

So perfectly cast and well-imagined that it just takes over and happens to you. It's quite an experience. Full Review

Janet Maslin
August 30, 2004
Janet Maslin, New York Times

Though it's far from a flawless movie, Sophie's Choice is a unified and deeply affecting one. Thanks in large part to Miss Streep's bravura performance, it's a film that casts a powerful, uninterrupte... Full Review

Tim Brayton
November 5, 2009
Tim Brayton, Antagony & Ecstasy

A suffocating 151 minutes long, with a healthy portion of that running time devoted to a hunk of Holocausploitation of the most crass and cynical variety. And that's the good part. Full Review

Steve Crum
March 2, 2008
Steve Crum, Video-Reviewmaster.com

Stunning to the max, and Streep is memorable as Sophie.

Emanuel Levy
December 10, 2007
Emanuel Levy, EmanuelLevy.Com

The movie is too Hollywood in look and feel, and the flashback and narration are too conventional, and yet the image of the sickly and pale Meryl Streep recollecting her ordeal lingers in memory long ... Full Review

June 26, 2007
TV Guide's Movie Guide

Competently directed by Pakula and [features] gorgeous cinematography by Almendros. Full Review

Derek Adams
June 24, 2006
Derek Adams, Time Out

By the end, the accumulated weight and lethargy of the production fails to invest Sophie's fate with the significance Styron achieves. Full Review

Nell Minow
July 20, 2003
Nell Minow, Movie Mom at Yahoo! Movies

Heartbreakingly lovely performances.

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Sophie's Choice Trivia

  • In the movie "Sophie's Choice" starring Meryl Streep, who does Sophie (Streep) finally reveal her secret to?  Answer »
  • Which movie was Bette Midler NOT in?  Answer »
  • What was "Sophie's Choice"?  Answer »
  • Who starred as Sophie in the movie Sophie's Choice?  Answer »
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