Movie · 1976 · Drama, Action, Comedy, Music, Family · 1h 33m · G · English
Curator score: 5.3/10 (47.5K ratings)
Every year brings a great movie. Every decade a great movie musical!
Overview
New York, 1929, a war rages between two rival gangsters, Fat Sam and Dandy Dan. Dan is in possession of a new and deadly weapon, the dreaded "splurge gun". As the custard pies fly, Bugsy Malone, an all-round nice guy, falls for Blousey Brown, a singer at Fat Sam's speakeasy. His designs on her are disrupted by the seductive songstress Tallulah who wants Bugsy for herself.
Ratings
Curator score: 5.3/10
IMDb: 6.8/10
Letterboxd: 3.49/5
Rotten Tomatoes: 79%
Metacritic: 71
TMDB: 6.6/10
Director
Alan Parker
Production
Goodtimes Enterprises, Bugsy Malone Productions, Robert Stigwood Organization, National Film Trustee Company, The Rank Organisation, Paramount Pictures
Cast
Scott Baio, Jodie Foster, Florrie Dugger, John Cassisi, Martin Lev, Paul Murphy, Sheridan Earl Russell, Albin 'Humpty' Jenkins, Paul Chirelstein, Andrew Paul, Davidson Knight, Michael Jackson, Jeff Stevenson, Peter Holder, Donald Waugh, Michael Kirkby, Jon Zebrowski, Jorge Valdez, John Rafter Lee, Dexter Fletcher
Curator Review
Verdict
A wildly inventive gangster musical with kid performers, candy-colored production design, and a genuinely oddball charm. Its gimmick can be divisive, but the movie’s energy, songs, and visual imagination make it a memorable cult watch.
Best for
fans of offbeat musicals
viewers who like gangster stories with a comic twist
people drawn to retro production design and period pastiche
cult-movie collectors
families with older kids who can handle mild menace and innuendo
Skip if
you want a straightforward crime film
you dislike child performers in adult-coded roles
you prefer polished, conventional musical numbers
you’re sensitive to the film’s awkward sexual undertones
Overview
Bugsy Malone is one of those movies that sounds like a joke until you see how committed it is to the bit. A Prohibition-era gangster tale played entirely by kids, with splurge guns and custard pies standing in for bullets and blood, it turns a familiar genre into something surreal, playful, and strangely sincere. The result is less a parody than a full-scale reinvention of the mob movie as school-play fever dream.
Worth noting
What keeps it from feeling like a mere novelty is the confidence of the staging. The songs are catchy, the production design is lavish, and the film has a real sense of rhythm and showmanship. It also has a few tonal oddities that can make it feel dated or uncomfortable, especially in how it frames some of the older-kid romance material.
Bottom line
Still, as a piece of pop-cinema imagination, it’s hard to mistake for anything else. If you’re open to a movie that is both ridiculous and oddly polished, Bugsy Malone is a cult curiosity with enough craft to justify the gimmick.
Top Letterboxd reviews
Liva (3★) · 772 likes
I think all stories should have parallel kids-only versions. Like Se7en, for example.
russman (3★) · 671 likes
This is what happens when an elementary school play goes way over-budget
Emma (5★) · 659 likes
if anyone slags off this film to my face i'm gonna splurge them
wm h (5★) · 424 likes
Imagine being such a piece of shit that you dislike this