Movie · 1989 · Comedy, Drama, Crime · 1h 44m · PG-13 · English
Curator score: 8.5/10 (118.5K ratings)
It's about love and reality. Faith and delusion. Good and evil. Success and failure.
Overview
A renowned ophthalmologist is desperate to cut off an adulterous relationship…which ends up in murder; and a frustrated documentary filmmaker woos an attractive television producer while making a film about her insufferably self-centered boss.
Ratings
Curator score: 8.5/10
IMDb: 7.8/10
Letterboxd: 4.04/5
Rotten Tomatoes: 92%
Metacritic: 77
TMDB: 7.4/10
Director
Woody Allen
Production
Orion Pictures, Jack Rollins & Charles H. Joffe Productions
Cast
Woody Allen, Martin Landau, Mia Farrow, Alan Alda, Anjelica Huston, Joanna Gleason, Sam Waterston, Jerry Orbach, Jenny Nichols, Caroline Aaron, Daryl Hannah, Bill Bernstein, Claire Bloom, Stephanie Roth Haberle, Gregg Edelman, George J. Manos, Dolores Sutton, Donna Castellano, Joel Fogel, Thomas Crowe
Curator Review
Verdict
A sharp, morally thorny blend of comedy and tragedy, anchored by one of Woody Allen’s most accomplished screenplays and a devastating central performance. It’s funny, unsettling, and philosophically rich, with a dual-story structure that pays off in a bleak but memorable way.
Best for
Viewers who like moral dilemmas and existential questions
Fans of dark, dialogue-driven dramas with comic undertones
People interested in late-20th-century New York intellectual cinema
Audiences who enjoy ensemble acting and character studies
Skip if
You want a straightforward crime thriller
You dislike ethically ambiguous, talk-heavy films
You prefer warm, uplifting comedies
You’re sensitive to uncomfortable material involving infidelity and abuse-adjacent dynamics
Overview
Crimes and Misdemeanors is one of those films where the jokes land, the ideas sting, and the ending lingers long after the credits. It braids together two stories: one a grim moral descent, the other a more lightly comic but still melancholy look at artistic compromise and romantic disappointment. The result is a film that feels both breezy and severe, often in the same scene.
Worth noting
What makes it endure is the confidence of the writing and the way it treats self-justification as a human reflex. The film is less interested in solving its ethical questions than in watching people explain themselves into and out of guilt. That gives it a chilly, unsettling power, especially in the darker storyline.
Bottom line
It’s not a film for everyone, and some of its material is hard to sit with. But for viewers drawn to intelligent, adult dramas that mix wit with existential dread, it’s a major work: elegant, cynical, and surprisingly moving in its final note.
Top Letterboxd reviews
Mike D'Angelo (5★) · 686 likes
95/100
Such a perfect encapsulation of Allen's worldview that he might as well have just retired afterward—this was everything he had to say in one brilliantly conceived package. That its themes are stated so bluntly has never bothered me, because the characters are actively wrestling with those questions; the dialogue (Judah's especially) may be openly existential, but none of it rings false in this particular context. What's mysterious and miraculous to me, still, is the way that the two stories… more
Will Sloan (5★) · 537 likes
Arguably Allen's best, but man, those scenes with him and his niece are tough to watch.
mary (4.5★) · 446 likes
I'm so afraid of scenes where woody allen is near a kid
Adam Nayman · 239 likes
I surely don't have time- to myself, or otherwise- to be sullenly rewatching Woody Allen movies (without even a monetizable work hook!) and yet here I am. I think this'll be the last one, after HUSBANDS AND WIVES last week and ANNIE HALL about a month ago - a trio that, taken together, but each in different ways, probably constitute the best directing he ever did. (The official over/under on "Woody Allen: Ranked" featurettes online when he eventually dies, sooner… more I surely don't have time- to myself, or otherwise- to be sullenly rewatching Woody Allen movies (without even a monetizable work hook!) and yet here I am. I think this'll be the last one, after HUSBANDS AND WIVES last week and ANNIE HALL about a month ago - a trio that, taken together, but each in different ways, probably constitute the best directing he ever did. (The official over/under on "Woody Allen: Ranked" featurettes online when he eventually dies, sooner… more
2005 · Drama, Romance, Thriller · 2h 4m · R · Curator 6.2/10 (406.2K ratings) · Where to watch: Amazon Prime Video, fuboTV, Paramount Plus Premium, Paramount Plus Essential, Amazon Prime Video with Ads
A later Allen film that revisits guilt, luck, and moral evasion in a colder, more overtly fatalistic register.
1984 · Comedy, Drama · 1h 24m · PG · Curator 7.8/10 (52K ratings) · Where to watch: Amazon Prime Video, fuboTV, MGM Plus, Philo, Amazon Prime Video with Ads
Another Allen film that mixes comedy and sadness while exploring performance, failure, and the need for self-mythology.