Movie · 1992 · Comedy, Drama, Romance · 1h 48m · R · English
Curator score: 8.3/10 (63.6K ratings)
A hilarious comedy about being married, being single, sex and life in New York.
Overview
When their best friends announce that they're separating, a professor and his wife discover the faults in their own marriage.
Ratings
Curator score: 8.3/10
IMDb: 7.5/10
Letterboxd: 3.90/5
Rotten Tomatoes: 93%
Metacritic: 84
TMDB: 7.0/10
Director
Woody Allen
Production
TriStar Pictures, Jack Rollins & Charles H. Joffe Productions
Cast
Woody Allen, Mia Farrow, Judy Davis, Sydney Pollack, Juliette Lewis, Liam Neeson, Lysette Anthony, Cristi Conaway, Ron Rifkin, Blythe Danner, Brian McConnachie, Timothy Jerome, Rebecca Glenn, Caroline Aaron, Galaxy Craze, Fred Melamed, Nick Metropolis, Jeffrey Kurland, Bruce Jay Friedman, John Doumanian
Curator Review
Verdict
A sharp, uncomfortable relationship autopsy that turns marital collapse into a restless, funny, and genuinely painful chamber piece. Its documentary-like style and brutally observed dialogue make it one of Woody Allen’s most distinctive films, especially for viewers who like their comedy edged with dread.
Best for
fans of talky relationship dramas
viewers who like bleak marital comedies
people interested in faux-documentary visual style
audiences drawn to emotionally raw ensemble acting
Skip if
you want a warm or uplifting romance
you dislike neurotic, dialogue-heavy films
you’re sensitive to infidelity and relationship conflict
you prefer plot-driven stories over conversational character studies
Overview
Husbands and Wives is a marriage movie that feels less like a story than a pressure test. A couple’s separation sends ripples through their closest friends, and what follows is a cascade of rationalizations, betrayals, and self-deceptions that never quite settle into easy moral lessons. The film is funny, but the humor is the kind that catches in your throat.
Worth noting
The handheld, roving camera gives the whole thing a nervous, almost invasive energy, as if the film were eavesdropping on people who are too honest for their own good. That style suits the material perfectly: conversations spiral, alliances shift, and every character seems to be arguing with an idea of love rather than with the person in front of them.
Bottom line
What lingers most is the emotional abrasion. The performances are sharp and often devastating, and the movie’s willingness to sit inside discomfort gives it real force. It’s not a comforting relationship film, but it is a remarkably alert one.
Top Letterboxd reviews
eddie (5★) · 293 likes
woody allen understands that every couple has problems
Chad Hartigan (5★) · 283 likes
Make the story simple and the characters complicated. Masterpiece.
Justin Decloux (4★) · 270 likes
Devastating, pitch-perfect in its style, and nauseating from end to end. The film's visual look is so brown that it made me feel like the entire thing was a leaf that was about fall off a tree and die. Juliette Lewis tearing into Woody Allen's failures as a writer is very good.
The fact that Mia Farrow re-shot the big fight scene with Allen after she broke up with him is wild. It's horrifying that he still claims that none of his films have any autobiographical elements. He must lie about all sorts of stuff.
Adam Nayman · 189 likes
Was in a bad mood - more tired and achy than actually angry - and this had been added to my brother’s Plex server - probably at the request of my Mom, who keeps asking for uploads movies she already owns on DVD. I’ve long considered this to be one of Allen’s best movies, and maybe his last genuinely great one, with maybe his most inspired aesthetic conceit - that restless, roving documentary camera, which turns the conversations into endurance… more Was in a bad mood - more tired and achy than actually angry - and this had been added to my brother’s Plex server - probably at the request of my Mom, who keeps asking for uploads movies she already owns on DVD. I’ve long considered this to be one of Allen’s best movies, and maybe his last genuinely great one, with maybe his most inspired aesthetic conceit - that restless, roving documentary camera, which turns the conversations into endurance… more
Mia K. (5★) · 177 likes
the bravest thing you can do on this app is log this many woody Allen movies positively in one week. I loved the documentary style shooting and Mia farrow is just phenomenal