Movie · 1977 · Drama, Crime · 2h 16m · R · English
Curator score: 5.0/10 (20.8K ratings)
To her father, Theresa was a dutiful daughter. To the children she taught, Theresa brought warmth and hope. To the men she met in bars, Theresa was easy. All kinds of people loved Theresa. Diane Keaton plays Theresa in Looking for Mr. Goodbar.
Overview
A short, unhappy affair with a married man leads a dedicated schoolteacher into the alcohol-and-drug fueled underworld of singles’ bars, where she begins to engage in a pattern of dangerous sexual activity.
Ratings
Curator score: 5.0/10
IMDb: 6.7/10
Letterboxd: 3.60/5
Rotten Tomatoes: 63%
Metacritic: 64
TMDB: 6.4/10
Director
Richard Brooks
Production
Paramount Pictures, Freddie Fields Productions
Cast
Diane Keaton, Tuesday Weld, William Atherton, Richard Kiley, Richard Gere, Alan Feinstein, Tom Berenger, Priscilla Pointer, Laurie Prange, Joel Fabiani, Julius Harris, Richard Bright, LeVar Burton, Marilyn Coleman, Carole Mallory, Mary Ann Mallis, Jolene Dellenbach, Lou Fant, Eddie Garrett, Alex Courtney
Curator Review
Verdict
A sharp, uneasy 1970s character study that uses nightlife, sex, and loneliness to expose predatory masculinity and the costs of emotional isolation. It’s messy and occasionally blunt, but Diane Keaton’s performance and the film’s raw atmosphere make it memorable.
Best for
Viewers interested in 1970s urban dramas with a grim edge
Fans of Diane Keaton’s more dramatic work
People drawn to films about sexual politics and social alienation
Viewers who like ambiguous, conversation-starting endings
Skip if
You want a cleanly moralized story
You’re sensitive to sexual violence and bleak subject matter
You prefer polished, modern pacing
You want a straightforward thriller or crime plot
Overview
Looking for Mr. Goodbar is less a cautionary tale than a bruised portrait of a woman trying to live freely in a world that keeps turning her freedom into a trap. Richard Brooks stages the film as a collision between daytime respectability and nighttime appetite, and the result is often uncomfortable in a way that feels intentional rather than exploitative. The movie’s real subject is not promiscuity, but the social and sexual machinery that makes intimacy feel dangerous.
Worth noting
Diane Keaton gives the film its pulse, balancing fragility, restlessness, and a kind of desperate self-invention. Around her, the men are variations on entitlement, performance, and violence, which gives the film a bitter clarity even when its tone wobbles. It’s a film of ugly behavior, but also of vivid observation, with a nightlife texture that still feels sticky and alive.
Bottom line
The ending remains divisive because it refuses emotional comfort and lands with a harsh, almost punitive force. Even so, the film’s ambiguity and its era-specific anxiety about women’s liberation make it more interesting than a simple morality play. It’s flawed, but it lingers.
Top Letterboxd reviews
Crystal Palace (4.5★) · 812 likes
Absolutely does not shock me there are people interpreting this as a sex negative conservative morality tale but that is a woeful misreading.
What ‘Looking For Mr. Goodbar’ isn’t doing: punishing a woman for having sex.
What ‘Looking For Mr. Goodbar’ is doing:1. Critiquing socialized masculinity and it’s predication on the intimidation of and violence towards women.2. Showing how the sexual revolution ultimately failed women and that women will never be able to experience “free love” until it’s… more
pirateneckbeard (4★) · 256 likes
I actually have to state that I love these ambiguous films that I have been enjoying as of late. No necessary back narrative but just showing enough damage cause you can conflate it to Catholic guilt or as oppressed male blaming it on the sexual prowess of female liberty at the time(which I personally find ridiculous) but was a tide shift for many women in defining how they see themselves and sometimes splitting there humanity and not knowing how to… more I actually have to state that I love these ambiguous films that I have been enjoying as of late. No necessary back narrative but just showing enough damage cause you can conflate it to Catholic guilt or as oppressed male blaming it on the sexual prowess of female liberty at the time(which I personally find ridiculous) but was a tide shift for many women in defining how they see themselves and sometimes splitting there humanity and not knowing how to… more
Erin: A Witch Goes Boating (4.5★) · 246 likes
A young woman just beginning her career as a school teacher for young deaf children must cope with personal, sexual frustrations. She pursues a promiscuous lifestyle in the evening in an attempt to remedy these frustrations.
- I knew I loved this movie during the first day-dream sequence. Where Diane Keaton is imagining herself as a champion ice skater, her lover waiting on the sides in absolute awe of her skill. How could he not want to love her and… more
carrieandtracy · 222 likes
It turns out the men have never really been all right.
I admit I remain stumped about how we’re meant to read the end of this movie. The wife and the nanny hadn’t seen it before, didn’t know it was coming…and they found it shocking and upsetting. Well, it is. At least it still sparks a good conversation.
Diane Keaton is a great actress, unguarded and authentic, always watchable.
Liz (5★) · 206 likes
bless any movie with a title sequence that uses so much licensed music it becomes unrereleasable