When car dealer Charlie Babbitt learns that his estranged father has died, he returns home to Cincinnati, where he discovers that he has a savant older brother named Raymond and that his father's $3 million fortune is being left to the mental institution in which Raymond lives. Motivated by his father's money, Charlie checks Raymond out of the facility in order to return with him to Los Angeles. The brothers' cross-country trip ends up changing both their lives.
Ratings
Curator score: 7.3/10
IMDb: 8.0/10
Letterboxd: 3.89/5
Rotten Tomatoes: 88%
Metacritic: 65
TMDB: 7.8/10
Director
Barry Levinson
Production
United Artists, Star Partners II, The Guber-Peters Company
Cast
Dustin Hoffman, Tom Cruise, Valeria Golino, Gerald R. Molen, Jack Murdock, Michael D. Roberts, Ralph Seymour, Lucinda Jenney, Bonnie Hunt, Kim Robillard, Beth Grant, Dolan Dougherty, Marshall Dougherty, Patrick Dougherty, John-Michael Dougherty, Peter Dougherty, Andrew Dougherty, Loretta Wendt Jolivette, Donald E. Jones, Bryon P. Caunar
Where to watch
fuboTV, MGM Plus, Philo
Curator Review
Verdict
A sharp, emotionally effective road movie with strong performances and a complicated legacy. It works best as a character study about selfishness, family, and connection, though its portrayal of autism is dated and often debated today.
Best for
Viewers who like prestige dramas with a road-trip structure
Fans of 1980s character-driven Hollywood filmmaking
People interested in acclaimed performances and award-era cinema
Audiences open to watching a classic with a historically complicated perspective
Skip if
You want a modern, nuanced depiction of autism
You are sensitive to outdated or potentially reductive disability representation
You prefer plot-heavy films over relationship-driven dramas
Overview
Rain Man is one of those late-80s studio dramas that feels built around a star pairing, but it endures because the emotional mechanics are so clean. What begins as a greedy, transactional trip turns into a gradual reordering of Charlie Babbitt’s values, with the film using the open road to expose both his immaturity and his buried need for family.
Worth noting
Dustin Hoffman’s Raymond is the movie’s gravitational center, and the performance is precise enough to make the film’s most sentimental turns land. Tom Cruise gives the story its friction and momentum, starting as a shallow hustler and slowly becoming someone capable of care, patience, and embarrassment in equal measure.
Bottom line
Its reputation is complicated now, especially around how it frames autism and savant syndrome, but as a piece of mainstream filmmaking it remains unusually watchable. The movie is polished, emotionally direct, and often funny, even when it is leaning hard into sentimentality.
Top Letterboxd reviews
Kyle · 5115 likes
It’s basically Green Book but with autism instead of racism.
kayla (3.5★) · 4989 likes
I feel like all the parts where Tom Cruise’s character was an asshole was him just being himself
megan (4.5★) · 3656 likes
KMART SUCKS
Anna Imhof 🌸 (4.5★) · 3005 likes
Maybe my favorite moment in Rain Man is a moment so small one could easily miss it. It’s right after the incident in the motel bathroom, when Charlie (Tom Cruise) learns that Raymond (Dustin Hoffman) was “Rain Man”, the imaginary friend (or so he thought) who used to comfort him when he was little. Hoffman leaves the bathroom and sits down on his bed. He’s in a T-shirt and boxers, he's brushed his teeth, he's ready for bed. And his… more Maybe my favorite moment in Rain Man is a moment so small one could easily miss it. It’s right after the incident in the motel bathroom, when Charlie (Tom Cruise) learns that Raymond (Dustin Hoffman) was “Rain Man”, the imaginary friend (or so he thought) who used to comfort him when he was little. Hoffman leaves the bathroom and sits down on his bed. He’s in a T-shirt and boxers, he's brushed his teeth, he's ready for bed. And his… more