Alice Howland, happily married with three grown children, is a renowned linguistics professor who starts to forget words. When she receives a devastating diagnosis, Alice and her family find their bonds tested.
Ratings
Curator score: 6.6/10
IMDb: 7.5/10
Letterboxd: 3.73/5
Rotten Tomatoes: 85%
Metacritic: 72
TMDB: 7.5/10
Director
Wash Westmoreland, Richard Glatzer
Production
Shriver Films, Killer Films, Big Indie Pictures, BSM Studio, Lutzus-Brown
Cast
Julianne Moore, Kate Bosworth, Shane McRae, Hunter Parrish, Alec Baldwin, Seth Gilliam, Kristen Stewart, Stephen Kunken, Erin Darke, Daniel Gerroll, Quincy Tyler Bernstine, Maxine Prescott, Orlagh Cassidy, Rosa Arredondo, Zillah Glory, Caridad Montanez, Cal Freundlich, Charlotte Robson, Jean Burns, José Báez
Curator Review
Verdict
A moving, quietly devastating drama anchored by Julianne Moore’s exceptional performance. It’s especially effective as a humane, grounded portrait of early-onset Alzheimer’s and the strain it places on identity, family, and marriage.
Best for
viewers who want an emotionally serious prestige drama
fans of transformative lead performances
audiences interested in illness, memory, and identity stories
people who prefer restrained, realistic tearjerkers
Skip if
you want a light or uplifting watch
you’re sensitive to dementia-related stories
you prefer plot-heavy films over intimate character studies
Overview
Still Alice is built around a simple but brutal premise: a brilliant woman begins losing the language that has defined her life. The film keeps its focus tight, letting small lapses become terrifying because they feel ordinary at first. That restraint makes the emotional impact stronger than melodrama would.
Worth noting
Julianne Moore gives the kind of performance that can carry an entire film, balancing intelligence, fear, pride, and vulnerability without ever tipping into showiness. The supporting cast helps ground the story as a family drama, but the movie’s real power comes from how it shows a mind and a self slowly slipping out of reach.
Bottom line
It’s not an easy watch, and it doesn’t try to be. What lingers is its honesty: the grief is not only about loss of memory, but loss of language, autonomy, and the future everyone assumed was secure. For viewers open to difficult subject matter, it’s a deeply affecting and well-made drama.
Top Letterboxd reviews
lauraud (4★) · 2226 likes
Julianne Moore is probably the most beautiful person who has ever lived on this earth.
demi adejuyigbe · 1286 likes
“On bad days, I feel like I can’t find myself. I’ve always been so defined by my intellect, my language, my articulation, and now sometimes, I can see the words hanging in front of me and I can’t reach them and I don’t know who I am and I don’t know what I’m going to lose next.”
maybe the worst possible movie for me to watch on a plane as someone with memory issues. alice says something about feeling like her brain is dying in a way that is very reminiscent of things i’ve said to partners many times. sobbed a lot
Lola Landekić (4★) · 1152 likes
This movie is terrific and I never want to watch it again.
Eli Hayes (4★) · 912 likes
+1 to the list of films that I will never watch again...
Edit: I found this to be an incredibly difficult experience. It's probably the most realistic look at Alzheimer's that I've ever seen, being so grounded in reality and incorporating contemporary themes such as the growing influence of technology on the world of health and medicine. As someone who had to stand by and watch and his grandmother deteriorate from Alzheimer's, I found this film emotionally stirring and relatable.… more
Lucy (4.5★) · 779 likes
this was such a quiet and beautiful film. julianne moore absolutely deserves all the awards she's won and more coming her way for this role
2003 · Comedy, Drama · 1h 21m · PG-13 · Curator 6.0/10 (51K ratings) · Where to watch: Amazon Prime Video, fuboTV, MGM Plus, Philo, Amazon Prime Video with Ads
A small, intimate family drama that finds emotional truth in domestic tension and reconciliation.