Better Off Dead
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Showtimes
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Movie Details
Videos & Photos
- Official Trailer (01:28)
Movie Info & Cast
Synopsis
After his girlfriend dumps him for a boorish ski jock, a depressed high-school student begins to ineptly attempt suicide, which brings him nothing but embarrassment. A French exchange student starts to change his outlook on life.
Cast
- John Cusack
- David Ogden Stiers
- Kim Darby
- Demian Slade
- Scooter Stevens
- Diane Franklin
- Laura Waterbury
- Dan Schneider
- Yuji Okumoto
- Brian Imada
Letterboxd User Reviews
3.5
77.8K
22.0K
24.7K
- Aug 25, 2019
"gee, i'm real sorry your mom blew up, ricky"
danaApr 6, 2016Maybe the greatest film of all time.
Nathan RabinFeb 29, 2020God I forgot how absurdist and charming this is... Feels more like a series of sketches than a cohesive movie, but some of those, man, are goddamn awesome. A stop motion hamburger rocking to Van Halen, dude skiing down a mountain with one ski, using a Hall and Oates song at…
Edith - Aug 11, 2022
We can just pretend Dan Schneider isn’t in this right
robynNov 13, 2022The most exciting thing a movie could possibly do is have a cheeseburger shred on an electric guitar. This is the only movie that had the guts to try it.
DaOConnmanSep 20, 2017So I finally got offered a great job yesterday and accepted it! To celebrate “operation: get life back on track” I decided to revisit a favorite! Life’s pretty good sometimes! :)
Ian West - Oct 6, 2022
I can’t write a review right now because my little brother got his arm caught in the microwave, and my grandmother dropped acid, and she hijacked a school bus full of penguins, so it’s kind of a family crisis.
Harry SwansonJun 23, 2019If you get dumped and then get challenged to a ski competition, you're gonna have a bad time.
ParkerAug 18, 2022Surrealist Cusak 80s Nightmare Slapstick
aaronog
Queue Community Reviews
93%
Community 1,085
Top Reviews
- Aaron Hajduk lovedBetter Off Dead...
A Savage Steve Holland classic! You get claymation! You get daydream sequences! You get absurd background happenings! A classic! And it’s also a Christmas movie too! 🤣 PS: My daughter (gen Z) does not understand my love for this film. She said, and I quote, “it’s weird.”
Spencer Rascoff likedBetter Off Dead...Classic 80s movie that could never be made today. Utilizes classic 80s movie tropes including a precocious younger brother, a zany mom, daydream music montages, the bully cool kid at school and more. Uses many taboos as humor, including suicide and racism. 😳
Nick Dubberly is "meh" onBetter Off Dead...I have to admit I waited way too long to see this and my 2023 eyes were not as kind to it as my 1980’s eyes would have been. This movie feels like a John Hughes film on the surface, it’s just missing that little something that makes Hughes films great.
- Cory Nunez likedBetter Off Dead...
that kid was really standing on business for that two dollars! 😂 what a great rom-com this is though. it’s so funny and has such wacky characters. gotta love John Cusack, an often overlooked actor in my opinion. 7/10
Gabe Treadway likedBetter Off Dead...8.4/10 Great movie with a lot of really funny scenes. Great soundtrack and a great story line. Lacks enough depth into characters but really good for what it is.
Kelsey Jay lovedBetter Off Dead...Extremely underrated and one of my favorite movies ever! Hilarious and so so good! John Cuzak is as charming as ever in this must watch movie!
- Mickerdoo lovedBetter Off Dead...
Fun to see wacky comedy made before I was born. Cusack, Franklin, Okumoto and Armstrong elevate the goofy vibes. Burger is nightmare fuel.
Morgan Hauk lovedBetter Off Dead...I LOVE this movie. John Cusack is amazing and a fantastic actor. The movie is so goofy and unpredictable that it’s my new favorite movie!
FanDweller lovedBetter Off Dead...On rewatching it, I didn’t remember it being so absurdist. But still love it!
Atom Users Reviews
Reviews
- MWMia Withrow
One of my favorite movies. Watched it all the time growing up. So happy to watch it on the big screen.
Metacritic
What it has in its favor is affability—some owed to Cusack’s gawky young charisma, some to Holland’s goofy tone and lightly surreal sense of humor, and still more to a cast where even the villains are mostly likeable...To paraphrase the opening narration in The Big Lebowski, Better Off Dead is the movie for its time and place. It fits right in there.
Scott Tobias
The A.V. Club
Some of the gags in Better Off Dead have a lot more cleverness than the material - just another silly story about a lovesick high school boy and the cute, annoying habits of his friends and family - might warrant.
Janet Maslin
The New York Times
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