Fresh
Williams, who has comparatively little screen time, has come to act, not to cut comic riffs, and he does so with forceful, ultimately compelling, simplicity.
Richard Schickel, TIME Magazine
Dead Poets Society
He was their inspiration. He made their lives extraordinary.
1989 · 2h 9m · PG
Drama
Directed by
Peter Weir
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Dead Poets Society
Overview
At an elite, old-fashioned boarding school in New England, a passionate English teacher inspires his students to rebel against convention and seize the potential of every day, courting the disdain of the stern headmaster.
Director and cast
- Peter Weir Director
- Robin Williams as John Keating
- Robert Sean Leonard as Neil Perry
- Ethan Hawke as Todd Anderson
- Josh Charles as Knox Overstreet
- Gale Hansen as Charlie Dalton
- Dylan Kussman as Richard Cameron
- Allelon Ruggiero as Steven Meeks
- James Waterston as Gerard Pitts
- Norman Lloyd as Mr. Nolan
- Kurtwood Smith as Mr. Perry
Critics on Rotten Tomatoes
Top critics, in their words
85%
Tomatometer
Fresh
Story sings whenever Williams is onscreen. Screen belongs just as often to Leonard, who as Neil has a quality of darting confidence mixed with hesitancy. Hawke, as the painfully shy Todd, gives a haunting performance.
Variety Staff, Variety
Rotten
The moral divisions set up between characters are childishly overdrawn; and, worst of all, the behavior shown by the boys and adults frequently reeks of falsity and contrivance.
Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader
Rotten
The movie undercuts Mr. Williams's exceptionally fine performance, making the character seem more of a dubious fool than is probably intended.
Vincent Canby, New York Times
Fresh
It's a literate though strained uplifter, a not altogether compatible coupleting of Rocky Balboa and the Bard.
Rita Kempley, Washington Post
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