ThumbScoreReview · 95/100 · 2026-10-21
One of my favorites. Love Kevin Spacey and love movies where the characters rebel and decide to change their lives for the better.
American Beauty (1999)
"... look closer"
Critics Score
🎬 86%
(RT: 87%, MC: 84) RT = Rotten Tomatoes (critic reviews). MC = Metacritic (weighted critic average). Critics Score is the average of both.
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Cast
Is American Beauty good?
Most people think so. 80% of audiences gave it a thumbs up, by Google's archived audience score. Critics agree, scoring it 86%.
Where it ranks on ThumbScore
By audience score, among films with 500 or more votes.
Overview
Lester Burnham, a depressed suburban father in a mid-life crisis, decides to turn his hectic life around after developing an infatuation with his daughter's attractive friend. Wikipedia ↗
Reviews
About the Film
American Beauty is a 1999 American drama film directed by Sam Mendes in his feature directorial debut and written by Alan Ball. Kevin Spacey stars as Lester Burnham, a depressed suburban husband and father who undergoes a dramatic midlife crisis after becoming infatuated with Angela Hayes, his teenage daughter's best friend played by Mena Suvari. As Lester rebels against his stifling existence — quitting his job, working out obsessively, smoking marijuana, and buying his dream car — the carefully maintained facades of his wife Carolyn, played by Annette Bening, and their suburban neighbors begin to crack, revealing the dysfunction, repression, and quiet desperation beneath the surface of American middle-class life.
American Beauty was the defining film of the late 1990s suburban malaise genre, crystallizing anxieties about conformity, materialism, and authentic living that resonated powerfully with millennial audiences. Sam Mendes's assured direction, combining dark humor with moments of genuine transcendence, earned him the Academy Award for Best Director in his debut — an extraordinary achievement. Conrad Hall's cinematography, particularly the recurring motif of red rose petals symbolizing desire and mortality, created some of the most iconic visual imagery of the decade.
Thomas Newman's minimalist piano-and-percussion score perfectly complemented the film's tone of beautiful melancholy. American Beauty won five Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Actor for Spacey, and earned $356 million worldwide on a $15 million budget. The film's legacy has been complicated by subsequent events, but its artistic achievement and cultural impact remain significant.
