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Academy Award-winning director Sam Mendes (1917) casts fellow Oscar-winners Olivia Colman (The Favourite) and Colin Firth (The King's Speech) in this love story set...
Academy Award-winning director Sam Mendes (1917) casts fellow Oscar-winners Olivia Colman (The Favourite) and Colin Firth (The King's Speech) in this love story set in and around a beautiful old cinema on the South Coast of England in the 1980s.
Set in and around a faded old cinema in an English coastal town in the early 1980s, it follows Hilary (Colman) a cinema manager struggling with her mental health, and Stephen (Micheal Ward, Top Boy), a new employee who longs to escape this provincial town in which he faces daily adversity. Both Hilary and Stephen find a sense of belonging through their unlikely and tender relationship and come to experience the healing power of music, cinema, and community.
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44 %263 reviewsRotten Tomatoes® rating
74 %90 reviewsAudience score rating
"Empire of Light is a sweet, heartfelt, humane movie... It’s clearly a labour of love for Sam Mendes: love requited."
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The Guardian
The Guardian"This is a beautifully made film. The problem is that it’s hollow. Underneath all that beauty is very little."
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RogerEbert.com
RogerEbert.com"A nicely acted misfire from director Sam Mendes..."
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Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times"Scattershot and moribund..."
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IndieWire
IndieWire"Sweet if sometimes hokey..."
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The Times
The Times"Colman, a warm and goofy actress... (with a) gift for powerhouse emoting, goes further into roaring-virtuoso mode than the material can bear."
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Little White Lies
Little White Lies"The film has a sheepish, hair-shirt quality, as if it wants credit for intersectional largesse."
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The Telegraph
The Telegraph"Mendes’s best film yet..."
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Vanity Fair
Vanity Fair"Mendes fills out the corners of his story with carefully observed details and eccentric characters, weaving them into a sort of sweetly self-contained whole."
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Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly"A crowd-pleasing, at times contrived showcase for a stellar Colman."
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Hollywood Reporter
Hollywood ReporterEmpire of Light | Details
- Rating
- M, Violence, offensive language, sex scenes & content that may disturb
- Runtime
- 119
- Genre
- Drama, Romance
- Country of origin
- USA, UK
