$9.99 (2008)

75% of critics liked it
(55 reviews)
55% of users liked it
(5,026 ratings)

A jobless 28-year-old residing in an apartment with his single father discovers the meaning of life for a bargain-basement price in this stop-motion animation film featuring the voices of Ben Mendelsohn, Barry Otto, Anthony LaPaglia, and Geoffrey Rush. Dave has made it his mission to discover the… More A jobless 28-year-old residing in an apartment with his single father discovers the meaning of life for a bargain-basement price in this stop-motion animation film featuring the voices of Ben Mendelsohn, Barry Otto, Anthony LaPaglia, and Geoffrey Rush. Dave has made it his mission to discover the meaning of life, so when he stumbles across a book claiming to answer just that question for the low, low price of just $9.99, he can't help but make an impulse purchase. Much to his surprise, the book contains all the answers he's been searching for, a revelation that compels him to share this newfound information with his neighbors -- an eccentric bunch whose stories gradually intertwine to offer a revealing portrait of their hopes, loves, and spiritual beliefs. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

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Rating, Runtime: R, 1 hr. 18 min.
Directed By: Tatia Rosenthal
Written By: Tatia Rosenthal, Etgar Keret
Genres: Animation, Art House & International, Comedy

In Theaters: Sep 4, 2008 Wide
On DVD: Feb 23, 2010
Studio: Regent Releasing

Critic Reviews

Eddie Cockrell, Variety
A deliberately coarse character style that's more Gumby than Gromit.
Tom Long, Detroit News
A small gem of an animated film, $9.99 manages to be rich in whimsy and fantastical turns while still rooted in human ground.
Cary Darling, Dallas Morning News
It has been a good year for animation that pushes thematic and visual boundaries.
Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune
The conclusion is cheerful -- rather than strain for answers, we should just experience the joy of the moment -- but the road to that resolution is jarring.
Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer
Using the medium of Wallace and Gromit and Gumby, Israeli filmmaker Tatia Rosenthal turns her clay figures into real people in $9.99, a wise, wistful study of hope and dread.
Lisa Kennedy, Denver Post
It isn't always clear if the animation is integral to the movie or merely a way of sprucing up its more familiar tales of melancholy and yearning.
Katina Vangopoulos, Cut Print Review
After the smooth finish of Mary and Max earlier this year, $9.99 can't match up with its similar dark themes.
Simon Foster, sbs.com.au
There is so much to admire about the skill involved in the stop-motion craft, but all films, regardless of their devices, rise or fall on their story, which is abstract and unengaging in $9.99.
Betsy Sherman, Boston Phoenix
Director Tatia Rosenthal's inspiration was to populate the proceedings with animated 3-D figures; her cerebral, darkly funny film is a feat of stop-motion rumination.
Dan Fainaru, Screen International
Like most episode pieces, Rosenthal and Keret seem to have chosen the easy way out by not taking the trouble to develop any of the ideas beyond the basic anecdote.
Jason Di Rosso, MovieTime, ABC Radio National
The film is more than picturesque whimsy, though: at times it reaches for some really quite weird imagery - and some raw honesty.
Philippa Hawker, The Age (Australia)
Set in a grim, grimy, often bleak world, a hybrid, densely detailed environment of interwoven stories and chance encounters, with occasional flights of fantasy and rare glimmers of hope.
Paul Byrnes, Sydney Morning Herald
The whole never quite comes together, in fact -- but even without that unity, the film has an oddball charm and intelligence.
Des Partridge, Courier Mail (Australia)
Think Robert Altman's Short Cuts with clay characters as engaging as human actors, and you might get a sense of what you'll experience.
Annette Basile, FILMINK (Australia)
Not for all tastes due to its arthouse nature, this animation transcends into beautiful magical realism with a spectacular Australian voice cast.
Ed Gibbs, Empire Magazine Australasia
Playful, light-hearted and fun, with an impressive cast of Aussie stars and some fine stop-motion animation. As it stands, at 74 minutes, it's not quite as smart (or rewarding) as one would hope.
Andrew L. Urban, Urban Cinefile
The Jewish melancholy and downbeat humour that oozes from the original writing is overlaid with an Australian idiom, thanks ironically to the great cast, in a transplant that doesn't really take
Louise Keller, Urban Cinefile
It's a challenging film with plenty of merit as a handful of unrelated stories criss-cross and involve us in a mountainous thought provoking journey in which we ponder the meaning of happiness
David Stratton, At the Movies (Australia)
The creation of this world is amazingly detailed; it's magic, really. But maybe the film doesn't quite reach the heights of everyman experience to which it aspires.
Sonny Bunch, Washington Times
$9.99 is consistently amusing but rarely laugh-out-loud funny.

Read all 22 critic reviews

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Featured Audience Ratings

Dead A

Okay type.
Greg S

The lives of the residents of a Sydney apartment---including a surly angel, three miniature surfer dudes looking for a constant party, and an aimless young man who buys a book promising to give him the meaning of life for the bargain price of $9.99---are explored in a series of… More
The lives of the residents of a Sydney apartment---including a surly angel, three miniature surfer dudes looking for a constant party, and an aimless young man who buys a book promising to give him the meaning of life for the bargain price of $9.99---are explored in a series of interlinked stories, most with an absurdist edge. The claymation is really not very good; the characters show little in the way of facial expressions, making you wonder if it might have worked better as a live-action piece. The story is too weird for those looking for a straight drama, and too literary to become a cult item.
Walter M

In "$9.99," Jim Peck has just had a horrible start to his day, first by not being able to hail a cab and then a disturbing encounter with a homeless man. His grown son Dave is unemployed and has just had a bad interview for a telemarketing job.(I agree with Camille that it… More
In "$9.99," Jim Peck has just had a horrible start to his day, first by not being able to hail a cab and then a disturbing encounter with a homeless man. His grown son Dave is unemployed and has just had a bad interview for a telemarketing job.(I agree with Camille that it is a lousy job, having personal experience in the field of telephone surveys.) So, Jim urges Dave to follow his brother into the lucrative repossessing business. "$9.99" is an engagingly offbeat stop-motion animated film that is intended for more mature audiences. It is not only the sex and language that warrant this caution but also the themes centered around loneliness.(The movie reinforces my theory that people who talk the most turn out to be the loneliest.) The Pecks are not the only household in the film missing a woman, either through death or a vanishing act, leading to melancholy for all. To escape the loneliness, it sometimes comes down to the crazy things we do for love. Otherwise, the characters go through the motions of their lives until either something very good or very bad happens and then the pattern repeats.
Lesley N

Clay characters living in the same apartment block interact with each other. There's some unusual goings-on, especially between the repo man and his model girlfriends dislike of bodily hair, and between the immature boyfriend and his band of teeny tiny laddish friends, but… More
Clay characters living in the same apartment block interact with each other. There's some unusual goings-on, especially between the repo man and his model girlfriends dislike of bodily hair, and between the immature boyfriend and his band of teeny tiny laddish friends, but somehow the whole thing fails to pull you in or make you engage with the characters. Maybe it would've worked better as a series of shorts which you could watch in turn and go "well, i never"