Blow Out

Blow Out (1981)

  • 90% of critics liked it
    (41 reviews)

  • 76% of users liked it
    (9,380 ratings)

Brian De Palma's homage to Michelangelo Antonioni's classic art movie Blow-Up (1966) blends suspense and political paranoia when a Philadelphia soundman inadvertently records a murder. Former police technician Jack Terri (John Travolta) makes his living doing sound for slasher flicks. While… More

R, 1 hr. 47 min.
Directed By
Brian DePalma
Genres
Mystery & Suspense
In Theaters
Jan 1, 1981 Wide
On DVD
Aug 28, 2001

Critic Reviews

  • William Goss, Film.com

    Perfectly contrasts movies that reveal the truth against those which avoid it - a blood-drenched yet stake-free slasher vs. the far more insidious horrors of all-American living.

  • Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader

    This 1981 release is one of Brian De Palma's more interesting and better-made thrillers, though it's even more abjectly derivative than his Hitchcock imitations.

  • Variety Staff, Variety

    With attractive leads and a stylish flair for suspense, De Palma misses sustaining involvement by his distracting allusions to prior films.

  • Pauline Kael, New Yorker

    It's a great movie.

  • Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

    A movie which continues [De Palma] practice of making cross-references to other movies, other directors, and actual historical events, and which nevertheless is his best and most original work.

Read all 18 critic reviews

Critic ratings and reviews powered by RottenTomatoes.com

Fresh (60% or more critics rated the movie positively)

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Featured Audience Ratings

  • Matheus C


    Whatever happened to one of the most interesting efants terribles of the American Nouvelle Vague? Having had the chance of watching this and "Carrie" on the big screen, one can marvel at his impressive domain over framing, colour, sound and movement to create twisted… More

  • Lewis C


    Blow Out is a pretty decent thriller from the early 80's staring John Travolta. Travolta plays a movie sound effects technician who accidentally records the assassination of a governor, and has to expose the truth while protecting himself and another witness from the people who… More

  • David L


    Jack Terry is a movie soundman in Philadelphia out recording sounds one night when he witnesses a car crash into a creek. He jumps in and pulls out a young woman, but the driver of the car - a powerful senator - drowns. Jack is approached by the authorities to keep quiet, but when he… More

  • Steven C


    I don't like Brian De Palma. What frustrates me about his work is that he is very clearly a craftsman, but his pictures are all so unruly; they always seem to lack a narrative focus that undermines his stylish, directorial flourishes. When you are making a thriller it's… More

  • Aaron N


    Jack Terry: Jesus, that's terrible. Mixer: That's a terrible scream. Jack, what cat did you have to strangle to get that? Jack Terry: The one you hired. That's her scream. Mixer: You mean you didn't dub that?

Read all 20 featured audience ratings

Cast

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