Capote (2005)

90% of critics liked it
(179 reviews)
73% of users liked it
(109,187 ratings)

The creation of one of the most memorable books of the 1960s -- and the impact the writing and research would have on its author -- is explored in this drama based on a true story. In 1959, Truman Capote (played by Philip Seymour Hoffman) was a critically acclaimed novelist who had earned a small… More The creation of one of the most memorable books of the 1960s -- and the impact the writing and research would have on its author -- is explored in this drama based on a true story. In 1959, Truman Capote (played by Philip Seymour Hoffman) was a critically acclaimed novelist who had earned a small degree of celebrity for his work when he read a short newspaper item about a multiple murder in a small Kansas town. For some reason, the story fascinated Capote, and he asked William Shawn (Bob Balaban), his editor at The New Yorker, to let him write a piece about the case. Capote had long believed that in the right hands, a true story could be molded into a tale as compelling as any fiction, and he believed this event, in which the brutal and unimaginable was visited upon a community where it was least expected, could be just the right material. Capote traveled to Kansas with his close friend Harper Lee (Catherine Keener), herself becoming a major literary figure with the success of To Kill a Mockingbird, and while Capote's effete and mannered personal style stuck out like a sore thumb in Kansas, in time he gained the trust of Alvin Dewey (Chris Cooper), the Kansas Bureau of Investigation agent investigating the murder of the Clutter family, and with his help Capote's magazine piece grew into a full-length book. Capote also became familiar with the petty criminals who killed the Clutter family, Dick Hickock (Mark Pellegrino) and Perry Smith (Clifton Collins Jr.), and in Smith he found a troubling kindred spirit more like himself than he wanted to admit. After attaining a sort of friendship with Smith under the assumption that the man would be executed before the book was ever published, Capote finds himself forced to directly confront the moral implications of his actions with regards to both his role in the man's death, and the way that he would be remembered. Capote also co-stars Bruce Greenwood as Capote's longtime companion Jack Dunphy, and Amy Ryan as Mary Dewey, Alvin's wife who became a confidante of Capote's. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

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Rating, Runtime: R, 1 hr. 55 min.
Directed By: Bennett Miller
Genres: Drama

In Theaters: Sep 30, 2005 Wide
On DVD: Mar 14, 2006
Studio: Sony Pictures Classics

Critic Reviews

J. Hoberman, Village Voice
Capote is a cool and polished hall of mirrors reflecting the ways in which Truman Capote came to write (and be written by) In Cold Blood.
Steve Murray, Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Hoffman goes beyond impersonation to something close to possession.
Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader
Skillfully and economically put together.
Peter Howell, Toronto Star
The almost perfectly realized Capote -- stumbling only in the lack of shading it gives Keener's and Greenwood's characters -- offers a sobering glimpse at what the author had to give up of his soul to achieve his success.
Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel
A meditation on the artist's obligations to the art and to society and lines that blur when you cross them.
Bruce Westbrook, Houston Chronicle
It's a fully realized look at a time and place as well as a riveting study of career obsessions warring with a sense of justice.
Fernando F. Croce, CinePassion
Aims for starkness but ends up as tastefulness
Cynthia Fuchs, Common Sense Media
Fascinating biography, but for adults only.
Thomas Peyser, Style Weekly (Richmond, VA)
The Passion of Truman Capote
S. James Wegg, JWR
Murder Most Foul
Rob Gonsalves, eFilmCritic.com
Hoffman tries, but mainly just gets the surface of Capote.
Dragan Antulov, Index.hr
slaba%u0161an zaplet
Ted Murphy, Murphy's Movie Reviews
I am aware that virtually every critic in America if not on the planet has lauded Hoffman's portrayal of the author and that I am in the minority. Watching Hoffman I felt something primal was missing from his interpretation ... To my mind, Hoffman's work
Michael A. Smith, Nolan's Pop Culture Review
...the one award I'm sure it will win, Best Actor for Hoffman
Jay Antani, Cinema Writer
a milestone in modern acting, and quite fascinating in any number of ways, particularly its depiction of the minutiae of the writer's life.

Read all 15 critic reviews

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Featured Audience Ratings

Melvin W

Truman Capote: If I leave here without understanding you, the world will see you as a monster. Always. And I don't want that. Capote is a slow moving, quiet and totally engrossing film that shows how Truman Capote came to write In Cold Blood. We watch him go to great extents to… More
Truman Capote: If I leave here without understanding you, the world will see you as a monster. Always. And I don't want that. Capote is a slow moving, quiet and totally engrossing film that shows how Truman Capote came to write In Cold Blood. We watch him go to great extents to write the book. He talks to everyone who was somewhat touched by the murders. Then he gets close to the actual murderers and ends up spending a great deal of time with them up until their eventual hangings. Really when describing Capote all you need to say are three words; Philip Seymour Hoffman. The guy is amazing, as always, but this is the best work I have ever seen from him. He becomes Capote in just about every conceivable way. His performance in Capote is career defining. It is definitely what he should be remembered for most. The movie also features an extremely underrated actress Catherine Keener as Harper Lee. Keener is always an extreme joy to watch and her presence in this movie is no exception. What I really liked about the movie was just how soft spoken it was, just like Capote. It doesn't do anything to excite the viewer, but just quietly walks us through Truman's work. The film is beautifully shot and has a quiet, hypnotizing score. It is just beautifully and brilliantly made on every front, but it isn't for the type of person who only likes movies that are action packed. The movie is a must watch if you are a fan of Capote or Hoffman. It is an amazing look at an amazing writer as he worked his way through his most famous and critically praised work of his career.
Bethany M

Amazing performance by Hoffman. Really enjoyed it and the fact it was a true story really made it that much more heart wrenching.
Brad W

The greatest acting performance ever done. Capote is an incredible movie on every scale, it as a great story, great backround, and Phillip Seymour Hoffman deserved the Oscar more than anyone else. This movie shouldve won Best Picture if you ask me,
Jeff "

Capote is the incredible true story of writer Truman Capote who researched and wrote the first non-fiction book, In Cold Blood. This book set new standards in the literary world. In his novel, Truman Capote documents the brutal murder of the Clutter family in Holcomb Kansas, a small… More
Capote is the incredible true story of writer Truman Capote who researched and wrote the first non-fiction book, In Cold Blood. This book set new standards in the literary world. In his novel, Truman Capote documents the brutal murder of the Clutter family in Holcomb Kansas, a small farming community in 1959. In the film, Truman Capote befriends the population of Holcomb and initially intends to write an article on the matter. He soon realizes he has too much source material for a single article, and decides to write a book on the tragic events. With the Help of fellow friend and author Nelle Harper Lee (author, To Kill A Mockingbird) they set out to do research for Capote's work. It's not long after that the killers are captured, and after a swift trial, are condemned to death. After the trial Capote tries to discuss and get information about the night of November 15th, 1959. The film is a brilliant work of drama. The entire cast do a phenomenal job and the film is simply one of the best works in the drama genre in a long time. Phillip Seymour Hoffman gives one of his greatest performances here, and he's played some terrific parts in the past, but in Capote he delivers something truly unique. Director Brennett Miller tells a compelling story, and the film owes much to it's grandeur with it's incredible cast of talented actors. Capote is a film that shows the conflicted side of an incredibly talented writer. In the film we are shown how the case of the Clutter family, and ensuing research came to affect Truman Capote, and as a result, he never finished another book. Capote is a brilliantly told film, and Hoffman definitely deserved the Oscar for best actor. For me Capote is a work of sheer brilliance and is definitely a well told film. Other reviewers have praised the cinematography, which of course is breathtaking, but the aspect of this film that truly surpasses any filming method is the brilliant story telling and acting by the actors. Director Brennett Miller has told a masterful story and he is a terrific director. Capote is proof of that.
Randy T

Philip Seymour Hoffman turns in one of my all-time favorite performances. For one hour and fifty five minutes, he IS Truman Capote.
Spencer S

Very true to Capote, In Cold Blood, and the whole horrible process. Hoffman dazzles, Keener is great as Harper Lee, and the murderers are...murderers.
Jeremy S

A Murder Most Foul And An Actor Most Brilliant. Capote is a complex story with uncommon depth and insight into murder and the mind. Played to perfection by Philip Seymour Hoffman in his Oscar destined performance. In Cold Blood, the book that made and destroyed Capote in one lifetime.
Dan S

An extremely dark but well-acted look on Truman Capote, and how he manipulated two criminals into thinking he was their friend, when he was just looking to make money off of their tale of how they broke into a small farm house in Kansas and murdered an entire family. The atmosphere is… More
An extremely dark but well-acted look on Truman Capote, and how he manipulated two criminals into thinking he was their friend, when he was just looking to make money off of their tale of how they broke into a small farm house in Kansas and murdered an entire family. The atmosphere is very downbeat, and the movie is anchored by a simply outstanding performance from the always impressive Philip Seymour Hoffman (is there anything he can't do?). It's closing sections are the most haunting, as the film gives us a look into what the writing of the book cost this selfish, flawed individual, and how the two criminals he vowed to fight for accepted him and trusted him. Clifton Collins Jr. is another standout as one of the men who killed this family, and the movie does a really incredible job humanizing its "monsters", as well as enriching you with how arrogant and self-centered some authors can get.
Jennifer D

A Hitchcockian paced film, most certainly. A chilling look into not just the story of the gruesome Kansas murders, but Capote's obsession into delving into the twisted minds of those murderers. Philip Seymour Hoffman has come a long, long way from playing Dusty in Twister. His… More
A Hitchcockian paced film, most certainly. A chilling look into not just the story of the gruesome Kansas murders, but Capote's obsession into delving into the twisted minds of those murderers. Philip Seymour Hoffman has come a long, long way from playing Dusty in Twister. His performance in this film was sheer brilliance and I can't even begin to understand how to would have attempted to get into this character. From his voice, to the appearance, to the mannerisms, he was fantastic.
Curtis L

Pretty slow, but an interesting piece of history. Good acting and all that jazz.
Conner R

Phillip Seymour Hoffman has got to be one of the most talented people in Hollywood. Everything he is in, he brings something truly great to it. He even made Along Came Polly good. As for the actual movie, it was really great. The story is really moving and makes you think about… More
Phillip Seymour Hoffman has got to be one of the most talented people in Hollywood. Everything he is in, he brings something truly great to it. He even made Along Came Polly good. As for the actual movie, it was really great. The story is really moving and makes you think about certain aspects of our justice system and how wrong it can be at times.
Tsubaki S

PSH is great, no doubt there, but the film feels a bit uneven in it's focus.
Anthony L

Hoffman deserved his Oscar, and Keener was great as always. It's funny how two films about Truman Capote came out in close concession, I haven?t seen the other one but it will have to be good to beat this one!
Daniel P

Capote delivers on its biggest promise: an outstanding (Oscar-recognized) performance by the one and only PSH. Slow-paced but impossible to turn away from, it's a sort of "biopic by numbers" that is nevertheless compelling thanks to the hero's double-bind: he is… More
Capote delivers on its biggest promise: an outstanding (Oscar-recognized) performance by the one and only PSH. Slow-paced but impossible to turn away from, it's a sort of "biopic by numbers" that is nevertheless compelling thanks to the hero's double-bind: he is stuck between needing to let his subject die and wanting to save him, and the drama comes from the conflict inside the man and its effect on him as a writer. A related knock against biopics as a whole: is anyone else tired of the "this will really change [hero's metier] forever" line in this kind of movie? I know, I know, it's filmic hindsight, some kind of dramatic irony that allows the audience to say "hey, that's right, it _did_ change...", but can you actually imagine sitting in a room with Truman Capote (or Ray Charles, or Johnny Cash, or Muhammad Ali, etc.) and actually talking about how great he is? It seems like the most pompous conversation in the world... anyway, my rant, Capote is good for a biopic.
Chris G

The best way to gauge a great acting performance is for you to spend the entire length of the film you're watching believing that you're seeing THAT character up on screen, not just the actor whose playing him. That's what you get with Philip Seymour Hoffman as Truman… More
The best way to gauge a great acting performance is for you to spend the entire length of the film you're watching believing that you're seeing THAT character up on screen, not just the actor whose playing him. That's what you get with Philip Seymour Hoffman as Truman Capote. He becomes Truman Capote as DeNiro became Lamotta. It's a total transformation in which the actor gets lost inside the character and it pays dividends in the final product. The film is basically a look at the making of Truman Capote's masterpiece book In Cold Blood, the story of two drifters who murder a family in a Kansas farmhouse in late 1959. It starts out as a simple magazine article, but the idea explodes as Capote's relationship with one of the men becomes closer and his obsession with the book grows deeper. Capote is an emotional film, yet there are no happy endings. There's no happiness at all. The film is more a document of what Capote did to get his masterpiece and what he paid when he got it. Two sides and the demons fighting each other back and forth. And Hoffman gives us all of that in all of its detail and shows us how a sad story can become even sadder.
Lorenzo v

Truman Capote: "On the night of November 14th, two men broke into a quiet farmhouse in Kansas and murdered an entire family. Why did they do that? Two worlds exist in this country: the quiet conservative life, and and the life of those two men - the underbelly, the… More
Truman Capote: "On the night of November 14th, two men broke into a quiet farmhouse in Kansas and murdered an entire family. Why did they do that? Two worlds exist in this country: the quiet conservative life, and and the life of those two men - the underbelly, the criminally violent. Those two worlds converged that bloody night." The creation of one of the most memorable books of the 1960s -- and the impact the writing and research would have on its author -- is explored in this drama based on a true story. In 1959, Truman Capote (played by Philip Seymour Hoffman) was a critically acclaimed novelist who had earned a small degree of celebrity for his work when he read a short newspaper item about a multiple murder in a small Kansas town. For some reason, the story fascinated Capote, and he asked William Shawn (Bob Balaban), his editor at The New Yorker, to let him write a piece about the case. Capote had long believed that in the right hands, a true story could be molded into a tale as compelling as any fiction, and he believed this event, in which the brutal and unimaginable was visited upon a community where it was least expected, could be just the right material. Capote traveled to Kansas with his close friend Harper Lee (Catherine Keener), herself becoming a major literary figure with the success of To Kill a Mockingbird, and while Capote's effete and mannered personal style stuck out like a sore thumb in Kansas, in time he gained the trust of Alvin Dewey (Chris Cooper), the Kansas Bureau of Investigation agent investigating the murder of the Clutter family, and with his help Capote's magazine piece grew into a full-length book. Capote also became familiar with the petty criminals who killed the Clutter family, Dick Hickock (Mark Pellegrino) and Perry Smith (Clifton Collins Jr.), and in Smith he found a troubling kindred spirit more like himself than he wanted to admit. After attaining a sort of friendship with Smith under the assumption that the man would be executed before the book was ever published, Capote finds himself forced to directly confront the moral implications of his actions with regards to both his role in the man's death, and the way that he would be remembered. Review "Capote" is a fantastic film...smart, superb photography, and most enjoyable, Capote himself. I can't say that I've seen a more haunting and comical performance this year. The pace of the film is strikingly fast but that is to be expected with the time-frame conveyed. One of my favorite elements of this film was the coloring, whether it was the cityscape of New York or rural Kansas. The palette used to depict the wheat fields was utterly striking. It's as if the color is a representation of the despair of that small town, Holcomb. Is it worth seeing? Yes. Did it deserve the Oscar gold and other certain accolades? Yes. Is it perfect? most definitely not. But no film is. The only regret that I felt was that I wanted more. Gerald Clarke's book is a voluminous work and it seemed as if the film came to a close too soon. Perhaps it was Hoffman's bravura performance that will be so missed.
Fernando Rafael Q

The photography couldn't have been any better... the direction and writing are magnificent. Good score and costume design; a performance by Philip Seymour Hoffman that was kind of disappointing for me. Hoffman blends Capote's ridiculous voice and strong demeanor with… More
The photography couldn't have been any better... the direction and writing are magnificent. Good score and costume design; a performance by Philip Seymour Hoffman that was kind of disappointing for me. Hoffman blends Capote's ridiculous voice and strong demeanor with success, but I thought it would've been so much better. Clifton Collins Jr. didn't receive the attention he should've gotten for his great performance. I don't know why Catherine Keener was nominated for an Oscar for her role in this movie. Her performance was average, nothing remakable. INFAMOUS is definitely better.
Daniel J D

Capote wrote his greatest novel In Cold Blood in cold blood, for one man's misfortune is another man's... misfortune. But I repeat myself. Philip Seymour Hoffman truly is an impeccable actor.
Bruce B

A great Movie. Taught me so much about Capote, and Hoffman played his best role ever. I went right out an pirchased the book in cold blood,When it ended I had wished this movie was longer. A great find in any used bin. Buy it and enjoy it.
Lady D

Despite a great performance from Philip Seynour Hoffman, I found this film very boring and I completely lost my concentration with it. Having heard lots of people say how great a film it was, I somehow feel I missed something, but it just didn't do it for me.