Flatliners

Flatliners (1990)

  • 52% of critics liked it
    (33 reviews)

  • 60% of users liked it
    (61,716 ratings)

Despite its occasional lapses into silly self-consciousness, Flatliners is one of the most intriguing and well-constructed supernatural thrillers of the 1990s. A group of brilliant medical students decide to literally play with life and death. They put themselves in suspended animation,… More

Play Trailer

R,
Directed By
Written By
Peter Filardi
Genres
Horror, Mystery & Suspense, Science Fiction & Fantasy
In Theaters
Aug 10, 1990 Wide
Sony Pictures Home Entertainment

Critic Reviews

  • Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly

    We're supposed to think, ''Gee, will they make it back?!'' By the third or fourth close call, we're not exactly sweating.

  • Variety Staff, Variety

    A cautionary tale that ends along fairly traditional horror-sci-fi lines, Flatliners is a strikingly original, often brilliantly visualized film from director Joel Schumacher and writer Peter Filardi.

  • , Time Out

    We're in mystical territory here, hence the flamboyant visuals; but that's no excuse for Peter Filardi's affected script.

  • Caryn James, New York Times

    Flatliners is a stylish, eerie psychological horror film laced with wit, a movie that thrives on its characters' guilty secrets and succeeds on the strength of the director Joel Schumacher's flair for just this sort of smart, unpretentious entertainment.

  • Peter Travers, Rolling Stone

    It's a movie about daring that dares nothing.

Read all 13 critic reviews

See more critic ratings and reviews on Rotten Tomatoes

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

Rotten (59% or fewer critics rated the movie positively)

Featured Audience Ratings

  • Jens S


    This mild horror thriller about a couple of medicine students who are trying to find the threshold between life and death did not age very well. There is a lot of neon light, fog machines and late 80s sounds. That does make for a very unique atmosphere and is a prime example of the… More

  • Luke B


    A film I really feel as though I should have watched sooner. The idea seems so genius to me I don't know why it took me this long to watch it. Flatliners focuses on a bunch of medical students that briefly kill themselves and bring themselves back to life in order to explore the… More

  • Christopher A


    5 Medical Students try to make history and discover once and for all if there is life after death. Flatliners is chilling to its core as one by one we follow the trainee doctors 'go under' and flatline for a few seconds longer each time. Kiefer Sutherland plays the crazed… More

  • Manu G


    Good movie and although the story is not really realistic but the story was good and I thought the acting was decent enough. Great Cast! Five medical students decide to embark on a dangerous experiment to pierce the veil between life and death in an attempt to learn more about the… More

  • Wahida K


    Great Cast, great Plot and great acting.

Read all 20 featured audience ratings

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Cast

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