Auto Focus

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Auto Focus

R,

2002,

1h 44m,

Biography/

Drama

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Watchlist

Watchlist

71%

162 Reviews

Tomatometer

61%

5,000+ Ratings

Popcornmeter

71%

Tomatometer

162 Reviews

61%

Popcornmeter

5,000+ Ratings

A successful TV star during the 1960s, former "Hogan's Heroes" actor Bob Crane (Greg Kinnear) projects a wholesome family-man image, but this front masks his persona as a sex addict who records and photographs his many encounters with women, often with the help of his seedy friend, John Henry Carpenter (Willem Dafoe). This biographical drama reveals how Crane's double life takes its toll on him and his family, and ultimately contributes to his death.

Critics Consensus

Kinnear and Dafoe help make this downward spiral of one man's life a compelling watch.

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David Ansen

Newsweek

Mar 12, 2018

The movie's themes are aptly captured in the double entendre of the title, suggesting both Crane's narcissism and the video technology that abets it...a lot of Auto Focus is coolly funny--it's a slyly satiric comedy of '60s manners.

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Tim Robey

Daily Telegraph (UK)

Oct 19, 2003

Another probing case history of male pathology from one of the most consistently interesting American film-makers alive.

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Linda Ruth Williams

Sight & Sound

Mar 4, 2003

An exemplary Schrader work, a painfully funny and misanthropic treatise on American masculinity and its sexualised image.

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Mitchell Beaupre

Paste Magazine

Jun 24, 2024

9.5/10

When you get to the final, haunting line of “men gotta have fun,” you know exactly why this is a Paul Schrader picture.

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Justine Smith

Vague Visages

Jun 5, 2024

Part biopic and part meditation on sexual addiction...

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Matt Brunson

Film Frenzy

Aug 29, 2021

3/4

A distant, even sterile, yet compulsively watchable look at the sordid life of Hogan's Heroes star Bob Crane.

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Anakin R

Apr 27, 2018

did a good job of showing - without the usual Hollywood sympathy - of a person caught in a downward moral spiral

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Paul Schrader

Director

Greg Kinnear

Bob Crane

Willem Dafoe

John Carpenter

Rita Wilson

Anne Crane

Maria Bello

Patricia Crane

Ron Leibman

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Synopsis

A successful TV star during the 1960s, former "Hogan's Heroes" actor Bob Crane (Greg Kinnear) projects a wholesome family-man image, but this front masks his persona as a sex addict who records and photographs his many encounters with women, often with the help of his seedy friend, John Henry Carpenter (Willem Dafoe). This biographical drama reveals how Crane's double life takes its toll on him and his family, and ultimately contributes to his death.

Director: Paul Schrader
Producer: Scott Alexander, Larry Karaszewski, Todd Rosken, Pat Dollard, Alicia Allain
Screenwriter: Michael Gerbosi
Distributor: Sony Pictures Classics
Production Co: Propaganda Films
Rating: R (Nudity|Language|Some Drug Use|Strong Sexuality|Violence)
Genre: Biography, Drama
Original Language: English
Release Date (Theaters): Oct 18, 2002, Original
Release Date (Streaming): Apr 16, 2012
Box Office (Gross USA): $2.1M
Runtime: 1h 44m
Sound Mix: Surround

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