Naked Lunch

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Naked Lunch

R,

1991,

1h 55m,

Sci-Fi

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Watchlist

71%

38 Reviews

Tomatometer

77%

25,000+ Ratings

Popcornmeter

71%

Tomatometer

38 Reviews

77%

Popcornmeter

25,000+ Ratings

Blank-faced bug killer Bill Lee (Peter Weller) and his dead-eyed wife, Joan (Judy Davis), like to get high on Bill's pest poisons while lounging with Beat poet pals. After meeting the devilish Dr. Benway (Roy Scheider), Bill gets a drug made from a centipede. Upon indulging, he accidentally kills Joan, takes orders from his typewriter-turned-cockroach, ends up in a constantly mutating Mediterranean city and learns that his hip friends have published his work -- which he doesn't remember writing.

Critics Consensus

Strange, maddening, and at times incomprehensible, Naked Lunch is nonetheless an engrossing experience.

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Steve Murray

Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Sep 23, 2025

Elegantly perverse and as black as comedy gets, the film is like a sick joke served on a silver platter.

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Jonathan Rosenbaum

Chicago Reader

May 26, 2022

4/4

What emerges is recognizable but fully transformed Burroughs material.

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David Ansen

Newsweek

Mar 31, 2008

Obviously this is not everybody's cup of weird tea: you must have a taste for the esthetics of disgust. For those up to the dare, it's one clammily compelling movie.

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Joe Lipsett

Anatomy of a Scream Podcast Network

Apr 18, 2024

2.5/5

A challenging film to engage with if you're unfamiliar with the life and work of William S. Burroughs. Visually it's very surreal and fantastical (the typewriters!), but narratively it doesn't come together in a satisfying way.

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Howard Waldstein

CBR

Jun 27, 2023

The book is, in many ways screed against conformity, and an ode to consciousness. The film, which is much easier to follow, is as much a tribute to the author who wrote the book as it is an attempt to make some sense of the slippery narrative.

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Rob Gonsalves

Rob's Movie Vault

Aug 31, 2022

A-

A remarkably lucid and enjoyable riff on an unfilmable (some say unreadable) book.

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Leia R

Jan 28, 2019

A really sick and sad movie. It is even sadder that anyone would produce such pure garbage. No plot, just endless nonsensical dialogue, heavy drug use (LSD/Horse/etc...), and every type of imaginable perverse interpersonal and people/animal acts. Maybe if you are on acid or riding the horse you might make sense of this junk, maybe it might make a connection with you... Don't waste two hours of your life that you will not get back by watching this...

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Sep 9, 2018

I liked the the setting and the acting, the lights, but the movie is very boring, non suspense at all.

Poe L

Sep 6, 2018

They don't make such surreal things like this anymore. This movie kind of wraps Cronenberg up at his peak between The Fly and the eXistenZ. Unique stuff that this generation never know they'd miss.

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Harry R

Jul 9, 2018

I admired the underlying message, and the seemingly clever imagery. I loved the unique atmosphere that is similar to Terry Gilliam's Brazil. And I was fascinated by the gorgeous animation and the designs of the animatronic bugs. But I think this movie is very self-indulgent for its own good. Very, very self-indulgent that the most important action in the movie, which led to all its series of events, happened very quick and there wasn't enough focus on it. The movie's biggest concern is using metaphors that I really didn't care to figure out what they stand for. Therefore, I wasn't engaged with the story nor the characters. Also, the tone of the movie is very slow and cold exactly like the acting. I'm really frustrated because Naked Lunch is my first Cronenberg film, and I was ready to enter his universe, and to be presented to his distinctive directorial style and to his wonderful work as I heard and read many times. That being said, Naked Lunch won't be my last Cronenberg movie because I really felt there was something special and really good deep inside this movie in spite of the fact that I didn't like it. (6/10)

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Harry G

Jan 19, 2018

http://www.hometheaterinfo.com/naked_lunch.htm

Poe P

Dec 24, 2017

not one that i want to see all the time but i did enjoy it, very weird

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David Cronenberg

Director

Peter Weller

Bill Lee

Judy Davis

Joan Frost

Ian Holm

Tom Frost

Julian Sands

Yves Cloquet

Roy Scheider

Doctor Benway

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Synopsis

Blank-faced bug killer Bill Lee (Peter Weller) and his dead-eyed wife, Joan (Judy Davis), like to get high on Bill's pest poisons while lounging with Beat poet pals. After meeting the devilish Dr. Benway (Roy Scheider), Bill gets a drug made from a centipede. Upon indulging, he accidentally kills Joan, takes orders from his typewriter-turned-cockroach, ends up in a constantly mutating Mediterranean city and learns that his hip friends have published his work -- which he doesn't remember writing.

Director: David Cronenberg
Producer: Jeremy Thomas
Screenwriter: David Cronenberg, William Lee
Distributor: 20th Century Fox, Criterion Collection
Production Co: Recorded Picture Company (RPC)
Rating: R
Genre: Sci-Fi
Original Language: English
Release Date (Theaters): Dec 27, 1991, Original
Release Date (Streaming): Nov 30, 2016
Box Office (Gross USA): $2.2M
Runtime: 1h 55m
Sound Mix: Surround, Stereo

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