Dolores Claiborne (1995) (2024)

Popular reviews

• Review by matt lynch ★★★½ 1

  I'd forgotten how well this captures King's voice, the almost poetically primal way he presents all manner of horrors real, supernatural, or imagined. Anyway I'd also forgotten just what a litany of abuse it is, how it diagrams the entire spectrum of what women put up with from men (I mean Eric Bogosian is even in it, hashtag zing), not to mention that it's such an unsubtly angry story of sorority in the face of that abuse. Bates should have won her Oscar for this instead of MISERY.

• Review by Rafael "Parker!!" Jovine ★★★★ 10

  It's one of those King adaptations that I've heard about for a long time but never had the opportunity to watch. It falls into his more dramatic work that used to be trending around the 90s, and while this never reaches the level of a Green Mile or the masterpiece that is Shawshank Redemption, it's still a great entry in large part thanks to Kathy Bates, who blends some of her Annie Wilkes abrupt outbursts with more of her gentle, vulnerable, less murderous work. This results in a very nuanced performance in which you both feel sympathy for her and see her as a potential menace. The rest of the cast are also pretty good, especially John C. Reilly, who…

• Review by 📀 Cammmalot 📀 ★★★★ 11

  Stephen’s King’dom Marathon: Film #36

  ”An accident, Dolores, can be an unhappy woman's best friend”

  Jeezly crow!

  I’m just muzzling here trying to think what to say, because I totally underestimated this movie. I remember seeing the ads, which didn’t overly appeal to me, and having missed the book, I thought, “Well maybe I’ll get to it someday.” Well, the day has arrived and I’m glad it did, because oh my gravy, this film is right as raisins.

  Tony Gilroy, the Mr. Grand High Poobah of Jason Bourne fame, has crafted a crackling script that sucks you in with an instant crime mystery, and then strings you along wonderfully as it traverses its way to the boneyard.

  These friggin’ yahoos…

• Review by Cat Red ★★★★

  This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

  If Kathy Bates threw me in a hole I would thank her

• Review by B E R T ★★★★★ 2

  The best Stephen King book adapted into the best Stephen King movie. Kathy Bates is just about the greatest actress in the world, this performance is absolutely, completely sensational, it’s why I love actresses. Brilliant!!! This movie every time I watch I just get completely lost in. Nova Scotia what a dreary dream.

• Review by Dave ★★★★½

  Sometimes being a bitch is all a woman has to hang on to….

  A few weeks ago, I saw a small Dustin Hoffman movie called "Straight Time," which was released in 1978. In the film, there is an appearance by a young, slim Kathy Bates. She was the youngest I’d ever seen her, and though the role was brief, she had a very commanding presence. She had two pivotal scenes in the film, and she nailed the part. If I had seen "Straight Time" when it was released that year, I’d be proclaiming that this young up-and-comer named Kathy Bates was going to be a star.

  And boy, what an incredible career this woman has had. She beautifully bared it…

• Review by Graham ★★★★ 4

  “You think I give a fiddlers fuck what anyone else says about me?”

  What I do know is that I’d definitely want Kathy Bates on my team in a cage match. She’s so scary.

• Review by Dan Abel ★★★★ 9

  "Sometimes bein' a bitch is all a woman has to hang onto." - Dolores Claiborne

  Hired housekeeper Dolores Claiborne is a suspect for murder after she is found at the bottom of the stairs standing over her long time employer with a weapon raised. Twenty years earlier, she beat a case in which she was accused of killing her ex-husband as well. News gets back to the Dolores' daughter, a writer for a newspaper in New York City who returns home to investigate.

  Kathy Bates is probably my favorite actress of all time and definitely my favorite who is still living. She is known for so many classic roles such as the infamous Annie Wilkes in another little Stephen King…

• Review by 20oldboy03 ★★★½ 2

  English Version below

  
  Ein Double Feature was nie stattfand.

  Eine Fortsetzung die es nie gab.

  Ein Reichen der Hände im Halten deren, was nie zum Körperkontakt führte.

  
  Jedoch zog ich meine, und unter dem zweiten Hinschauen offensichtliche Parallelen, eigenmächtig mit dem Mut meiner vor mir sich auftuenden, Hand in Hand gehenden, kopierten wie multiplizierten Abbildungen wie zwei sich überlappende Overheadfolien.

  
  Der Vergleich, wie es der Zufall so wollte, die Leser meiner „letzten“ drei Reviews hier bejahend nicken, begann abermals mit dem Durchblättern meines „Sesam öffne dich“ für die verschlossenen Filmtore und Filmtüren mit der TV-Media die relativ Zeitnahe begann. Der Startschuss galt, ganz dem Erscheinungsjahr entsprechend, mit dem fünf Jahre zuvor erschienen „Misery“. Welcher Zeitraum auch immer zwischen meinen damit…

• Review by Maria ★★★★ 11

  If there’s one very specific and narrow subgenre of film I love, it’s Stephen King adaptations starring Kathy Bates. The roles she’s given never lack depth and are rooted in human feelings: hurt, grief, despair. They’re multifaceted and each facet is played by Bates with the same intensity that makes us question both our sympathy and our fear. In Misery, it’s a caring nurse whose actions reveal ruthlessness and obsession; in Dolores Claiborne, it’s a caregiver twice suspected of murder, whose past uncovers a desperate woman, stuck in an impossible situation and who would do anything for her daughter.

  Dolores Claiborne takes place on two planes that weave in and out of each other – the past and the present.…

• Review by Russell Holley ★★★★½

  This engrossing generation-spanning murder mystery, with a surprisingly emotional wallop of an ending, is easily one of the best Stephen King adaptations.

• Review by Blake Bergman "Various Spaghetti" ★★★★

  "Dolores Claiborne" is a 1995 dramatic thriller directed by Taylor Hackford. Starting as a successful written novel by Stephen King, "Dolores Claiborne" was adapted into this direct film a few years later that also held some successful merit and acclaim to itself. The narrative of the film centers around Kathy Bates character of Dolores, who is under suspicion of murder in what would normally be a small, seemingly quiet town tucked away on an island off the coast of Maine. Normally the area doesn't see many situations, but for Dolores, this questionable accident of her employer whom she provided live-in assistance to brings up a reconnected event similar that occurred a period time before, with Dolores' husband. As the film…