Field of Dreams
3 Oscar Nominations·National Film Registry
Rent/Purchase
Ray Kinsella is an Iowa farmer who hears a mysterious voice telling him to turn his cornfield into a baseball diamond. He does, but the voice's directions don't stop -- even after the spirits of deceased ballplayers turn up to play.
What critics thought
Field of Dreams won over most critics with its earnest blend of baseball mythology and father-son longing, but the professional critical consensus was sharply split in a way the audience response obscures — believers found it genuinely moving, while skeptics saw the sentimentality as manipulative and the dialogue as hollow. The gap between the warm audience embrace and the more cautious critical establishment is itself worth noting.
“A work so smartly written, so beautifully filmed, so perfectly acted, that it does the almost impossible trick of turning sentimentality into true emotion.”
Caryn James·The New York Times
“This is the kind of movie Frank Capra might have directed, and James Stewart might have starred in—a movie about dreams.”
Roger Ebert·Chicago Sun-Times
“In spite of a script hobbled with cloying aphorisms and shameless sentimentality, Field of Dreams sustains a dreamy mood in which the idea of baseball is distilled to its purest essence.”
Variety
Genres
Drama, Family, Fantasy
Cast & Crew
DirectorPhil Alden Robinson
StarringKevin Costner, Amy Madigan, Gaby Hoffmann, Ray Liotta, Timothy Busfield
ComposerJames Horner
Field of Dreams
3 Oscar Nominations·National Film Registry
Ray Kinsella is an Iowa farmer who hears a mysterious voice telling him to turn his cornfield into a baseball diamond. He does, but the voice's directions don't stop -- even after the spirits of deceased ballplayers turn up to play.
What critics thought
Field of Dreams won over most critics with its earnest blend of baseball mythology and father-son longing, but the professional critical consensus was sharply split in a way the audience response obscures — believers found it genuinely moving, while skeptics saw the sentimentality as manipulative and the dialogue as hollow. The gap between the warm audience embrace and the more cautious critical establishment is itself worth noting.
“A work so smartly written, so beautifully filmed, so perfectly acted, that it does the almost impossible trick of turning sentimentality into true emotion.”
Caryn James·The New York Times
“This is the kind of movie Frank Capra might have directed, and James Stewart might have starred in—a movie about dreams.”
Roger Ebert·Chicago Sun-Times
“In spite of a script hobbled with cloying aphorisms and shameless sentimentality, Field of Dreams sustains a dreamy mood in which the idea of baseball is distilled to its purest essence.”
Variety
Genres
Drama, Family, Fantasy
Cast & Crew
DirectorPhil Alden Robinson
StarringKevin Costner, Amy Madigan, Gaby Hoffmann, Ray Liotta, Timothy Busfield
ComposerJames Horner
Rent/Purchase