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Philadelphia
Homosexual Andrew Beckett, a talented lawyer at a stodgy Philadelphia law firm, is infected with AIDS. He gets fired because his colleagues are afraid of contracting AIDS from him. Andrew then hires a homophobic small time lawyer as the only willing advocate for a wrongful dismissal suit.
5 April 1926, Detroit, Michigan, USA
5 January 1944, New York City, New York, USA
14 March 1925, USA
7 January 1963, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
25 November 1947, Jersey City, New Jersey, USA
18 September 1950, Baltimore, Maryland, USA
1 December 1951, Jamaica, New York, USA
27 February 1930, Thomasville, Georgia, USA
12 April 1936, Mt. Union, Kentucky, USA
22 February 1950, Roosevelt, New York, USA
April 21, 2006
Wearing its heart on its sleeves, this well-intentioned but soft and compromised AIDS drama may nonetheless perform the same function that Paltoon or Schindler's List have: Change public opinion about an urgent problem.
August 26, 2005
involving but badly cliched
May 29, 2013
What remains most striking about Philadelphia may be the...conspicuous emphasis on intense close-ups. They force an inescapable emotional intimacy in relation to issues the mainstream, at least at the time, would rather have looked away from. [Blu-ray]
October 25, 2005
The courtroom stuff is unwieldly, but everything else is brave and moving.
January 01, 2000
This AIDS courtroom drama is so pumped full of nitrous oxide, you could get your teeth drilled on it.
December 18, 2010
Moving, Oscared '90s drama fostered AIDS empathy.
October 10, 2008
[An] extremely well-made message picture about tolerance, justice and discrimination is pitched at mainstream audiences, befitting its position as the first major Hollywood film to directly tackle the disease.
January 01, 2000
Philadelphia breaks no new dramatic ground ... And yet Philadelphia is quite a good film, on its own terms.
June 14, 2015
Jonathan Demme's thoughtful human drama was certainly not the first movie to confront the AIDS crisis, but it was, even in the conventional skin of a courtroom drama, the most heartbreaking and passionate undertaking of its kind.
May 20, 2003
"Philadelphia" mostly succeeds in being forceful, impassioned and moving, sometimes even rising to the full range of emotion that its subject warrants. But too often, even at its most assertive, it works in safely predictable ways.
June 24, 2006
Safe and apolitical it may be, but Philadelphia succeeds as a deeply affecting humanist drama.
