Housewife Beverly Sutphin (Kathleen Turner) seems to enjoy a life of domestic bliss. She has a loving husband (Sam Waterston), two fine teenage kids, and a beautiful Baltimore home. Hell, she even gives the birds in her backyard Christian names. Admittedly, she’s a little highly strung…
When Beverly goes on the rampage with a knife, chasing a scruffy teenager through the streets in her Sunday best, it’s in defence of all she holds most dear: family values, impeccable manners, road safety. Suburban conformity fosters its own pathologies. This is a killer comedy from the one and only John Waters (who says it’s his best film), with an uproariously funny, marvellously malicious performance from Turner.
During a time when shiny-haired tradwives in flowy dresses are attempting to turn motherhood into some sort of sacred blessing devoid of challenges, Beverly feels pretty relatable. She’s a matriarch who has had it, which is an emotional state that many of us can relate to. Beverly Sutphin isn’t real. Rooting for her doesn’t mean you’re a depraved lunatic. It just means you deeply understand that moms in this country need a freaking break.
Dina Gachman, New York Times (2026)
A funny, biting satire of suburban repression and hypocrisy, is as close as John Waters has yet come to making a mainstream film that retains the signature bad taste and biting anti-authoritarian streak of his early films.
Simon Abrams, rogerebert.com
Media Partner
John Waters
Kathleen Turner, Sam Waterston, Ricki Lake, Matthew Lillard
USA
1994
English
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Credits
Producer
John Fiedler, Mark Tarlov
Screenwriter
John Waters
Cinematography
Robert Stevens
Editor
Janice Hampton, Erica Huggins
Original Music
Basil Poledouris
Production Design
Vincent Peranio
90s, Baby!
Ten years. 11 weeks. 90 films from the 1990s. This summer, 90’s Baby! takes a deep dive into a defining decade of cinema.
Unforgiven
Bill Munny (Clint Eastwood) is face down in pig shit when we first see him. He's a bad farmer, but has a natural facility for killing people – a vocation to which he returns in a quest that combines both profit and justice. Or so he chooses to believe.
Malcolm X
In an indelible role, Denzel Washington give us a layered, compassionate, conflicted man who finds the strength in Islam to transcend his demons and confront the inequity and racism in America head-on. Along with Do the Right Thing, this is Spike Lee's greatest film.
Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould
A bona fide classic and arguably the greatest Canadian film of the 90s, Girard's dazzling deconstruction of the biopic gives us the mercurial pianist Glenn Gould as Picasso might have rendered him, a cubist portrait combining multimedia vignettes.
Dazed and Confused
The last day of high school in May, 1976: seniors debate party politics while next term's freshmen run the gauntlet of brutal initiation rites, barely comforted by the knowledge that they'll wield the stick one day.
Short Cuts
Altman's adaptation of Raymond Carver short stories, Short Cuts weaves between 8 or 9 overlapping storylines and 22 characters. it's a teeming, caustic and compassionate human comedy; a singularly astringent, often cynical view of America and Americana.
Three Colours: Blue
The first of Kieslowski's acclaimed Three Colours Trilogy, inspired by the French Revolutionary ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity and the French flag, the Tricolour. Blue stars Juliette Binoche as a young woman grieving her husband and child.
Schindler's List
One of the most acclaimed films of the 90s, Steven Spielberg's adaptation of Thomas Keneally's Schindler's Ark is the story of a German industrialist whose conscience is stirred to save his Jewish workers from the camps.
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Three Colours: Red
Irène Jacob plays Valentine, a runway model living in Geneva, who crosses paths with a retired judge (Jean-Louis Trintignant) who's a bit of an eavesdropper. Initially repelled, she becomes intrigued by this man, as do we... Kieslowski's sublime adieu.
Four Weddings and a Funeral
Four Weddings begins with an onslaught of fucks. It's the first signal that this rom-com will break from tradition, despite the ritualized structural conceit described in the title. The witty screenplay is by Richard Curtis — it's still his best.
The Lion King
With its beautifully drawn East African setting, its humour, pathos, and engaging characters, as well as its stirring songs, The Lion King stands as the pinnacle of traditional Disney family entertainment.
Image: © Disney, 1994
To Die For
Buck Henry (The Graduate) wrote this acidic black comedy about a ruthless weather girl on the make (Nicole Kidman in her breakout role). A young Joaquin Phoenix is the dim teen she seduces on her way to achieving stardom.