Terms of Endearment

"Come to laugh, come to cry, come to care, come to terms."

1983 2h 12m EN

👍

7.1

SOLID

★7.1TMDB · 863

DramaComedy

Synopsis

Spoiler shield

Aurora, a finicky woman, is in search of true love while her daughter faces marital issues. Together, they help each other deal with problems and find reasons to live a joyful life.

“Come to laugh, come to cry, come to care, come to terms.”

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Cast

Shirley MacLaine
Aurora Greenway
Debra Winger
Emma Greenway Horton
Jack Nicholson
Garrett Breedlove
Danny DeVito
Vernon Dahlart
Jeff Daniels
Flap Horton
John Lithgow
Sam Burns
Lisa Hart Carroll
Patsy Clark
Betty King
Rosie Dunlop

Credits

Behind the camera

Director: James L. Brooks
Writers: James L. Brooks
Languages: English
Countries: United States of America

Want more? Switch to Cinephile mode in the header for DP, composer, budget, box office, production companies, keywords, and release history.

Did you know?

Fun facts 🍿

1 / 8

MONEY

Did you know

Grossed $108M — a 13.6× return. The kind of profit studios chase for a decade.

MoodPlayr · trivia#01

2 / 8

ERA

Did you know

43 years old — old enough to be someone's favourite childhood film.

MoodPlayr · trivia#02

3 / 8

CINEMA

Did you know

Part of the "Terms of Endearment Collection" — so the characters or world continue elsewhere.

MoodPlayr · trivia#03

4 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Directed by James L. Brooks, shot by Andrzej Bartkowiak. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.

MoodPlayr · trivia#04

5 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Original score by Michael Gore. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.

MoodPlayr · trivia#05

6 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Editor Richard Marks shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.

MoodPlayr · trivia#06

7 / 8

CAST

Did you know

Shirley MacLaine and Debra Winger and Jack Nicholson carry the top of the cast.

MoodPlayr · trivia#07

8 / 8

FACT

Did you know

Marketing tagline: "Come to laugh, come to cry, come to care, come to terms.".

MoodPlayr · trivia#08

Cinephile deep dive

The take

James L. Brooks directs. Andrzej Bartkowiak behind the camera. Michael Gore scores. Richard Marks cuts. Made its budget back several times over at the box office. Produced in United States of America. Dialogue in English.

Trivia

Things worth knowing

1Grossed $108M — a 13.6× return. The kind of profit studios chase for a decade.
243 years old — old enough to be someone's favourite childhood film.
3Part of the "Terms of Endearment Collection" — so the characters or world continue elsewhere.
4Directed by James L. Brooks, shot by Andrzej Bartkowiak. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.
5Original score by Michael Gore. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.
6Editor Richard Marks shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.
7Shirley MacLaine and Debra Winger and Jack Nicholson carry the top of the cast.
8Marketing tagline: "Come to laugh, come to cry, come to care, come to terms.".
9IMDB entry: tt0086425 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.
10Classified under 12 themes, including "adultery", "based on novel or book", "parent child relationship", "loss of loved one".

The technical file

Cinematography: Andrzej Bartkowiak
Original score: Michael Gore
Editing: Richard Marks
Production design: Polly Platt
Costume design: Kristi Zea
Makeup / hair: Ben Nye Jr.
Sound: Rick Kline
Runtime: 132 min · 2h 12m
Aspect ratio (typical): 1.37:1 (Academy)
Status: Released
Budget: $8,000,000
Box office: $108,423,749
Return: 1355% of budget
Original language: EN
Certification (US): PG
IMDB: Terms of Endearment (1983)

Awards

Academy Award for Best Writing, Adapted Screenplay
National Board of Review: Top Ten Films
National Board of Review Award for Best Film
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor
Academy Award for Best Actress
Academy Award for Best Director
Academy Award for Best Picture

Individual records documented via Wikidata; the summary above may count more.

Part of

Terms of Endearment Collection

Terms of Endearment is a 1983 American family comedy-drama film directed, written, and produced by James L. Brooks, adapted from Larry McMurtry's 1975 novel of the same name. It stars Debra Winger, Shirley MacLaine, Jack Nicholson, Danny DeVito, Jeff Daniels, and John Lithgow. The film covers 30 years of the relationship between Aurora Greenway (MacLaine) and her daughter Emma (Winger). Terms of Endearment received critical acclaim and was a major commercial success, grossing $164.2 million worldwide, becoming the 2nd highest grossing film of 1983 worldwide. The film received a leading eleven nominations at the 56th Academy Awards, and won five (more than any other film nominated that year): Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress (for MacLaine), Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Supporting Actor (for Nicholson). A sequel to the film, The Evening Star (1996), in which MacLaine and Nicholson reprised their roles, was a critical and commercial failure.

Also by

James L. Brooks

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Community reviews

What people are saying

CinemaSerf2022-06-24
★ 7/10
I hated the story, let's get that out of the way first. This film is about character acting at it's best, though, and Shirley MacLaine ("Aurora") and Jack Nicholson ("Garrett") bring us charisma and entertainment in spades which thankfully rescues the really pedestrian plot from abject mediocrity. Since her birth, "Aurora" has fussed over her daughter "Emma" (Debra Winger) and upon the death of her husband, settles down to a rather vicarious existence living life through her daughter, her husband "Flap" (Jeff Daniels) and their children. She is a strong willed woman, with love that can be gentle and kindly, or that can be rude and interfering with much of the frequently sardonic humour emanating from her disinclination to let them live their own lives. Next door we find "Garrett", a somewhat disreputable womaniser. A former astronaut who trades well on his erstwhile status, but who takes a bit of a shine to "Aurora" - and that's another source of lively comedy as the two clash with engaging regularity. The last hour descends rather quickly into melancholy, though, as the young "Emma" has to deal with her own problem husband, and an illness that starts to focus the attention from all concerned onto what really matters with their relationships. MacLaine is always good with these rough-round-the-edges roles and here there is plenty of chemistry on the sparing occasions in which she and Nicholson feature. Sadly, for me anyway, the rest of this hovers way too close to melodrama and though at its best it is really good, for the most part I was rather underwhelmed by the family antics that underpinned so much of the (over-long) story.

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