Donnie Darko

"28 days, 6 hours, 42 minutes, 12 seconds... that is when the world will end."

2001 1h 54m EN

🙌

7.8

BANGER

★7.8TMDB · 13,810

FantasyDramaMystery

Synopsis

Spoiler shield

After narrowly escaping a bizarre accident, a troubled teenager is plagued by visions of a large bunny rabbit that manipulates him to commit a series of crimes.

“28 days, 6 hours, 42 minutes, 12 seconds... that is when the world will end.”

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Cast

Jake Gyllenhaal
Donnie Darko
Jena Malone
Gretchen Ross
James Duval
Frank
Drew Barrymore
Karen Pomeroy
Beth Grant
Kitty Farmer
Maggie Gyllenhaal
Elizabeth Darko
Mary McDonnell
Rose Darko
Holmes Osborne
Eddie Darko

Credits

Behind the camera

Director: Richard Kelly
Writers: Richard Kelly, Andrew Garcia-Price
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

Shot for just $4.5M — micro-budget by Hollywood standards.

MoodPlayr · trivia#01

2 / 8

ERA

Did you know

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

MoodPlayr · trivia#02

3 / 8

CINEMA

Did you know

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

MoodPlayr · trivia#03

4 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Directed by Richard Kelly, shot by Steven Poster. 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 Andrews. 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 Sam Bauer 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

Jake Gyllenhaal and Jena Malone and James Duval carry the top of the cast.

MoodPlayr · trivia#07

8 / 8

RUNTIME

Did you know

Marketing tagline: "28 days, 6 hours, 42 minutes, 12 seconds... that is when the world will end.".

MoodPlayr · trivia#08

Cinephile deep dive

The take

Richard Kelly directs. Steven Poster behind the camera. Michael Andrews scores. Sam Bauer cuts. Profitable at the box office. Produced in United States of America. Dialogue in English.

Trivia

Things worth knowing

1Shot for just $4.5M — micro-budget by Hollywood standards.
225 years old — old enough to be someone's favourite childhood film.
3Part of the "Darko Collection" — so the characters or world continue elsewhere.
4Directed by Richard Kelly, shot by Steven Poster. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.
5Original score by Michael Andrews. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.
6Editor Sam Bauer shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.
7Jake Gyllenhaal and Jena Malone and James Duval carry the top of the cast.
8Marketing tagline: "28 days, 6 hours, 42 minutes, 12 seconds... that is when the world will end.".
9IMDB entry: tt0246578 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.
1013,810 TMDB user ratings logged — serious cultural footprint.
11Classified under 23 themes, including "high school", "airplane", "parent child relationship", "presidential election".

The technical file

Cinematography: Steven Poster
Original score: Michael Andrews
Editing: Sam Bauer
Production design: Alec Hammond
Costume design: April Ferry
Makeup / hair: Kimberly Greene
VFX supervisor: Marcus Keys
Sound: Michael Payne
Stunt coordinator: Mickey Giacomazzi
Runtime: 114 min · 1h 54m
Aspect ratio (typical): 1.37:1 (Academy)
Status: Released
Budget: $4,500,000
Box office: $7,500,000
Return: 167% of budget
Original language: EN
Certification (US): R
IMDB: Donnie Darko (2001)

Part of

Darko Collection

A collection of films involving the Darko family.

Also by

Richard Kelly

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Trailers & featurettes

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Community reviews

What people are saying

Andres Gomez2012-12-20
★ 7/10
Interesting movie with several readings. As with 2001: A Space Odissey, it is needed a reading of the actual explanation for the events to fully understand the original idea ... if you are interested in such explanation ...
Wuchak2019-12-23
★ 6/10
Cult flick with sophisticated themes, great cast, but meh story Released in 2001 and written/directed by Richard Kelly, "Donnie Darko" is a drama/fantasy starring Jake Gyllenhaal as a troubled California teen dogged by apparitions of a man in an evil rabbit suit who manipulates him to commit several crimes, after he narrowly escapes a peculiar accident concerning a jet engine falling from the sky. Maggie Gyllenhaal plays his sister, Holmes Osborne & Mary McDonnell his parents, Drew Barrymore his teacher, Katharine Ross his therapist, Jena Malone his girlfriend, Noah Wyle his science teacher and Patrick Swayze a self-help guru. Patience Cleveland is on hand as Grandma Death. While the movie flopped at the box office, it has since become a serious cult hit. I saw it recently for the first time and went into it cold without knowing anything about the intricacies behind the plot. The only thing I knew was that the kid was harassed by an ee-vil bunny apparition. The film mildly works as a high school drama with a satirical smirk. But the story's just not engaging enough on that level. While the movie has some quality women, it fails to capitalize on their presence (Barrymore, for instance, is barely in it). But Jake is a solid protagonist, even somewhat sympathetic despite the curious things he does. By the middle of the second act I found myself getting bored with the story and trying to figure out what was going on, but the film perks up in the last act, particularly when it reveals the truth about the scary bunny guy. After viewing, my overall impression was that the story never really took off and was burdened by perplexing ambiguities even while possessing some fascinating elements. I came up with a theory to explain the events (explained below) but, upon reflection, I realized that all the pieces didn't fit. And the movie simply wasn't entertaining enough to bang my head further trying to figure it out. I would've given the movie a mediocre 5/10 rating, but after investigating the official meaning and the alternative explanations I had to admit that the film is genius in this respect. It just needed to be attached to a more interesting story with more stimulating characters. The film runs 113 minutes, which is the version I saw; the Director's Cut runs 20 minutes longer. It was shot in Los Angeles and surrounding areas (Angeles National Forest, Long Beach, Santa Monica, Santa Clarita, Burbank & Calabasas). GRADE: B- ADDITIONAL COMMENTARY (SPOILER ALERT Don't read unless you've seen the movie): My casual interpretation turned out to be one of the alternative explanations of the movie, the so-called "Donnie Is Shown the Future" explanation, which suggests that Donne is shown the future via the future ghost of Frank and so he sacrifices himself at the end to save everyone. But, as noted above, there are too many holes in this interpretation. A couple of other popular explanations are the banal Schizophrenia Theory, where the film shows the protagonist going through an episode of his illness, and the Dream Theory, where it was "all just a dream," which is too clichéd and idiotic to even consider. The 'official' interpretation I would've never pieced together because it's just too sci-fi-oriented and complex: It's the Tangent Universe Theory, which suggests that time in the Primary Universe (i.e. reality) is occasionally corrupted and an unstable alternative universe is created, but it will only last a few weeks. Nevertheless, it threatens to destroy the universe. The events you see happening in the bulk of the film are this alternative reality where the universe (or God) is correcting the error to get back to the Primary Universe using an Artifact (the jet engine), The Living Receiver (Jake Gyllenhaal), a Manipulated Dead person (the bunny guy), and so on. Google it and you'll see that the Tangent Universe explanation ties up all the loose ends.
Repo Jack2020-10-28
★ 9/10
A complete mind-bender of a movie that put Jake Gyllenhall on the map, introduced the creepiest rabbit costume of all time, and may make you surprisingly tear up to a remake of Tears for Fears "Mad World."