Scream

"Someone has taken their love of scary movies one step too far. Solving this mystery is going to be murder."

1996 1h 52m EN

👍

7.4

SOLID

🍅

78%

FRESH

👌

METACRITIC

⭐

7.4

IMDB

★7.4TMDB · 8,306🍅78%Rotten Tomatoes●66Metacritic★7.4IMDB · 438,930

CrimeHorrorMystery

Synopsis

Spoiler shield

A year after the murder of her mother, a teenage girl is terrorized by a masked killer who targets her and her friends by using scary movies as part of a deadly game.

“Someone has taken their love of scary movies one step too far. Solving this mystery is going to be murder.”

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Cast

Neve Campbell
Sidney
Skeet Ulrich
Billy
Rose McGowan
Tatum
Matthew Lillard
Stuart
David Arquette
Deputy Dewey
Courteney Cox
Gale Weathers
Jamie Kennedy
Randy
Drew Barrymore
Casey

Credits

Behind the camera

Director: Wes Craven
Writers: Kevin Williamson
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 $173M — a 12.4× return. The kind of profit studios chase for a decade.

MoodPlayr · trivia#01

2 / 8

ERA

Did you know

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

MoodPlayr · trivia#02

3 / 8

CINEMA

Did you know

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

MoodPlayr · trivia#03

4 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Directed by Wes Craven, shot by Mark Irwin. 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 Marco Beltrami. 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 Patrick Lussier 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

Neve Campbell and Skeet Ulrich and Rose McGowan carry the top of the cast.

MoodPlayr · trivia#07

8 / 8

FACT

Did you know

Marketing tagline: "Someone has taken their love of scary movies one step too far. Solving this mystery is going to be murder.".

MoodPlayr · trivia#08

Cinephile deep dive

The take

Wes Craven directs. Mark Irwin behind the camera. Marco Beltrami scores. Patrick Lussier 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 $173M — a 12.4× return. The kind of profit studios chase for a decade.
230 years old — old enough to be someone's favourite childhood film.
3Part of the "Scream Collection" — so the characters or world continue elsewhere.
4Directed by Wes Craven, shot by Mark Irwin. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.
5Original score by Marco Beltrami. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.
6Editor Patrick Lussier shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.
7Neve Campbell and Skeet Ulrich and Rose McGowan carry the top of the cast.
8Marketing tagline: "Someone has taken their love of scary movies one step too far. Solving this mystery is going to be murder.".
9IMDB entry: tt0117571 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.
10Classified under 19 themes, including "high school", "small town", "california", "killing".
11Released under 18 different titles around the world.

The technical file

Cinematography: Mark Irwin
Original score: Marco Beltrami
Editing: Patrick Lussier
Production design: Bruce Alan Miller
Costume design: Cynthia Bergstrom
Makeup / hair: Melanie Levitt
Sound: Leslie Shatz
Stunt coordinator: Anthony Cecere
Runtime: 112 min · 1h 52m
Aspect ratio (typical): 1.37:1 (Academy)
Status: Released
Budget: $14,000,000
Box office: $173,046,663
Return: 1236% of budget
Original language: EN
Certification (US): R
IMDB: Scream (1996)
Rotten Tomatoes: 78% 🍅 Fresh
Metacritic: 66/100
IMDB rating: 7.4/10 · 438,930 votes
MPAA: R

Awards

12 wins & 11 nominations total

Saturn Award for Best Actress
Saturn Award for Best Writing
Saturn Award for Best Horror Film

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

Part of

Scream Collection

An American slasher series set largely around the fictional small town of Woodsboro, California, in which various groups of teens become the target of a masked killer, soon to be known nationwide as “Ghostface".

Also by

Wes Craven

Stills · wallpapers

Selected frames

Full-resolution frames — open one to save it as a wallpaper.

Wallpaper

Trailers & featurettes

Watch the pieces

Community reviews

What people are saying

The Movie Mob2022-09-03
★ 10/10
Scream was the first of its kind that redefined horror with new rules, a meta plot, and rebellious unexpected twists. Scream followed all the rules and simultaneously broke them in a brilliant self-aware genre reinvention that leveraged every horror movie trope to set up and subvert every expectation. Scream is a love ballad to horror movie fans that intimately knows and zealously honors the legacy of terror-filled films that came before while creating something new, innovative, bold, and surprising. Scream’s dark humor and admiration of overused horror plot points resulted in one of the first meta films in history. Characters know they are living a real-life horror film and yet make dumb and predictable horror movie decisions tricking the viewers into a sort of safety before breaking all the rules and surprising with unexpected twists and turns. Scream was the first of its kind and welcomed a whole new horror sub-genre and a movie franchise that still has no end in sight over 25 years later.
Nathan2023-03-05
★ 8/10
Scream delivered a breath of fresh air into the slasher franchise and holds up rather well nearly 30 years later. The plot of this film follows a cookie-cutter structure that models nearly all of the great slasher franchises of the late 1970s and early 1980s, but that is entirely the point. Scream is completely aware of the tropes of horror movies and utilizes them in a creative way by adding commentary and subtle comedy delivered by the characters throughout the film. It is not a full-fledged comedy by any means; there is no forced humor or jokes, but it is more of a dark comedy that pokes fun at itself in the background. The performances from our main cast were great. Neve Campbell delivers an excellent badass performance and is the perfect lead for the franchise. She is capable of fighting back in a brutal way and rivals Laurie Stroud from Halloween as my favorite final girl of all time. Courtney Cox was quite good as well; she had limited screen time but was able to really make the most of it. David Arquette was okay; he did not blow me away by any means, and he is quite replaceable in my opinion. Matthew Lillard was my favorite of the film; his performance was over the top and quite mentally deranged, which worked really well. Skeet Ulrich was also quite good, but took a backseat to Lillard in my opinion. The direction of this film was great. Wes Craven did an excellent job delivering unique shots and utilizing the camera angle and height quite well. I do think this movie needs a little more gore and violence for it being a slasher film. There was really only one kill that was quite memorable to me. For it being a homage and critique of the slasher genre, it was lacking quite a bit in the slash department. In addition, the runtime felt a bit bloated, and I think if this was cut down to maybe ten minutes, the viewing experience would have been better. Overall, I do think this movie is slightly overrated, but it is still a great film and worthy of its praise (for the most part). Score: 79% | Verdict: Great