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Beautiful Thing

Beautiful Thing

Comedy · Drama · Romance · 1996

During a long, hot summer on the Thamesmead Estate in Southeast London, three teenagers edge towards adulthood.

Movie details

Beautiful Thing

“An urban fairytale.”

1996 Comedy · Drama · Romance 1h 32m

Critical arithmetic

The consensus, allegedly.

IMDb

7.6 / 10

26.9K votes

Rotten Tomatoes

92 %

Tomatometer

TMDB

7.2 / 10

Community rating

External scores via OMDb · CC BY-NC 4.0. Values normalized for display; availability varies by title.

During a long, hot summer on the Thamesmead Estate in Southeast London, three teenagers edge towards adulthood.

CriticWise case file

What this film says about your taste.

Not a recommendation score. A measure of how closely the film’s taste signals resemble yours.

The archetype split

Who fights over Beautiful Thing?

The split comes from the same five-axis model used by the test, not audience ratings or review sentiment.

Taste neighbourhood

Nearby on the taste map.

TMDB supplies the candidates. CriticWise reorders them by craft, strangeness, prestige, emotion, and pace.

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Where it lives

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Streaming availability data supplied by JustWatch.

Names above the title

The people responsible.

Directed by

Hettie Macdonald

Written by

Jonathan Harvey

Glen Berry

Glen Berry

Jamie Gangel

Scott Neal

Scott Neal

Steven Pearce

Linda Henry

Linda Henry

Sandra Gangel

Tameka Empson

Tameka Empson

Leah

Ben Daniels

Ben Daniels

Tony

Meera Syal

Meera Syal

Miss Chauhan

Garry Cooper

Garry Cooper

Ronnie Pearce

Court is in session

Put Beautiful Thing on trial.

Two incompatible taste archetypes. One film. Read the arguments, then issue a completely binding cultural ruling.

The defence The Sentimental Softie

“Sincerity is not manipulation.”

The film risks embarrassment to make emotion communal, and that openness is harder than fashionable detachment.

The prosecution The Cool Ironist

“The strings are showing.”

Every cue tells you exactly what to feel and when, leaving sentiment to do the work character should have done.