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The Night of the Iguana

The Night of the Iguana

Drama · Romance · 1964

A defrocked Episcopal clergyman leads a bus-load of middle-aged Baptist women on a tour of the Mexican coast and comes to terms with the failure haunting his life.

Movie details

The Night of the Iguana

“One man... three women... one night”

1964 Drama · Romance 1h 58m

Critical arithmetic

The consensus, allegedly.

IMDb

7.6 / 10

13.8K votes

Rotten Tomatoes

75 %

Tomatometer

TMDB

7.2 / 10

Community rating

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

A defrocked Episcopal clergyman leads a bus-load of middle-aged Baptist women on a tour of the Mexican coast and comes to terms with the failure haunting his life.

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 The Night of the Iguana?

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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Names above the title

The people responsible.

Directed by

John Huston

Written by

Anthony Veiller · John Huston

Richard Burton

Richard Burton

Rev. Dr. T. Lawrence Shannon

Ava Gardner

Ava Gardner

Maxine Faulk

Deborah Kerr

Deborah Kerr

Hannah Jelkes

Sue Lyon

Sue Lyon

Charlotte Goodall

Skip Ward

Skip Ward

Hank Prosner

Grayson Hall

Grayson Hall

Judith Fellowes

Cyril Delevanti

Cyril Delevanti

Nonno

Court is in session

Put The Night of the Iguana on trial.

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

The defence The Prestige Tourist

“Sincerity is not manipulation.”

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

The prosecution The Adrenaline Seeker

“The strings are showing.”

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