The Ninth Gate (1999) (2024)

Popular reviews

• Review by Mike Ginn ★★ 15

  Depp is the worst rare book seller ever. His treatment of the priceless 400 year old book included:

  - handling it without gloves
  - walking with it rain
  - blowing cigarette smoke into it
  - ashing cigarette in it
  - drinking coffee while reading
  - tossing book to colleague

• Review by Matthew Christman ★★★½ 2

  1999

  Stanley Kubrick: Our ruling class are a cult of perverted Satanists who consecrate their bonds with ritualized sadism and debauchery.

  Roman Polanski: lol yeah it owns.

• Review by Will Menaker ★★½ 3

  This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

  Manifesting Satan through ritual is a simple matter of clipping the right comic strips from 15th century.

  Johnny Depp plays a rare books expert who spends the entire film smoking cigarettes and drinking red wine directly over the priceless tomes he shoves in and out of a messenger bag. Essentially the fun and goofy version of Eyes Wide Shut. Polanski has a knack for imbuing beautifully appointed interiors with a subtle menace, probably has some experience in this regard.

• Review by Carl Hudson ★½ 2

  Somewhere in here, there is a good movie. The story is actually rather interesting, but it's ruined as the movie doesn't know whether it wants to be scary or silly, a supernatural noir or a movie about someone hunting down a book. The result is a dull mess where you don't care about the characters but is interested in where the story goes. Sadly, after a while you stop caring about that too, since it's all fairly obvious, aside from the preposterous ending.

  Johnny Depp and Frank Langella are awesome though. Together they almost make the movie worth watching, if you're a fan of both and have seen every other movie with them forty times. If not, don't watch this.

• Review by sydney ★★★½ 4

  ::Jeff Goldblum voice:: ahh, now eventually you do plan to have Satan in your Satanic movie, right? ...hello?

• Review by Nakul ★★★½ 7

  The Ninth Gate is an underrated Polanski movie with a noir soaked atmosphere to it, featuring an enthrallingly underplayed performance from Johnny Depp. It's kinda loose, silly (in a good way) & funny but an effective adaptation of The Club Dumas by Arturo Pérez-Reverte. Also it's clearly a movie thats more about the journey than the destination.

• Review by SilentDawn ★★★½ 2

  65

  Spooky. A detective story torn between the unknown and the unsolvable. One of Johnny Depp's greatest performances.

• Review by Dyrnott ★★★★½ 1

  I have seen before and I enjoy it every time! I love libraries, old books and research! I guess that I have always wanted a job that Dean has! Though he is unscrupulous to make a living which I wouldn’t be. Though to achieve what he does a man of morals could not for the story. Excellent story, beautiful settings, excellent acting and very well shot makes this a must see! If you haven’t already check it out!

• Review by Ian West ★★★½ 9

  Johnny Depp playing a character that drinks and smokes too much feels like old hat now, but Frank Langella’s epic “Mumbo Jumbo” moment at the satanic gathering? ACES—talk about gravitas.

• Review by Richelle Charkot 1

  “What an incredibly rare and priceless book”

  *blows cigarette smoke all over it*
  *eats a bunch of cheetos then leafs through it*
  *plays hacky sack with the book and tosses it to a goat that starts eating it*

• Review by Kylo ★★★ 2

  Johnny was dark and handsome, mysterious, a little nerdy with those glasses, passionate about books. Oh, and the movie was fine too. A little slow but a great mood and atmosphere. I didn’t get all stuff about the devil though.

• Review by The Greek Geek ★★ 2

  Now I want to take up smoking, grow a moustache and collect rare books