--- title: "After Hours" year: 1985 kind: "film" canonical: "https://film.one/film/after-hours" fi1m_id: "after-hours" imdb_id: "tt0088680" tmdb_id: 10843 wikidata_id: "Q846209" fi1m_score: 80 critics_score: 73 critics_reviews: 12 published: "2026-09-15" updated: "2026-09-18T08:37:49.636345+00:00" region: "US" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # After Hours (1985) Directed by Martin Scorsese · 1h 37m · MPA R · Comedy, Thriller, Drama ## Identity After Hours - **Canonical:** https://film.one/film/after-hours - **Type:** Film - **Fi1m ID:** after-hours - **IMDb ID:** tt0088680 - **TMDB ID:** 10843 - **Wikidata ID:** Q846209 - **Same entity:** https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088680/, https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/10843, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q846209 **Fi1m score: 80** · Critics 73 from 12 reviews *In a sentence:* New York is having a lovely evening at Griffin Dunne’s expense > Martin Scorsese’s *After Hours* is a sharply made, unnerving comedy, well worth its 97 minutes. The women sometimes seem to exist chiefly to frighten Griffin Dunne, but the performances and restless camera keep the predicament funny. ## Synopsis Paul Hackett (Griffin Dunne) finds himself caught in a night of encounters in New York, where strangers and coincidences keep him unsettled. After midnight, one problem leads to another, and the people he meets become increasingly difficult to read. Rosanna Arquette plays Marcy, alongside Linda Fiorentino as Kiki, Teri Garr as Julie and John Heard as Tom the Bartender. Martin Scorsese directs this comedy-thriller, written by Joseph Minion, in which Paul’s mounting anxiety shapes his passage through the city. He tries to navigate surroundings that no longer seem to follow rules he recognises. ## Review *After Hours* is a funny, nasty little film about losing the confidence to deal with the next person who approaches. Martin Scorsese takes an anxious man’s passage through New York and makes the city feel increasingly impossible to negotiate. We recommend it, though its habit of making women the source of trouble deserves more scrutiny than the film gives it. At 97 minutes, it has room to exhaust Paul Hackett without quite exhausting us. Griffin Dunne is essential to keeping us interested, giving Paul a recognisable mixture of anxiety and wounded expectation. He remains someone we can identify with even as the people around him become harder to understand. Joseph Minion’s script keeps putting that response under pressure through coincidences that would be intolerable in a straightforward thriller. Here, the unfairness is funny because Paul still seems to expect the next encounter to make sense. Dunne lets the supporting cast do the more flamboyant work; his anxious reactions keep us watching for the consequences. Michael Ballhaus’s moving camera makes a substantial contribution to Paul’s discomfort. It is impatient, pressing ahead when a steadier view might allow us to feel settled, and the movement makes even an encounter on the street feel like an intrusion. We laughed at Dunne’s mounting distress, then felt uncomfortable about how readily we had joined in. His reactions remain recognisably human while Ballhaus makes the people around him seem harder to get away from. The comedy survives even when the persecution has stopped seeming remotely reasonable. Thelma Schoonmaker’s editing helps sustain that pressure across a story built from separate encounters. The joins need to feel like further bad luck, and they usually do; the film rarely gives us time to settle before demanding another adjustment. Jeffrey Townsend’s production design helps make the city feel unfamiliar without detaching it entirely from everyday life. We need to recognise the surroundings for Paul’s inability to cope with them to be funny, and Townsend gets that balance right. Howard Shore’s music supports the unease without making the comic timing feel overexplained. The supporting players supply enough disturbance on their own, and Scorsese allows their performances to put Paul on the defensive. Rosanna Arquette, Linda Fiorentino and Teri Garr help prevent the succession of encounters from becoming monotonous. Still, too often the women seem to have been put there principally to punish Paul, and their liveliness cannot excuse every instance. The other weakness is repetition. Minion can make a coincidence feel like a personal insult, but the accumulation sometimes reveals how little freedom anyone has beyond delivering Paul’s next setback. We occasionally start waiting for another mishap instead of attending to the person in front of him. This is where the complaints about arbitrary plotting have force: the script’s workings become too easy to notice, and its people briefly seem expendable. As a black comedy, it understands how close embarrassment can sit to fear, and how quickly sympathy can turn into laughter. Scorsese keeps finding new comic uses for Dunne’s alarm, even when the sequence of mishaps threatens to become predictable. There is enough life in the acting to make us welcome the next interruption, however little Paul wants it. We would not prescribe it for anyone already nervous about going out. *Fi1m score 80, published 15 September 2026.* ## What the critics say Most critics like After Hours a good deal and agree on what it is: a black comedy that turns one night in downtown Manhattan into a nightmare and mines the panic for laughs. The praise settles on Scorsese’s control of tone, building a bad situation step by step until the laughter turns uneasy, and on Michael Ballhaus’s restless camerawork, the sharp editing and Joseph Minion’s oddly observed screenplay. Griffin Dunne’s office drone is widely taken as the right sort of everyman, more reactive than heroic. The spread is wide. Both negative notices come from New York in 1985: The New Yorker finds the film sags into a random string of events with little underneath, and The New York Times calls it an entertaining but incoherent tease, admiring Ballhaus and not much else. Time Out notes an undercurrent of misogyny that sours the fun. Later reviews run warmer than the original ones, several arguing the comedy has receded with age and the strangeness has grown. ## Straight answers **Is After Hours worth watching?** *After Hours* is worth watching for anyone who enjoys comedy that keeps sliding towards dread, and we scored it 80. Griffin Dunne's anxious, wounded Paul Hackett holds the film together while Martin Scorsese and Michael Ballhaus's restless camera make New York feel impossible to negotiate. We would not prescribe it for anyone already nervous about going out. **How long is After Hours, and what is it rated?** *After Hours* runs 1h 37m and is rated R by the MPA in the US. It is a comedy and thriller film. **Where can I watch After Hours in the US?** *After Hours* is streaming on The Roku Channel in the US, and it is also available to rent from Amazon Prime Video from $3.99. It leaves The Roku Channel on 1 October. Availability is checked daily; the links above go straight to each service. **How violent or frightening is After Hours, and is it suitable for children?** *After Hours* is a 15 certificate and is not suitable for children. It is a black comedy rather than a violent one, and its unease comes from embarrassment shading into fear as strangers become harder to read after midnight. Teenagers who can take sustained anxiety and adult situations will be fine; the squeamish have little to worry about, the nervous rather more. **How does After Hours compare to A Serious Man?** *After Hours* is the faster and nastier of the two, while [*A Serious Man*](https://film.one/film/a-serious-man) is the more deliberate and melancholy. Both follow an ordinary man whose bad luck becomes intolerable, but Scorsese plays it as a night-long chase with the camera pressing in, where the Coens let Michael Stuhlbarg's suffering settle and weigh. Choose the Scorsese for a jolt, the Coens for a slow, disquieting ache. **What should I watch after After Hours?** After *After Hours*, try [*PlayTime*](https://film.one/film/playtime) (1967, Fi1m 88): For a gentler evening of people struggling with a city built against them. Then [*A Serious Man*](https://film.one/film/a-serious-man) (2009, Fi1m 84): An ordinary man’s bad luck becomes intolerable, with painfully precise comic timing; and [*Wild Tales*](https://film.one/film/wild-tales) (2014, Fi1m 83): Everyday frustrations turn vicious in a collection of brisk, blackly comic confrontations. ### Reviews we read (12) - **RogerEbert.com**, Roger Ebert (4/4): The film is a brilliant, tense comedy that builds a nightmare situation step by step until laughter feels hollow or defensive. Scorsese controls effects masterfully as a master filmmaker examining Manhattan as a state of mind. [Read](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/after-hours-1985) - **Slant Magazine**, Budd Wilkins (★★★★): The critic views the film as a sharp black comedy that mines urban anxiety and paranoia for unsettling yet often hilarious effect, praising its propulsive visuals, razor-sharp editing, luminous cinematography, and sardonic treatment of existential themes drawn from Kafka, noir, and farce. [Read](https://www.slantmagazine.com/dvd/after-hours-4k-uhd-blu-ray-review-martin-scorsese/) - **Los Angeles Times**, Sheila Benson (90/100, inferred): Scorsese turns urban fears into a hilarious, personal-size comedy with dazzling moviemaking and a pungently observed screenplay. Benson highlights the well-observed script by Joseph Minion and elegant contributions from the editor and production designer. [Read](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1985-09-27-ca-18469-story.html) - **Radio Times**, Alan Jones (90/100, inferred): Scorsese conceived this brilliantly original yuppie nightmare with Griffin Dunne as the angst-ridden everyman in a spiralling tale of persecution. It's weird, wonderful and wildly funny. [Read](https://www.radiotimes.com/movie-guide/b-h2gqw9/after-hours/) - **Empire**, Ian Nathan (85/100, inferred): The critic calls After Hours sneakily one of Scorsese’s best, a liberated and hyperkinetic black comedy that feels like a labour of love with caustic energy. They single out the surreal, demented streetlife encounters and the giddy camera style for praise. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/hours-2-review/) - **The Guardian** (75/100, inferred): Martin Scorsese’s 1985 screwball noir is viewed as an atypical but time-enhanced work whose comic elements have receded in favor of strangeness and anxiety. The critic singles out the film’s dreamlike quality, Kafkaesque coincidences, and wry final sequence for particular note. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2024/mar/20/after-hours-review-martin-scorseses-1980s-shaggy-dog-story-is-a-peculiar-potent-film) - **Sight and Sound**, Richard Combs (70/100, inferred): Scorsese has become the chronicler of frustration in this comedy of a man trapped in purgatory-like circumstances. The first half excels in pixillated horror and dreamlike logic that turns everyday elements into haunting talismans. [Read](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/reviews/scorsese-has-become-a-threnodist-of-frustration-after-hours-reviewed-1986) - **Time Out**, GA (70/100, inferred): Scorsese's screwball comedy is perhaps his most frightening picture as the protagonist sinks into mad emotions, but a tight script and tuned performances keep the laughs flowing. Only undercurrents of misogyny leave a sour taste. [Read](https://www.timeout.com/movies/after-hours) - **Variety** (60/100, inferred): The paranoia-and-persecution cinema reaches an apogee in this nightmarish black comedy that would be funnier if it did not confirm worst fears about urban life. The review notes vibrant supporting performances and easy identification with the reactive lead. [Read](https://variety.com/1984/film/reviews/after-hours-1200426656/) - **The New Yorker**, Pauline Kael (40/100, inferred): Scorsese directs with a knowing, hip air but the movie sags into a random series of events that fails to deliver as an entertaining trifle. Kael notes lively camerawork early on but criticizes the lack of substance and rooted moments beyond one standout performance. [Read](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1985/09/23/airheads-delight) - **The New York Times**, Vincent Canby (30/100, inferred): The film is an entertaining but ultimately unsatisfying tease that disorients its protagonist through a series of arresting yet incoherent episodes. Canby praises the aggressive, willful cinematography by Michael Ballhaus as the standout element. [Read](https://www.nytimes.com/1985/09/13/movies/after-hours-from-martin-scorsese.html) - **The Skinny**, Lewis Porteous (70/100, inferred): Scorsese's aptitude for comedy is too often overlooked, but nowhere is it more apparent than in After Hours. A wilfully surreal screenplay is handled with deadpan assurance, exploring tensions between New York's gritty landscapes and gentrification as Griffin Dunne's office drone ricochets through a night of thwarted escapes. [Read](https://www.theskinny.co.uk/film/opinion/reassessing-martin-scorseses-legacy) ## Details - **Director:** Martin Scorsese - **Director:** Martin Scorsese - **Writer:** Joseph Minion - **Cinematography:** Michael Ballhaus - **Editor:** Thelma Schoonmaker - **Music:** Howard Shore - **Production design:** Jeffrey Townsend - **Costume design:** Rita Ryack - **Producer:** Robert F. Colesberry, Griffin Dunne, Amy Robinson - **Cast:** Griffin Dunne as Paul Hackett; Rosanna Arquette as Marcy; Verna Bloom as June; Tommy Chong as Pepe; Linda Fiorentino as Kiki; Teri Garr as Julie; John Heard as Tom the Bartender; Cheech Marin as Neil - **Runtime:** 1h 37m - **Certificate (MPA):** R - **Release (the US):** 11 October 1985 - **Genres:** Comedy, Thriller, Drama - **Budget:** $4 million - **Box office:** $11 million - **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wixOBXjZvtw ## Where to watch in the US - The Roku Channel: add-on, hd, leaving 2026-10-01 - Amazon Prime Video: rent $3.99, uhd - Amazon Prime Video: buy $7.99, uhd *Checked 2026-09-15.* Also available in: AR, AT, BE, BG, BR, CA, CL, CO, CZ, DE, DK, EC, ES, FR, GB, IE, IN, IT, LT, MX, NL, NO, PA, PE, PL, RO, RS, SE, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## If you liked this - *The Trial* (1962): Another bewildered man discovers that asking reasonable questions only makes matters worse. - *PlayTime* (1967), Fi1m 88: For a gentler evening of people struggling with a city built against them. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/playtime.md) - *A Serious Man* (2009), Fi1m 84: An ordinary man’s bad luck becomes intolerable, with painfully precise comic timing. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/a-serious-man.md) - *Wild Tales* (2014), Fi1m 83: Everyday frustrations turn vicious in a collection of brisk, blackly comic confrontations. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/wild-tales.md) - *Shiva Baby* (2020): A social gathering becomes almost unbearable through glances, interruptions and merciless comic timing. --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/film/after-hours