--- title: "Nine to Five" year: 1980 kind: "film" canonical: "https://film.one/film/nine-to-five" fi1m_id: "nine-to-five" imdb_id: "tt0080319" tmdb_id: 19494 wikidata_id: "Q1466657" fi1m_score: 73 critics_reviews: 2 published: "2026-10-04T16:32:52.993558+00:00" updated: "2026-10-04T16:32:53.559144+00:00" region: "AU" 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." --- # Nine to Five (1980) Directed by Colin Higgins · 1h 50m · Comedy ## Identity Nine to Five - **Canonical:** https://film.one/film/nine-to-five - **Type:** Film - **Fi1m ID:** nine-to-five - **IMDb ID:** tt0080319 - **TMDB ID:** 19494 - **Wikidata ID:** Q1466657 - **Same entity:** https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080319/, https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/19494, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1466657 **Fi1m score: 73** · Critics: 2 of 6 reviews so far *In a sentence:* Dabney Coleman plays a boss so hateable we were plotting against him before the secretaries were > Colin Higgins’s office comedy is warm, broad and still angry under the laughs, with Lily Tomlin and Dolly Parton doing the heavy lifting and Dabney Coleman a boss worth every grudge. The farce it turns into is cruder than the setup deserves. ## Synopsis Judy Bernly (Jane Fonda), newly divorced and never before employed, starts her first day as a secretary in an office where the typing pool is women and the rooms behind the glass are men. Violet Newstead (Lily Tomlin), who runs the department, shows her round and warns her about the boss, Franklin M. Hart Jr. (Dabney Coleman), who has handed the promotion she was promised to a man she trained. Doralee Rhodes (Dolly Parton) is Hart’s secretary, frozen out because Hart has let the floor believe he is sleeping with her. Roz Keith (Elizabeth Wilson) carries every word back to him. After one bad day too many, the three end up in Violet’s living room with a bottle and a joint, trading fantasies about doing away with him. ## Review *Nine to Five* opens with a song and an alarm clock, and for its first half hour it is as sharp a workplace comedy as Hollywood has made. Three women work for a man who is, in the film’s own words, a sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot, and the first job of the script by Patricia Resnick and Colin Higgins is to make us believe every one of those words. It does, quickly and with detail. The second job is to let the women get their own back, and here Higgins reaches for farce rather than satire. The film gets louder and a little cheaper when he does. It is still a good evening. Lily Tomlin is the reason to watch. Violet has run the department for years, trained most of the men who are now above her, and takes bad news without moving her face. The scene in which Hart tells her the promotion has gone to a man because clients prefer dealing with men made us properly angry, and that anger is Tomlin’s doing: she does not raise her voice, she simply stands there and lets us watch her add it to a list. Dolly Parton, in her first film, arrives fully formed. She plays Doralee as a woman who knows exactly what everyone in the office thinks of her and has decided to be kind anyway, and when she finally tells Hart what she will do to him if he touches her again, it is the best speech in the film and she delivers it like a weather report. Jane Fonda is the odd one out. Judy is frightened and prim, with bows at her throat, and some of the stiffness is the point: this is a woman who has never worked and has just been left by her husband (Lawrence Pressman, briefly, as Dick Bernly). But the script keeps giving Fonda the straight lines while the other two get the jokes, and she looks as if she knows it. Dabney Coleman, meanwhile, plays Hart without a wink. He believes he is reasonable, which is why he is funny, and we laughed out loud at him more than once, usually in the second before one of the women did something about it. Reynaldo Villalobos shoots the office flat and bright, fluorescent tubes over beige partitions, and saves anything handsome for the fantasy sequences, each of which gets its own borrowed look. Dean Mitzner’s typing pool is rows of identical desks with a glass wall between the women and the men, so that you can always see who is watching whom. Ann Roth puts Parton in tight bright dresses and heels, Tomlin in brown suits, Fonda in ruffles, and you can read each woman’s position from her collar. Charles Fox’s score is light and stays out of the way of the jokes, which is the right decision. The trouble starts when the fantasies stop being fantasies. The second half takes a turn we will not describe, except to say that it involves a hospital, a mistake and a great deal of running about, and that Pembroke J. Herring’s editing, brisk in the first hour, starts to feel like three sitcom episodes stitched end to end. The women’s grievances were specific: pay, promotion, who gets the credit. The remedies, when they come, are tidy in a way that feels agreed in a meeting. Sterling Hayden turns up late as Russell Tinsworthy, and his scene lets the film off a hook it had taken some care to set. Higgins knows how to build a farce; it is simply that the first act of this one promised something with more teeth. The two reviews we have read are warmer on Tomlin and Parton than on the plot, and we are too. See it for them, for Coleman, and for Villalobos’s three small films inside the film. It runs 110 minutes and carries a 15, which seems severe for a picture whose worst offence is a joint. *Fi1m score 73, published 4 October 2026.* ## Straight answers **Is Nine to Five worth watching?** *Nine to Five* is worth watching for Lily Tomlin, Dolly Parton and Dabney Coleman, and we scored it 73. The first half hour is as sharp a workplace comedy as Hollywood has made; the second half turns into a broader, cheaper farce than the setup deserves. Still a good evening if office comedy is your genre. **How long is Nine to Five, and what is it rated?** *Nine to Five* runs 1h 50m. It is a comedy film. **Where can I watch Nine to Five in Australia?** *Nine to Five* is streaming on Stan, Disney+ and Netflix in Australia, and it is also available to buy from Amazon Prime Video from A$11.99. Availability is checked daily; the links above go straight to each service. **How violent or frightening is Nine to Five, and is it suitable for children?** *Nine to Five* carries a UK 15 certificate, which we think severe for a comedy whose worst offence is a joint shared in a living room. It contains no real violence or frights, only fantasy sequences in which three secretaries imagine doing away with their boss, and a sleazy manager who lies about sleeping with his secretary. Older children and teenagers should be fine with it. **How does Nine to Five compare to Working Girl?** *Nine to Five* is the angrier and broader of the two, a farce about three secretaries getting even with a hateful boss, while [*Working Girl*](https://film.one/film/working-girl) is a warmer corporate comedy about one secretary climbing past hers. Mike Nichols's film is the more consistent; Colin Higgins's has the sharper first act and the funnier villain. Take *Nine to Five* for Tomlin and Parton, *Working Girl* for the office manoeuvring. **What should I watch after Nine to Five?** After *Nine to Five*, try [*Working Girl*](https://film.one/film/working-girl) (1988, Fi1m 80): Melanie Griffith takes the Manhattan typing pool and Sigourney Weaver plays the boss this time. Then [*The Apartment*](https://film.one/film/the-apartment) (1960, Fi1m 91): Billy Wilder’s office, where the men behind the glass are even worse and nobody sings; and [*Office Space*](https://film.one/film/office-space) (1999, Fi1m 80): The same revenge fantasy twenty years on, with a printer standing in for the boss. ### Reviews we read (2) - **Variety**, Variety Staff (70/100, inferred): The review finds the film a lot of fun despite moments when its script borders on the inane. It singles out Lily Tomlin as the most appealing performer and praises Dolly Parton’s delightful screen debut. [Read](https://variety.com/1979/film/reviews/nine-to-five-1200424692/) - **Radio Times**, Peter Freedman (3/5): The critic finds the comedy cheerful, with Tomlin and Parton especially impressive. Their performances stand out amid the story of colleagues plotting revenge on their sexist boss. [Read](https://www.radiotimes.com/movie-guide/b-ryn3yq/nine-to-five/) ## Details - **Director:** Colin Higgins - **Director:** Colin Higgins - **Screenplay:** Colin Higgins, Patricia Resnick - **Story:** Patricia Resnick - **Cinematography:** Reynaldo Villalobos - **Editor:** Pembroke J. Herring - **Music:** Charles Fox - **Production design:** Dean Mitzner - **Costume design:** Ann Roth - **Producer:** Bruce Gilbert - **Cast:** Jane Fonda as Judy Bernly; Lily Tomlin as Violet Newstead; Dolly Parton as Doralee Rhodes; Dabney Coleman as Franklin M. Hart Jr.; Sterling Hayden as Russell Tinsworthy; Elizabeth Wilson as Roz Keith; Henry Jones as Mr. Hinkle; Lawrence Pressman as Dick Bernly - **Runtime:** 1h 50m - **First release (France):** 18 December 1980 - **Genres:** Comedy - **Budget:** $10 million - **Box office:** $103 million - **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3R2WsyoS2FM ## Where to watch in Australia - Stan: streaming, hd - Disney+: streaming, hd - Netflix: streaming - Amazon Prime Video: buy A$11.99, hd *Checked 2026-10-04.* Also available in: AR, AT, AU, BE, BG, BR, CA, CH, CL, CO, DE, DK, EC, ES, FI, FR, GB, HK, HR, IE, IS, IT, JP, MX, NL, NO, NZ, PA, PE, RS, SE, SG, SI, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## If you liked this - *Working Girl* (1988), Fi1m 80: Melanie Griffith takes the Manhattan typing pool and Sigourney Weaver plays the boss this time. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/working-girl.md) - *The Apartment* (1960), Fi1m 91: Billy Wilder’s office, where the men behind the glass are even worse and nobody sings. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/the-apartment.md) - *Office Space* (1999), Fi1m 80: The same revenge fantasy twenty years on, with a printer standing in for the boss. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/office-space.md) - *Clockwatchers* (1997): Four temps, one quiet office and a far smaller, sadder kind of rebellion. - *Toni Erdmann* (2016), Fi1m 86: A German father embarrasses his corporate daughter for 160 minutes; funnier and stranger than it sounds. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/toni-erdmann.md) --- © 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/nine-to-five