--- title: "Showgirls: the reviews" canonical: "https://film.one/film/showgirls/reviews" title_page: "https://film.one/film/showgirls" critics_score: 34 critics_reviews: 9 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." --- # Showgirls (1995): what the critics said Critics' score 34 from 9 reviews: 2 positive, 0 mixed, 7 negative. Most critics are strongly negative about Showgirls, finding its sexual spectacle dramatically thin and largely unerotic. The recurring complaints concern formulaic plotting, poor dialogue and performances that offer little convincing human interest. Praise is more scattered: production values, camp humour and the energy of the lead performance earn some credit even in hostile reviews. The reviews repeatedly recognise excess, but few regard it as a virtue. The split is sharp rather than evenly balanced, with two favourable readings against seven negative ones. Slant Magazine sees an audacious satire of mass culture with a humanistic sensibility, while The Guardian embraces the crass absurdity and Berkley’s committed strangeness. Sight and Sound instead argues that the film’s supposed female sexual power disguises exploitation. Collider offers a qualified dissent on its erotic appeal, finding pleasure in the dance and nudity despite condemning the acting and script. ## Slant Magazine Fi1m's normalised score 70/100 (inferred from the text). 15 June 2010. The Blu-ray edition highlights the film's audacious experimental qualities as a satire of the Dream Factory and mass culture, praising its cast, direction, and humanistic sensibility amid its excesses. [Read the review](https://www.slantmagazine.com/dvd/showgirls-1751/) ## The Guardian Fi1m's normalised score 70/100 (inferred from the text). 4 June 2025. The critic portrays Showgirls as a bizarre kitsch-classic that has risen from critical flop to cult favourite through its crassness and absurdity, calling it perhaps the last great mainstream exploitation picture. Berkley’s wildly inconsistent, Stepford-like performance is singled out as both baffling and awe-inspiring in its committed strangeness. [Read the review](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/jun/04/showgirls-review-paul-verhoeven-erotic-melodrama) ## RogerEbert.com — Roger Ebert Fi1m's normalised score 30/100 (inferred from the text). 22 September 1995. Ebert views the film as a juvenile, un-erotic sleazefest rooted in screenwriter Joe Eszterhas' limited sexual fantasies, with a thin 'All About Eve' plot updated by gratuitous violence and nudity. He praises the production values, energetic lead performance, and occasional trashy humor but concludes it wastes its NC-17 rating. [Read the review](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/showgirls-1995) ## Sight and Sound — Claire Monk Fi1m's normalised score 30/100 (inferred from the text). The critic finds the film prurient and voyeuristic, with a flawed, self-justificatory conception of female sexual 'power' that exploits its performers. She singles out the absence of any genuine female sexual pleasure and the way sex is reduced to spectacle and commodity. [Read the review](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/reviews/one-thing-this-endlessly-prurient-film-never-shows-female-sexual-pleasure-showgirls-reviewed-1996) ## Time Out — WH Fi1m's normalised score 30/100 (inferred from the text). 7 January 2015. The review calls the script by-numbers and the film misanthropic overall, recycling a familiar ingénue-in-the-big-city tale with added toplessness and red-light excess from the opening sequence onward. [Read the review](https://www.timeout.com/movies/showgirls) ## The New York Times — Janet Maslin Fi1m's normalised score 20/100 (inferred from the text). 22 September 1995. Maslin calls the film an instant camp classic that fails as both drama and erotica, resulting in a bare-butted bore. She singles out the absence of acting talent, drama, and Verhoeven's usual sexy, malevolent energy, leaving it cold, joyless, and contrived. [Read the review](https://www.nytimes.com/1995/09/22/movies/film-review.html) ## Empire — William Thomas Fi1m's normalised score 10/100 (inferred from the text). 1 January 2000. The critic calls the film a swindle that fails to deliver on its titillating hype, with rotten acting and little genuine eroticism despite the nudity. It is dramatically limp and about as arousing as choreographed nude livestock. [Read the review](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/showgirls-review/) ## Variety — Todd McCarthy Fi1m's normalised score 10/100 (inferred from the text). 22 September 1995. McCarthy finds the film impossibly vulgar, tawdry, and coarse, akin to being keelhauled through a cesspool. He criticizes the debasing sexualization of every exchange, lack of characterization or human interest, unappealing lead performance, and failure to eroticize its subject matter despite matching Vegas's vulgar sensibility. [Read the review](https://variety.com/1995/film/reviews/showgirls-1200442765/) ## Collider — Emma Kiely Rating D. 15 February 2023. The critic finds the film a hot mess with terrible acting by Berkley and poor dialogue and scripting, but praises its camp value, eroticism through dance and nudity, and enduring cult appeal as visually spectacular entertainment worth watching despite its flaws. [Read the review](https://collider.com/showgirls-movie-review/) --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Our review: https://film.one/film/showgirls.md