---
title: "The Blue Lagoon"
year: 1980
kind: "film"
canonical: "https://film.one/film/the-blue-lagoon"
fi1m_id: "the-blue-lagoon"
imdb_id: "tt0080453"
tmdb_id: 5689
wikidata_id: "Q83767"
fi1m_score: 46
critics_score: 48
critics_reviews: 5
published: "2026-10-04T16:42:31.867618+00:00"
updated: "2026-10-04T16:43:04.132745+00:00"
region: "HK"
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."
---

# The Blue Lagoon (1980)

Directed by Randal Kleiser · 1h 44m · Adventure, Drama, Romance

## Identity

The Blue Lagoon

- **Canonical:** https://film.one/film/the-blue-lagoon
- **Type:** Film
- **Fi1m ID:** the-blue-lagoon
- **IMDb ID:** tt0080453
- **TMDB ID:** 5689
- **Wikidata ID:** Q83767
- **Same entity:** https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080453/, https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/5689, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q83767

**Fi1m score: 46** · Critics 48 (early) from 5 reviews

*In a sentence:* Two beautiful children, one beautiful island, and not a single interesting thought between the three of them

> Néstor Almendros photographs a Fijian lagoon so well that you can nearly forgive what happens in front of it. Randal Kleiser’s version of the Stacpoole novel is sweet-natured, handsome and close to empty; see it for the water, not the words.

## Synopsis

Aboard a Victorian sailing ship in the South Pacific, young cousins Richard (Glenn Kohan) and Emmeline (Elva Josephson) are travelling with Richard’s father, Arthur Lestrange (William Daniels). Fire breaks out below decks, and in the smoke the children are bundled into a rowing boat with the ship’s cook, Paddy Button (Leo McKern). They drift for days and land on an empty island with a lagoon, a white beach and thick jungle. Paddy teaches them to fish and build a shelter, drinks from a salvaged cask, and forbids them the far side of the island. Soon the children are on their own. Years pass, and they grow into Richard (Christopher Atkins) and Emmeline (Brooke Shields), with nobody to tell them what is happening to their bodies.

## Review

Randal Kleiser’s film of Henry De Vere Stacpoole’s novel has an idea that is at least worth an evening’s argument. Take two Victorian children, strand them where no adult can reach them, and watch what love and sex look like when nobody has explained either. Douglas Day Stewart’s script sets this up cleanly in twenty minutes. The trouble is that the film is as innocent as its characters. It does not know anything either, and it has 104 minutes to fill.

The first twenty are the best. The ship is all fog and tar and ropes, the fire below decks is lit by its own flames, and Leo McKern’s Paddy Button rows two frightened children out into open water while swearing cheerfully at the sea. McKern is the only actor here giving a performance in the ordinary sense. He teaches the children to spear fish and bury their dead, gets drunk on a salvaged cask, and tells them with real menace to stay off the far side of the island. When the film loses him it loses its only grown-up and its only joke, and it never finds another of either.

Then the children grow up, and the film’s problem arrives in two swimsuits. Brooke Shields and Christopher Atkins look exactly as the story needs them to look, and that is most of what they do. Stewart gives them dialogue made of questions about bodies, which is meant to be touching and plays like a public information film with better scenery. Atkins grins through it. Shields has one expression for wonder and another for alarm and is asked for very little else. They are not bad so much as unguided, and Kleiser, who had just made [*Grease*](https://film.one/film/grease), seems to have trusted that the island would do the acting for them.

We laughed, more than once, at lines delivered with total sincerity about where babies come from, and then we felt uncomfortable about laughing, and then uncomfortable for a different reason. The camera lingers on these two very young people in a way the story does not ask for. The film wants to be about innocence, and it keeps interrupting itself to admire what innocence looks like from behind. That is the thing we could not get past, and no amount of lovely water washed it off.

The water is lovely, though. Almendros shoots the lagoon in soft morning light, the surface a pale green you can see the bottom through, and his underwater passages, with the children turning slowly among the fish, are calm in a way the rest of the film is not. He holds wide shots long enough for the island to feel like a place rather than a set. Jean-Pierre Dorléac’s costumes shrink sensibly from sailor’s clothes to rags to almost nothing, and the progression tells the passing of time better than the script does.

Basil Poledouris scores every sunset with strings that rise whether or not anything has happened, and after an hour we stopped hearing them as music. Robert Gordon cuts the middle of the film as a run of short scenes that are all the same scene: swimming, building, growing taller, swimming again. It is not that nothing happens. It is that the same thing happens, in a slightly different light, for forty minutes.

What the two of them arrive at, left entirely to themselves, is a hut, a hearth and a quarrel about who does the cooking, and the film appears to think this proves something about human nature. We think it proves that nobody involved could imagine any other way to live. The castaway story has been used to ask hard questions about what people are when the rules are gone. This one answers before anybody asks.

It is a 15 certificate, and the reason is on screen for much of the running time, which parents may want to know. Watch it for Almendros, with something to read on your lap for when the strings start up. Most critics have been harder on it than we have, and we understand why; we are only being kind to the light.

*Fi1m score 46, published 4 October 2026.*

## Straight answers

**Is The Blue Lagoon worth watching?**

*The Blue Lagoon* is worth watching only for Néstor Almendros's photography of the lagoon, and we scored it 46. The first twenty minutes, with Leo McKern's drunken ship's cook, are the best of it; once Brooke Shields and Christopher Atkins take over, the film has little to say and a camera that admires them more than the story needs.

**How long is The Blue Lagoon, and what is it rated?**

*The Blue Lagoon* runs 1h 44m. It is an adventure and drama film.

**Where can I watch The Blue Lagoon in Hong Kong?**

*The Blue Lagoon* is streaming on Netflix in Hong Kong. Availability is checked daily; the links above go straight to each service.

**How violent or frightening is The Blue Lagoon, and is it suitable for children?**

*The Blue Lagoon* is a 15 certificate in the UK and R in the US, and it is not suitable for children. There is little violence beyond a shipboard fire and a death on the island; the certificate is for nudity and sexual content involving two very young leads, which runs through much of the film and which we found uncomfortable to watch.

**How does The Blue Lagoon compare to Walkabout?**

*The Blue Lagoon* and [*Walkabout*](https://film.one/film/walkabout) both strand children in a wilderness, and *Walkabout* is much the better film. Nicolas Roeg finds the strangeness and disquiet in children alone in a hostile landscape; Randal Kleiser's film is sweet-natured and handsome but close to empty. Choose *Walkabout* if you want to be moved, *The Blue Lagoon* only for the water.

**Is The Blue Lagoon based on a true story or a book?**

*The Blue Lagoon* is based on Henry De Vere Stacpoole's novel of the same name, not on a true story. Douglas Day Stewart's script keeps the premise of two Victorian children growing up alone on a Pacific island; you need not have read the book, and the film's problems are its own rather than inherited from the source.

**What should I watch after The Blue Lagoon?**

After *The Blue Lagoon*, try [*Walkabout*](https://film.one/film/walkabout) (1971, Fi1m 85): Two children lost in the Australian bush; Roeg finds the strangeness this film keeps missing. Then [*Days of Heaven*](https://film.one/film/days-of-heaven) (1978, Fi1m 85): Almendros again, shooting wheat fields at dusk, in a film that deserves him; and [*Tabu*](https://film.one/film/tabu-a-story-of-the-south-seas) (1931, Fi1m 80): Murnau’s South Seas romance, silent, and far more honest about what paradise costs.

### Reviews we read (5)

- **Variety**, Variety Staff (80/100, inferred): The review regards the film as a charming, low-key love story. It particularly praises Nestor Almendros’ photography and the natural candor of the leads’ romance. [Read](https://variety.com/1979/film/reviews/the-blue-lagoon-2-1200424642/)
- **Time Out** (64/100, inferred): The available description does not provide the critic’s verdict. It singles out the film’s pre-Internet-porn appeal and premise of two children stranded on an island. [Read](https://www.timeout.com/los-angeles/film/the-blue-lagoon)
- **Radio Times**, Lorien Haynes (2/5): Haynes finds the film beautifully shot but ultimately very silly. She criticizes its traditional marriage-and-baby values as implausible for the isolated couple. [Read](https://www.radiotimes.com/movie-guide/b-i6suvf/the-blue-lagoon/)
- **RogerEbert.com**, Roger Ebert (1.5/4): Ebert’s verdict is negative. The accessible page does not reveal what he singled out for praise or complaint. [Read](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-blue-lagoon-1980)
- **Empire**, Ian Nathan (20/100, inferred): Nathan dismisses the film as silly and inert, with performances he finds ridiculous. He praises cinematographer Nestor Almendros for the tranquil beauty of the Fiji locations. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/blue-lagoon-review/)

## Details

- **Director:** Randal Kleiser
- **Director:** Randal Kleiser
- **Writer:** Douglas Day Stewart
- **Novel:** Henry De Vere Stacpoole
- **Cinematography:** Néstor Almendros
- **Editor:** Robert Gordon
- **Music:** Basil Poledouris
- **Costume design:** Jean-Pierre Dorléac
- **Producer:** Randal Kleiser
- **Cast:** Brooke Shields as Emmeline; Christopher Atkins as Richard; Leo McKern as Paddy Button; William Daniels as Arthur Lestrange; Jeffrey Kleiser as Lookout; Gus Mercurio as Officer; Elva Josephson as Young Emmeline; Glenn Kohan as Young Richard
- **Runtime:** 1h 44m
- **First release (the US):** 5 July 1980
- **Genres:** Adventure, Drama, Romance
- **Budget:** $4 million
- **Box office:** $59 million
- **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYhhph8uZyk

## Where to watch in Hong Kong

- Netflix: streaming

*Checked 2026-10-04.*

Also available in: AT, BE, CA, CL, CZ, DE, DK, ES, FR, GB, HK, ID, IE, IS, IT, JP, MX, MY, NL, NO, NZ, PH, PL, PT, RO, SE, SG, TH, US, VN. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country.

## Awards

- Academy Awards 1981: Best Cinematography (nominated)
- Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Actress 1981: Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Actress (won)

## If you liked this

- *Walkabout* (1971), Fi1m 85: Two children lost in the Australian bush; Roeg finds the strangeness this film keeps missing. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/walkabout.md)
- *Days of Heaven* (1978), Fi1m 85: Almendros again, shooting wheat fields at dusk, in a film that deserves him. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/days-of-heaven.md)
- *Lord of the Flies* (1963): Peter Brook’s children on an island come to rather different conclusions about human nature.
- *Tabu* (1931), Fi1m 80: Murnau’s South Seas romance, silent, and far more honest about what paradise costs. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/tabu-a-story-of-the-south-seas.md)
- *Swiss Family Robinson* (1960): The cheerful Disney shipwreck; treehouses, tigers and nobody asking awkward questions.

---
© 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/the-blue-lagoon