Natural Born Killers

1994
R
1h 59m

IMDb RATING

7.2/10

256K

YOUR RATING

POPULARITY

Play trailer1:44

Dark Romance Serial Killer Action Crime Romance

Two victims of traumatized childhoods become lovers and psychopathic serial murderers irresponsibly glorified by the mass media.Two victims of traumatized childhoods become lovers and psychopathic serial murderers irresponsibly glorified by the mass media.Two victims of traumatized childhoods become lovers and psychopathic serial murderers irresponsibly glorified by the mass media.

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

7.2/10

256K

YOUR RATING

POPULARITY

1,821

267

See production info at IMDbPro

Awards
- 5 wins & 10 nominations

Trivia
Coca-Cola approved the use of the Polar Bear ads for its product in the movie without having a full idea of what the movie was about; when the Board of Directors saw the finished product, they were furious.

Goofs
Mickey shaves his head right before the interview, but as he is led to the interview room there is a shot of his neck with chains on it, and you can see his hair.

Quotes
Old Indian: Once upon a time, a woman was picking up firewood. She came upon a poisonous snake frozen in the snow. She took the snake home and nursed it back to health. One day the snake bit her on the cheek. As she lay dying, she asked the snake, "Why have you done this to me?" And the snake answered, "Look, bitch, you knew I was a snake."

Crazy credits
The end credits are superimposed over a vast amount of stock footage, ranging from the future of Mickey and Mallory, stock A-Bomb tests, childhood photos of Mickey and Mallory, time-lapse footage, scenes from the movie, and so on.

Alternate versions
The Director's Cut features roughly 4 minutes of material removed from the theatrical version prior to release in order to get a R rating. Here are details of the additional scenes, in chronological order:
there are three additional shots in the pre-credits scene in the diner. The first is found when Mallory knocks Sonny (Richard Lineback) over the partition. In the theatrical cut, the scene immediately cuts to Sonny's friend (James Gammon) getting up out of his chair to intervene. But in the Director's Cut however, there is an additional shot of Mallory slamming Sonny's head into a table, and blood spraying across the surface of the table. Next, when Mickey slits Sonny's friend's stomach, there are three additional slashes not found in the theatrical cut. Lastly, as Mallory jumps up and down on Sonny's back, there is an additional shot of her grabbing his blood soaked head and pounding it into the ground;
the death of Ed Wilson (Rodney Dangerfield) has one additional shot as Wilson is leaning up against the wall prior to being dunked into the fish-tank, and Mickey hits him with the tire-iron across the back of the head;
as Mallory drives to the garage after arguing with Mickey about the hostage (Corinna Laszlo), there is a brief shot of Mickey raping the hostage in the motel room;
Jack Scagnetti's (Tom Sizemore) murder of Pinky (Lorraine Farris) contains an additional shot of Scagnetti with his hands around her throat and her struggling underneath him, whilst he keeps on saying to her, "I'm only kidding, I'm only kidding";
when Mickey kills the pharmacist (Glen Chin) at DrugZone, there are two additional shots; one showing the pharmacist's blood spraying onto the glass divide, the other showing the clerk falling to his knees and dying;
the scene where the police beat up Mallory outside the pharmacist contains a few extra shots of policemen punching her;
as Mickey attempts to kill the guards in the cell after the interview has been terminated, there are several additional shots showing members of Wayne Gale's (Robert Downey Jr.) crew being shot and killed;
after Mickey has taken control of the TV crew, he 'persuades' Kavanaugh (Pruitt Taylor Vince) to come with them by breaking his fingers;
the prison riot sequences contain numerous additional shots. Four particularly obvious ones are: a guard is shoved into a washing machine, which is then turned on; a guard has his head pushed in under a steam press; a guard is thrown into an industrial oven; a guard is flung from the top story of the prison;
the scene where Scagnetti sprays mace in Mallory's eyes is longer, with a more sustained spraying, whilst the guards hit her;
a tracking shot in a barber's during the riot show inmates slitting the throats of other inmates;
during the riot, the scene where the prisoner throws a stick of dynamite into a door way is extended; after the dynamite has been thrown, there is a shot of the explosion and a prisoner being flung from the room and rebounding off the wall;
in the scene where Mickey rescues Mallory from Jack Scagnetti, there are additional shots of the bullets hitting the guards;
there are more shots of Jack Scagnetti trashing about on the ground after being stabbed, prior to being shot;
when Mallory holds the gun to Scagnetti's head and asks him if he still wants her, in the theatrical version, she pulls the trigger immediately. In the Director's Cut, there is a shot of Scagnetti screaming;
as Mickey, Mallory, and the others flee Mallory's cell, they are ambushed, and Wayne Gale's crew is wiped out. In the theatrical version, little is seen of this, but in the Director's Cut, there are clear shots of his crew being gunned down, especially Julie (Terrylene), who is killed in slow motion;
during the standoff at the stairs, Dwight McClusky (Tommy Lee Jones) orders the guards to open fire at Mickey because Kavanaugh (Pruitt Taylor Vince), who Mickey is using as a shield, is already dead. In the theatrical version, when McClusky gives the order to fire, there is an awkward cut to Mallory holding Wayne Gale, and the guards never fire. In the Director's Cut, the guards open fire, riddling Kavanaugh's (still living) body with bullets.
after Mallory shoots Wayne Gale's hand, there is a brief shot through the hole created by the bullet, looking down at McClusky;
McClusky's death is far more explicit. After being dragged down from the gate by the inmates, in the theatrical version, we never see him again, but in the Director's Cut, after a moment, a prisoner raises a spear, with McClusky's severed head perched on top;
Wayne Gale's death scene is longer and includes more shots of the bullets hitting him;
numerous additional shots of the subliminal demons are scattered throughout the film.

Connections
Edited from Captain Sindbad (1963)

Soundtracks
Waiting for the Miracle
Written by Leonard Cohen & Sharon Robinson
Performed by Leonard Cohen
Courtesy of Columbia Records
by arrangement with Sony Music Licensing

User reviews723

Review

Featured review

10/10

Hypnotic, but...

...people really need to take another look at "Natural Born Killers."

The plot: Mickey and Mallory Knox (Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis in roles that are a little too convincing) are a husband/wife pair of serial killers whose vicious crime spree across the country has made them into media superstars.

This movie is a barrage of frightening and surreal images, and is damn near hypnotic to watch.

I can see where the controversy surrounding this film comes from but what I don't understand is where the hate is coming from.

1994's "Natural Born Killers" has to be one of the best movies of the 90s - its sole purpose on this planet is to showcase America's fascination with violence.

But lets try to understand the hate. This movie is here for one reason and I think that we can all agree on that reason. Oliver Stone is a competent and accomplished filmmaker and most of the hate seems to be directed towards him. Stone, who is working from a script that has since been virtually disowned by Quentin Tarantino, pretty much took over and shaped the screenplay to his own vision.

I can understand why fans of Tarantino have a right to be p*ssed off, but I find it extremely difficult to believe that they truly hate the finished product, and the same goes for Tarantino. Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge Tarantino fan myself, and I'm sure he didn't appreciate Stone re-writing his script, but he should be proud of what was done with it.

The message, if you can call it that, is that we are obsessed with violence, and Stone exposes our love for it and spits it back in our faces. To quote Marlon Brando - "The horror, the horror." I say to hell with the hypocritical people who find this movie offensive for they are the ones that this movie is truly aimed towards.

Yes, horrific images are displayed in this movie and terrible things happen to people all throughout, but it's giving us we want, and we hate it. The hate surrounding this film is extremely misguided. My high school paper recently did an article about sex and violence on television and one of the supposed outlets of that violence would be our fascination with the war in Iraq and the Jessica Lynch story.

It said that we are much, much more concerned with the sex (I personally don't think today's teenage girls are THAT impressionable, but who knows?), rather than the violence (which apparently seems to be causing a misguided sh!tstorm of controversy, too, and like the sex, I don't think that people are that impressionable), namely the kind that is seen in music videos and such. Though the article refused to go into specifics (but we know who the people being discussed are and I'm sure they do, too), it brings me back to "Natural Born Killers," which I think people need to take another look at.

In this day and age, violence on television is becoming more and more commonplace, and this movie's relevance seems to make its viewing that much more important. Before we go and continue to bash the hell out of it again, people need to come back and take a look around themselves and watch "Natural Born Killers."