DVD
Upcoming Release Calendar
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores
Best / Worst of the Decade
Recent DVD/Video Releases
68
$9.99
49
2012
56
Adam
37
Amelia
35
Babysitters, The
86
Beaches of Agnes, The
19
Bitch Slap
65
Black Dynamite
71
Bliss
24
Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day, The
47
Box, The
57
Boys Are Back, The
51
Breakfast with Scot
81
Bright Star
71
Bronson
61
Capitalism: A Love Story
57
Chelsea on the Rocks
43
Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant
65
Coco Before Chanel
69
Cold Souls
23
Couples Retreat
75
Crude
81
Damned United, The
54
Dare
61
Dead Snow
68
End of the Line, The
55
Endgame
47
Everybody's Fine
64
Examined Life
xx
Falling for Grace
31
Fix
74
Flame & Citron
xx
From Mexico with Love
28
Gentlemen Broncos
64
Gigante
50
Give Me Your Hand
72
Good Hair
73
House of the Devil, The
82
Hunger
17
I Hate Valentine's Day
26
I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell
66
Informant!, The
34
Law Abiding Citizen
41
Little Ashes
33
Love Happens
67
Michael Jackson's This Is It
59
More Than a Game
34
Motherhood
49
New York, I Love You
19
Old Dogs
47
Ong Bak 2: The Beginning
68
Paris
44
Peter and Vandy
39
Planet 51
54
Pontypool
86
Ponyo
79
Precious: Based on the Novel by Sapphire
49
Private Lives of Pippa Lee, The
84
Revanche
30
Saw VI
69
September Issue, The
79
Serious Man, A
36
Serious Moonlight
70
Shall We Kiss?
24
Sorority Row
76
Soul Power
40
Spiral
41
Splinterheads
39
St. Trinian's
33
Stepfather, The
50
Stoning of Soraya M., The
45
Surrogates
47
Time Traveler's Wife
65
Vicious Kind, The
69
We Live in Public
65
Wedding Song, The
71
Where the Wild Things Are
67
Whip It
43
Women in Trouble
73
Zombieland
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
Big Fan
EMAILPRINTFirst Independent Pictures
Generally favorable reviews
Based on 27 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 7 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Drama
Written by: Robert Siegel
Directed by: Robert Siegel
Release Date:
Theatrical: August 28, 2009
DVD: January 12, 2010
Running Time: 86 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: R for language and some sexuality
Starring Patton Oswalt, Kevin Corrigan, Michael Rapaport, and Marcia Jean Kurtz
Paul Aufiero, a 35-year-old parking-garage attendant from Staten Island, is the self-described "world's biggest New York Giants fan". He lives at home with his mother, spending his off hours calling in to local sports-radio station 760 The Zone, where he rants in support of his beloved team, often against his mysterious on-air rival, Eagles fan Philadelphia Phil. His family berates him for doing nothing with his life, but they don't understand the depth of his love of the Giants or the responsibility his fandom carries. One night, Paul and his best friend Sal spot Giants star linebacker Quantrell Bishop at a gas station in their neighborhood. They impulsively follow his limo into Manhattan, to a strip club, where they hang in the background, agog at their hero. Paul cautiously decides to approach him, stepping into the rarefied air of football stardom--and things do not go as planned. The fallout of this chance encounter brings Paul's world crashing down around him as his family, the team, the media and the authorities engage in a tug of war over Paul, testing his allegiances and calling into question everything he believes in. Meanwhile, the Giants march toward a late-season showdown with the Eagles, unaware that sometimes the most brutal struggles take place far from the field of play. (First Independent Pictures)
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
The movie is an unblinking look at the hidden (or perhaps not so hidden) pathology of American sports mania.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan
Starring an ideally cast Patton Oswalt in the title role, Big Fan is a poignant, dead-on character study, an examination of a crisis in the life of the most die-hard of die-hard New York Giants football fans.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Ty Burr
A bleakly funny character study of a very particular species of urban fauna - the sports radio call-in fanatic - Big Fan’ is compulsively watchable.
Read Full Review >St. Louis Post-Dispatch Joe Williams
Near the two-minute warning, Big Fan becomes chillingly unpredictable.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
One of the more thought-provoking sports movies I've seen.
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian Marc Mohan
Oswalt sells Auferio's pasty indecision and makes him a more sympathetic figure than he has any right to be.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Noel Murray
Because the audience isn’t privy to the hero’s thoughts, the final 15 minutes or so of Big Fan are white-knuckle.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Manohla Dargis
A spasmodically funny and bleak film about the love that speaks its name.
Read Full Review >Time Out New York David Fear
Unlike "The Wrestler," which Siegel scripted, Big Fan has a way of making a socially marginal figure seem oddly charismatic without stacking the sympathy deck.
Read Full Review >Rolling Stone Peter Travers
Comedian Patton Oswalt triumphantly nails every comic and dramatic nuance as Paul Aufiero, a New York Giants obsessive who has long ago moved from fan to fanatic.
Read Full Review >Premiere Staff (Not credited)
There are some very funny parts but this isn’t a typical sports comedy.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea
Siegel, in his debut as director, shot the low-budget Big Fan on a digital camera and achieves an appropriately grimy, gritty look. He has an eye for the telling detail and for the comedy in tragedy.
Read Full Review >New York Post Kyle Smith
Superb Noo Yawk attitude, dialogue and performances (including one from the essential Kevin Corrigan, now well into his second decade of being indie movies' dirtbag on demand) keep the movie lively and tart.
Read Full Review >Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow
Siegel takes us to the brink of operatic melodrama, then lands us in a tragicomic spot: a psychological landscape of alternate life and make-believe death.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader J.R. Jones
Though the movie isn’t much to look at, he (Siegel) gets a credibly dark and pathetic performance from the typically comic Oswalt.
Read Full Review >Slate Dana Stevens
With its unremittingly bleak humor and eagerness to plumb the depths of fanboy abjection, Big Fan seems destined for a future in the cult canon.
Read Full Review >The Hollywood Reporter Duane Byrge
It's an unsettling, "Taxi Driver"-like character study that shows the underside to hero worship and the primal world of professional football.
Read Full Review >Variety Todd McCarthy
It's a small, peculiar film, one unlikely to appeal much to women, non-sports fans and mainstreamers, but its uncomfortable comic insights should win it a loyal following.
Read Full Review >Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer
Oswalt captures the rabidness of the die-hard fan, the kind you can hear at any moment on the sports talk shows.
Read Full Review >Film Threat Whitney Borup
Comes across as a little uneven, but far from unsatisfactory. Patton Oswalt is sympathetic (at times heart breaking) and makes the film completely worth watching.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten
One thing Siegel got absolutely right in this film is the casting.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Ann Hornaday
Siegel's depiction of the film's supporting characters too often borders on caricature. By the movie's strained, overheated climax, it's clear that Siegel, in his directing debut, is less interested in his protagonist as a character capable of transformation than as a human petri dish of futility and pathology.
Read Full Review >Village Voice Vadim Rizov
It takes considerable effort to make Darren Aronofsky seem like a model of restraint, but Robert Siegel pulls it off in Big Fan.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen
This is a flick whose failures are at least as interesting as the successes.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Joe Neumaier
The movie gets repetitive, and when it calls an audible and goes somewhere unexpected, it pulls back quickly. Too bad.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 7.8 (out of 10) based on 7 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Thelma S gave it a10:
Perfection - even non-sports fan will love this.
George M gave it an8:
If you ever wanted to know what a "mook" would look like, check out this movie. A refreshing look at people who are, at once, very real and very stereotypical. Gives a good name to Indie Film making. Surprisingly funny and sad.
