| After Hours | |
|---|---|
_POSTER.jpg) Theatrical release poster by Marvin Mattelson[1] | |
| Directed by | Martin Scorsese |
| Written by | Joseph Minion |
| Produced by | |
| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Michael Ballhaus |
| Edited by | Thelma Schoonmaker |
| Music by | Howard Shore |
Production company | Double Play[2] |
| Distributed by | The Geffen Company (throughWarner Bros.)[2] |
Release date |
|
Running time | 97 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $4.5 million[3] |
| Box office | $10.6 million[4] |
After Hours is a 1985 Americanneo-noirblack comedy film[5] directed byMartin Scorsese, written byJoseph Minion, and produced byAmy Robinson,Griffin Dunne, andRobert F. Colesberry. Dunne stars as Paul Hackett, an office worker who experiences a series of misadventures while attempting to make his way home from Manhattan'sSoHo district during the night.
After Hours was critically acclaimed for its black humor, and is now considered to be acult classic. As of 2026, it is Scorsese's most recent film that is not an adaptation or biopic.
The film won theIndependent Spirit Award for Best Feature. Scorsese won theCannes Film Festival Award for Best Director and theIndependent Spirit Award for Best Director for the film.
Late one evening, mild-mannered New York computer clerk Paul Hackett strikes up a conversation with Marcy Franklin at a café. Paul is intrigued by the quirky stranger – whose roommate, sculptor Kiki Bridges, makes and sellsplaster-of-Paris paperweights resembling bagels – and accepts her phone number. Later, Paul takes a taxi to herSoHo apartment, but his only$20 bill flies out the taxi window, leaving him virtually penniless and earning the driver's wrath.
At the apartment, Kiki is working on a largepapier-mâché sculpture of a screaming man while Marcy is out. When Marcy returns, her erratic behavior and Paul's discovery of burn cream and ominous photos convince him that she is severely disfigured and unstable. Unnerved, he abandons the date. Attempting to take the subway home, he learns the fare has jumped at midnight, and he cannot afford to pay. Paul goes to a bar tended by Tom, who lends Paul his apartment key to retrieve the key for the bar's cash register, but Paul floods the bathroom and is nearly lynched by suspicious residents. On the street, Paul confronts two thieves hauling away Kiki's sculpture and chases them off. Returning the sculpture to the apartment, he discovers that Marcy has committed suicide by overdosing onSeconal. Her body shows no burns, disproving Paul's misconceptions about her.
On the way out, Paul grabs a note from Kiki inviting him and Marcy to Club Berlin. On his way there, Paul runs into the bar's waitress Julie, who brings him up to her apartment and flirts aggressively. After Paul scorns her, she brands him the neighborhood burglar via handmade wanted posters. Paul is denied entry into Club Berlin for lacking amohawk, and punks chase him with clippers. After retrieving his $20 bill from Kiki's sculpture, he encounters the original taxi driver, who robs him. Paul meets aMister Softee ice cream truck driver named Gail, who initially offers aid but later joins the mob hunting him after seeing Julie's posters. Paul approaches a man for help, but his plea is mistaken for a sexual proposition. He then calls the police, but is ignored.
Paul ducks into the now-empty Club Berlin. Exhausted, bedraggled, and ranting, Paul drops his last coin into the jukebox forPeggy Lee's "Is That All There Is?", and dances with June, an older sculptress living beneath the club. June hides him from the mob by covering him in papier-mâché, disguising him as a sculpture resembling Kiki's screaming man, but the plaster hardens. The two thieves break in, mistake the rigid Paul for the sculpture they dropped earlier, and haul him away in their van. During a sharp turnuptown, the rear doors swing open; Paul tumbles out, smashing onto the pavement directly in front of hisMidtown office building just before dawn. The impact shatters the plaster. Dazed, he staggers inside, sits at his desk, and stares at his computer terminal as it boots up to greet him for another day of work.
This film belongs in a grouping that revolves around a young working professional who is placed under threat, named the "yuppie nightmare cycle",[6] a subgenre of films which combinesscrewball comedy andfilm noir. Some critics present apsychoanalytic view of the film; Paul is constantly emasculated by women in the film: by Kiki with her sexual aggressiveness and lust formasochism,[3] Marcy turning down his sexual advances, Julie and Gail turning a vigilante mob on him, and June trapping him in plaster. There are many references to castration within the film,[6] most of which are shown when women are present. In the bathroom in Terminal Bar where Julie first encounters Paul, there is an image scrawled on the wall of a shark biting a man's erect penis.[7] Marcy makes a reference to her husband using adouble entendre when saying, "I broke the whole thing off" when talking about their sex life.[6] One of the mouse traps that surrounds her bed clamps shut when Julie tries to seduce Paul.
Michael Rabiger sees mythological symbolism as a primary theme of the film, stating: "The hero of Scorsese's dark comedyAfter Hours is like a rat trying to escape from a labyrinth. Indeed there is a caged rat in one scene where Paul finds himself trapped in a talkative woman's apartment. The film could be plotted out as a labyrinthine journey, each compartment holding out the promise of a particular experience, almost all illusory and misleading".[8]
After Hours was originally to be directed byTim Burton after Dunne and Robinson were impressed with his short filmVincent, but Burton willingly stepped aside when Scorsese expressed interest.[9]
Paramount Pictures' abandonment ofThe Last Temptation of Christ was a huge disappointment to Scorsese, and spurred him to focus on independent companies and smaller projects.[10] Scorsese's most recent film,The King of Comedy, also failed at thebox office. He stated in an interview with Michael Wilson that "Marty, it's probably time you earned a bit of money".[11]
The opportunity to directAfter Hours was offered to Scorsese by his lawyer Jay Julien, who put him throughGriffin Dunne andAmy Robinson's Double Play Company. The project was calledOne Night in Soho and it was based on a script byJoseph Minion. The screenplay, originally titledLies after a 1982Joe Frank monologue that inspired it,[12] was written as part of an assignment for his film course atColumbia University. According to Frank, he was not asked for rights to the story, asking "what must the screenwriter have been thinking to place himself in such jeopardy?"[13] Minion was 26 years old at the time the film was produced.[14] The script finally becameAfter Hours after Scorsese made his final amendments.[15]
One of Scorsese's contributions involved the dialogue between Paul and the doorman at Club Berlin, which was inspired byFranz Kafka's "Before the Law", one of the short stories included in his novelThe Trial.[16][17] As Scorsese explained toPaul Attanasio, the short story reflected his frustration toward the production ofThe Last Temptation of Christ.[18]
Steven Spielberg suggested that the film end with the statue falling off the truck and breaking into thousands of pieces. Paul is not inside the statue and is instead on the expressway yelling "They're coming to get you! The invaders are coming!". However,Terry Gilliam told him to cut that scene.[19]
After Hours was the first fictional film directed by Scorsese sinceAlice Doesn't Live Here Anymore in 1974 not to featureRobert De Niro.[5]
British directorMichael Powell took part in the production of the film, and he and editorThelma Schoonmaker married soon afterward. Nobody was sure how the film should end. Powell said that Paul must finish up back at work, but this was initially dismissed as too unlikely and difficult. They tried many other endings, and a few were even filmed, but the only one that everyone felt really worked was to have Paul finish up back at work just as the new day was starting.[9]
The score forAfter Hours was composed byHoward Shore. Although an official soundtrack album was not released, many of Shore's cues appear on the 2009 albumHoward Shore: Collector's Edition Vol. 1.[20] In addition to the score, other music credited at the end of the film is:
After Hours grossed only $10.1 million in the United States,[4] but was given positive reviews and has since been considered an "underrated" entry in the director's filmography.[21][22][23][24] The film won Scorsese theBest Director award at the1986 Cannes Film Festival and allowed him to take a hiatus from the tumultuous development ofThe Last Temptation of Christ.[25]
Film criticRoger Ebert gaveAfter Hours four out of four stars. He praised the film as one of the year's best and said it "continues Scorsese's attempt to combine comedy and satire with unrelenting pressure and a sense of all-pervading paranoia."[26] He later added it to his "Great Movies" list.[27] OnAt the Movies, Ebert's colleagueGene Siskel said he enjoyed the film, though lamented the late introduction of the "light comedy" characters—those played by Garr, O'Hara, and Cheech & Chong—whom he felt robbed the picture of its "hard New York edge."[28] InThe New York Times, criticVincent Canby gave the film a mixed review, calling it an "entertaining tease, with individually arresting sequences that are well acted by Mr. Dunne and the others, but which leave you feeling somewhat conned."[14]
On thereview aggregator websiteRotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 90% based on 70 reviews. The site's critical consensus reads: "Bursting with frantic energy and tinged with black humor,After Hours is a masterful – and often overlooked – detour in Martin Scorsese's filmography."[29] OnMetacritic, the film has aweighted average score of 89 out of 100 based on reviews from nine critics, indicating "universal acclaim".[30]
| Association | Category | Recipient | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| BAFTA Awards | Best Actress in a Supporting Role | Rosanna Arquette | Nominated | [31] |
| Cannes Film Festival | Palme d'Or | Martin Scorsese | Nominated | [32] |
| Best Director | Martin Scorsese | Won | ||
| Casting Society of America Awards | Best Casting for Feature Film – Comedy | Mary Colquhoun | Nominated | [33] |
| César Awards | Best Foreign Film | Martin Scorsese | Nominated | [34] |
| Golden Globe Awards | Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Comedy or Musical | Griffin Dunne | Nominated | [35] |
| Independent Spirit Awards | Best Feature | Robert F. Colesberry Griffin Dunne Amy Robinson | Won | [36][37] |
| Best Director | Martin Scorsese | Won | ||
| Best Screenplay | Joseph Minion | Nominated | ||
| Best Female Lead | Rosanna Arquette | Nominated | ||
| Best Cinematography | Michael Ballhaus | Nominated | ||
| National Society of Film Critics Awards | Best Cinematography | Michael Ballhaus | Nominated |
Warner Home Video releasedAfter Hours onVHS andBetamax in 1986, and both widescreen and pan-and-scan NTSCLaserDiscs. It has also been released onDVD.[38][39] On July 11, 2023, the film was released on4K UHD andBlu-ray byThe Criterion Collection.[40][41]
After Hours served as an inspiration for the 2020 albumAfter Hours by Canadian singerthe Weeknd.[42] The film also inspired the 2021Ted Lasso episode "Beard After Hours".[43]
