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Wild at Heart

Play trailer Poster for Wild at Heart R In Theaters Oct 30 2h 5m Comedy Drama Play Trailer Watchlist
Watchlist Tomatometer Popcornmeter
66% Tomatometer 59 Reviews 81% Popcornmeter 25,000+ Ratings
After serving prison time for a self-defense killing, Sailor Ripley (Nicolas Cage) reunites with girlfriend Lula Fortune (Laura Dern). Lula's mother, Marietta (Diane Ladd), desperate to keep them apart, hires a hit man to kill Sailor. But he finds a whole new set of troubles when he and Bobby Peru (Willem Dafoe), an old buddy who's also out to get Sailor, try to rob a store. When Sailor lands in jail yet again, the young lovers appear further than ever from the shared life they covet.
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Wild at Heart

What to Know

Critics Consensus

One of director David Lynch's more uneven efforts, Wild at Heart is held together by his distinctive sensibilities and compelling work from Nicolas Cage and Laura Dern.

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Critics Reviews

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Steve Murray Atlanta Journal-Constitution Sep 23, 2025
Wild, yes. But not much heart. Go to Full Review
Jonathan Rosenbaum Sight & Sound Jan 11, 2020
Perhaps the major problem is that despite Cage and Dern's best efforts, Lynch is ultimately interested only in iconography, not characters at all. Go to Full Review
Scott Tobias The Dissolve Apr 27, 2015
4/5
There's a spontaneous, anything-can-happen feeling to it that's the primary appeal of any road movie. Go to Full Review
Ian Thomas Malone ianthomasmalone.com Jun 15, 2026
The third act has a lot to say about the power of love to cut through life’s endless noise, a fitting dynamic for a film that’s mostly parlor tricks from a man capable of better. Go to Full Review
Eddie Harrison film-authority.com Mar 16, 2026
5/5
Hailed as self-indulgence at the time, Wild at heart is actually pin-sharp, on-message and an exciting, threatening trip to the wild heart of an American nightmare... Go to Full Review
Noah Berlatsky Everything is Horrible (Substack) Jan 23, 2025
Unless your heart is a big old lump of rock, you’ve got to swoon at least a little when Sailor serenades Lula with “Love Me Tender” at the close. Go to Full Review
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Audience Reviews

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Andrew Mar 16, 2025 The muscle car of movies. Tour de force of cinema. See more Brad C @bradchatellier 16 hrs ago It was fantastic then and it's fantastic now. All of the younger generation being horrified and giving it half star reviews only makes me love it more. See more Wayne F @wfisher 21 hrs ago Absolute garbage. Self-indulgent in all the wrong ways and feels like it was made by a high school film student. See more Lacey N @Laceroonie 4 days ago I was NOT expecting any of what happened in this movie, and it was all a wild and wonderful ride. So many moments were clever and hilarious! I told all my closest friends that they should watch it, too, it was that good. I think you might have to have a certain sense of humor to really enjoy and get the hilarity from the weird, absurd, and wild moments of this film. Keep in mind that every scene was done internationally, so if you see something that seems odd to include, that's part of it. That's a big part.of what makes it so clever. Remember to have FUN while watching this. That's also part of it. See more Marc Z @TKDLife Oct 3, 2026 This unique and bizarre retelling of the Wizard of Oz is only from the mind of David Lynch. The performance by Nicholas Cage, as the Elvis inspired, star is brilliant. The visuals, the dialogue, the cinematography are all uniquely David Lynch and are part of why he had such a meaningful impact on the history of film. The cast is large and interesting and the film is unlike anything you will see. This one hold ups. See more Huntin P @PaxVobiscum80 Sep 24, 2026 Didn't this win the Palme d'Or? Raved about, both in the positive and negative sense. Some mad fable of David Lynch, adapted from a novel. It certainly carries a certain visual panache, and the music is cool. Sweaty and explicitly sexual, enough to worry people back in its day (or are people even more prudish now?). Sailor gets sent to prison for manslaughter. When he gets out, sweetheart Lula is waiting for him and they embark on a road trip. Are they running away from trouble or towards trouble? Both. How to sum-up, two hotties run away from weirdos and meet people even weirder and creepier before the end credits. In all honesty, it's all rather facile. I have a suspicion, fifty years from now, people will wonder why all the reverence for David Lynch. I was keen as a teenager, but today I find most of his stuff gratuitously weird and creepy. See more Read all reviews
Wild at Heart

My Rating

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Movie Info

Synopsis After serving prison time for a self-defense killing, Sailor Ripley (Nicolas Cage) reunites with girlfriend Lula Fortune (Laura Dern). Lula's mother, Marietta (Diane Ladd), desperate to keep them apart, hires a hit man to kill Sailor. But he finds a whole new set of troubles when he and Bobby Peru (Willem Dafoe), an old buddy who's also out to get Sailor, try to rob a store. When Sailor lands in jail yet again, the young lovers appear further than ever from the shared life they covet.
Director
David Lynch
Producer
Monty Montgomery, Sigurjon Sighvatsson, Steve Golin
Screenwriter
David Lynch
Distributor
Media Home Entertainment, Samuel Goldwyn Company
Production Co
Propaganda Films, PolyGram Filmed Entertainment
Rating
R
Genre
Comedy, Drama
Original Language
English
Release Date (Theaters)
Aug 17, 1990, Wide
Rerelease Date (Theaters)
Oct 30, 2026
Release Date (Streaming)
Nov 1, 2016
Box Office (Gross USA)
$14.5M
Runtime
2h 5m
Sound Mix
Surround
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