Dressed to Kill (1980)
A mysterious blonde woman kills one of a psychiatrist's patients, and then goes after the high-class call girl who witnessed the murder.
Cast and Information
Directed By: Brian De Palma
Written By: Brian De Palma
Starring: Michael Caine, Angie Dickinson, Nancy Allen, Keith Gordon, David Margulies, Dennis Franz, Brandon Maggart, Anneka Di Lorenzo, Mary Davenport, Ken Baker, Susanna Clemm, Amalie Collier
Genres: Suspense/Thriller, Mystery
Country: USA
Where to Stream
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Dressed to Kill belongs to 45 collections
1. Criterion Collection (collaborative: moderated by caffe - 167 stars)
2. boobs (collaborative: moderated by Pickpocket - 51 stars)
3. Psychotronic Film and Video Guides (collaborative: moderated by Gregzilla - 40 stars)
4. New York Times' The Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made (collaborative: moderated by theficionado - 32 stars)
5. Neo-noir (collaborative: moderated by iconogassed - 28 stars)
6. Full Female Frontal Nudity (Yes, Bush!) (collaborative: moderated by iceblox - 26 stars)
7. Criterion Collection (Blu-ray) (collaborative: moderated by epiphany - 20 stars)
8. The Best Hitchcock Movies (That Hitchcock Never Made) (collaborative: moderated by teckgecko - 17 stars)
9. Edgar Wright 1000 Favorite Movies (Aug 2016) (collaborative: moderated by Aron Ericson - 17 stars)
10. Films available in HD (collaborative: moderated by kubricksucks - 13 stars)
11. Cross-dressing / Transvestism / Transsexuality (collaborative: moderated by Moribunny - 9 stars)
12. The Gentlemen's Guide To Midnight Cinema Podcast (collaborative: moderated by Coheed - 9 stars)
13. List: Taschen (collaborative: moderated by KasperL - 6 stars)
14. Ekşi Sinema "Alternatif" Top 250 (collaborative - 6 stars)
15. Filmsite.org - Sex in the Movies, An Illustrated History (collaborative: moderated by afx237vi - 5 stars)
16. Erotic thrillers (collaborative: moderated by mattburgess - 5 stars)
17. Slant Magazine's 100 Greatest Horror Films of All Time (collaborative: moderated by edsu - 5 stars)
18. 500 essential cult films (not seen) (public: cayh - 5 stars)
19. Criterion Collection (Blu-ray and 4K) (public: PepeCamello - 3 stars)
20. Female Shower Scene (collaborative - 2 stars)
21. Netflix Watch Instantly (public: dgeiser13 - 2 stars)
22. Horror Horror (public: Ozancan - 2 stars)
23. Psychotic cross-dressers/trans (collaborative: moderated by mattburgess - 1 star)
24. Movies to See: Horror/Suspense (public: Lord Moe - 1 star)
25. Crimes of Passion: The Erotic Thriller (Quad Cinema) (public: CatScandal - 1 star)
26. Sissy villain (collaborative: moderated by mattburgess)
27. Arrow Video (collaborative: moderated by mattburgess)
28. Split screen (collaborative: moderated by juandr)
29. Ratings (collaborative: moderated by cheapthrills)
30. Piero Scaruffi's list of great films (collaborative)
31. Films that Pauline Kael Actually LIKED!! (collaborative: moderated by wokelstein)
32. 4: Rewatches (public: KasperL)
33. us-tv McD 101 Horrors (public: timxyz)
34. Owned (BD) (public: bizarre_eye)
35. 1980: Year in Review (public: polanski28)
36. Watch List (public: LookJabba...)
37. Filmspotting Ratings Project: Week 32 (public: PeaceAnarchy)
38. My Criterions (public: Matthew Parkinson)
39. Tom's Movies (public: tomwalsh)
40. Forrest Watch List (public: ForrestQ)
41. Movies I Own (public: Mr.Pupkin)
42. La Fémis 208 films (public: chengming)
43. Blu-ray Collection (public: TripEuphoric)
44. 1980's (public: Jason212)
45. Challenge: The 100 (public: tomwalsh)
Browse the full list of collections
| Stars | User | Rating | |
| 13 |  |
BillyShears | 90 92nd |
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This was like walking in on Alfred Hitchcock in drag doing cocaine off of Cary Grant's penis while Dennis Franz watches in the corner blowing gum bubbles between cigarette drags. (Cary Grant is erect if you want to know just how sleazy this scene is).
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| 7 |  |
Paxton | 70 63rd |
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I always get this mixed up with Tootsie.
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| 5 |  |
CCLZA | 90 95th |
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Works wonderfully both as a homage to Hitchcock and a trashy crime 80s film extravaganza.
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| 3 |  |
Mentaculus | 80 73rd |
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A visually arresting masterpiece of sleaze. De Palma at his best and his worst could embrace much of the lush, visual perversity Hitch wasn't really allowed to. But De Palma at his best could do it with his own voice and integrity, which this film does, in often disarming ways.
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| 2 |  |
eveelun | 64 28th |
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As far as Hitchcock imitations go this is far from the worst, but still I can't say I was all that impressed. Sure, it's very stylish and the camerawork is technically impressive and at times elegant. But the story is at best silly, at worst offensive (depending on how seriously you take this "Cruising" era treatment of transsexuality), and none of the characters is in the least bit interesting (with the exception of an (unintentionally?) hilarious 70s macho cop played by Dennis Franz).
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| 2 |  |
Stain | 90 86th |
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Well-paced, stylized, and nasty. IOW De Palma just as we like him
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| 2 |  |
KMcNeil | 8 84th |
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Hitchcock meets Argento? The use of deep focus, the staging and the all-around meticulous camera work really takes this to the next level. Also: The ending ranks right up there with De Palmas very best like "Carlito's Way".
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| 2 |  |
hehejaja | 90 91st |
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Utterly seductive in its opulent imagery. There are moments in this film of such luminous tension and style, you simply ignore the sly banality of it all. Utterly enrapturing.
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| 2 | Mystic | 2 21st |
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An important subtext to the story, good music score, and fine film-making skills (few sequences; four to be precise), can't cover up for an over-sexualized, B-grade, trite, and sloppy remainder of the film. Overall, hasn't aged well at all.
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| 1 |  |
TheDenizen | 70 63rd |
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When a call girl is the only witness to the murder of a middle aged woman by a razor wielding transvestite, she teams up with the son of the victim to catch the killer. Brian De Palma does his best to make a stylish giallo, and it's confidently directed and has some nice gore. It's also got a great cast though a couple of the performances are pretty wooden. However lurid this material might have been in 1980, it seems amusingly quaint now. Pfft, homicidal trannies, whatever...
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| 1 |  |
Carpetgiant | 81 43rd |
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I guess I would have to say that this is my second favorite film to feature Alec Cawthorne.
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| 1 |  |
Alex Watkins | 3 38th |
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This is a pretty silly, albeit enjoyable, take on Psycho. De Palma has never been the least bit shy about wearing the Hitchcock influence on his sleeve, but there's enough here to make this worthwhile on its own. Kinda drags in spots, though.
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| 1 |  |
Nathan S | 4 74th |
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Just absolute trash pulp. I... mostly love it. Taken purely on formal qualities - and really there's not much more on offer - it's a virtuoso bag of suspense thriller tricks. It's captivating, despite predictability. Unfortunate that it utterly obliterates the line of decency in its transphobia. A generally glib feeling relieves it of self-seriousness, but also casually presents attitudes which are, at best, antiquated. It's a troublesome damper on a film that is otherwise so much fun.
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| 1 | christiaanb | 80 67th |
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Ten odd minutes into the movie we are treated to a wonderful sequence of scenes: a woman and a man engage in tense game of attraction-rejection, pursuing each other throughout a museum, at intervals distancing themselves from each other. Eventually they have sex and from this point on everything goes awry. Either way, this scene exhibits everything that is admirable about this movie: there is no coherent plot, the characters are underdeveloped, but the direction and pacing are perfect.
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| 1 |  |
frederic_g54 | 8 77th |
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If I ever have the chance to either loot the fabled Criterion closet or De Palma's sleazy dvd collection, I'd choose the latter.
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| 1 |  |
Luna6ix | 75 52nd |
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Not a very well made movie, but I don't expect much better than mediocre from De Palma. I wasn't riveted for any duration, but when the twist comes out the only thing I could do was shake my head.
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| 1 |  |
INDYATMN | 71 27th |
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It seems critics love directors of NARRATIVE films only caring about visuals if they reference old films. Still, pity poor Dickinson who has to make ridiculous orgasm faces in close-up as she masturbates in the opening scene. It's scored to soft strings insuring it'll be taken as parody, even though there's no indication any of DePalma's horny adolescent dreaming is meant to be funny. He also doesn't seem to mind Nancy Allen delivering some of his overheated dialogue in the flattest way possible
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| Average Percentile 60.4% from 1192 Ratings |  |