Cape Fear (1991)

Cape Fear rating: IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic

IMDb7.3/10· 241K votes

Rotten Tomatoes77%

Metacritic73%

TMDb7.259/10· 4K votes

With 77% on Rotten Tomatoes, backed by 7.3/10 on IMDb and 73/100 on Metacritic, critical reception of this film has been positive.

About Cape Fear

Sam Bowden is a small-town corporate attorney. Max Cady is a tattooed, cigar-smoking, Bible-quoting, psychotic rapist. What do they have in common? 14 years ago, Sam was a public defender assigned to Max Cady's rape trial, and he made a serious error: he hid a document from his illiterate client that could have gotten him acquitted. Now, the cagey Cady has been released, and he intends to teach Sam Bowden and his family a thing or two about loss.

Cast of Cape Fear

• 

  Robert De Niro

  as Max Cady

• 

  Nick Nolte

  as Sam Bowden

• 

  Jessica Lange

  as Leigh Bowden

• 

  Juliette Lewis

  as Danielle Bowden

• 

  Joe Don Baker

  as Claude Kersek

• 

  Robert Mitchum

  as Lieutenant Elgart

• 

  Gregory Peck

  as Lee Heller

• 

  Martin Balsam

  as Judge

• 

  Illeana Douglas

  as Lori Davis

• 

  Fred Thompson

  as Tom Broadbent

• 

  Zully Montero

  as Graciella

• C

  Craig Henne

  as Prisoner

Cape Fear facts

Budget

$35M

Box office

$182.3M

Our take on Cape Fear

Martin Scorsese's 1991 thriller turns a family home into a hunting ground. Sam Bowden is a small-town corporate attorney; Max Cady is a tattooed, Bible-quoting ex-convict released after fourteen years, carrying a very personal grudge. The connection between them lies in Cady's old rape trial, where Bowden, then his public defender, buried a document that might have won an acquittal for his illiterate client. Now free, Cady sets out to make Bowden and his family understand loss. As a crime drama it's a slow-tightening study of guilt and menace rather than easy catharsis. It suits viewers who like their thrillers morally uneasy, character-driven and unafraid of genuine dread.