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Paulie

Play trailer Poster for Paulie PG 1998 1h 31m Kids & Family Adventure Comedy Drama Play Trailer Watchlist
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61% Tomatometer 36 Reviews 55% Popcornmeter 25,000+ Ratings
A parrot at an animal research lab tells his life story to a janitor (Tony Shalhoub) who tries to help him escape.
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Paulie

Critics Reviews

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Todd McCarthy Variety 05/12/2008
Paulie has moments of minor charm but lacks the magic to fully capture the imaginations of either children or adults. Go to Full Review Lisa Alspector Chicago Reader 05/12/2008
Shalhoub gives an impressively nuanced performance in the dangerously cliched role, and Paulie -- a combination of trained parrots, animatronics, and the voice of Mohr -- comes across as a fully developed character. Go to Full Review Bob Heisler Los Angeles Times 02/14/2001
4/5
A perfect family movie with the intelligence, humor and hug-me moments to be a great first-date movie, too. Just remember to bring a hankie. Go to Full Review Tracy Moore Common Sense Media 03/01/2013
4/5
Talking bird on a coming-of-age journey with some peril. Go to Full Review Film4 05/12/2008
True family entertainment that caters for grown-ups as much as for kids. Go to Full Review Maitland McDonagh TV Guide 05/12/2008
3.5/4
The story is rooted in real feelings and relationships, and parents will find as much to enjoy as children. Go to Full Review Read all reviews

Audience Reviews

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Who Loves Arby's I @Parrot_Tron_9000 Aug 20 YOU HAVEN'T TRULY LIVED UNTIL YOU WATCHED PAULIE! This movie is genuinely amazing, I love birds and I'm studying to be an ornithologist, this movie along with my childhood obsession with pets started it all. John Roberts is a master chef when it came to making Paulie, the protagonist extremely human for a parrot, and his journey leading back to Marie makes me cry even after rewatching the movie over and over. This movie is the one that deserves all of the hype, so seeing the 61% on the Tomatometer is an insult to this masterpiece of a movie! See more Joe T @RT01371336 Jul 19 This movie was truly touching and satisfying as a child and as an adult watching with my children as an adult. See more Stephen C @bob25009 07/08/2025 Funny in 1 hour and 31 minutes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The worldwide gross is $26,875,268.00 over a budget of $23,000,000.00, but not by much more than that. See more Nicholas C @ElBoberto 02/14/2025 This movie is just wonderful and uplifting and movies both this fortunate and somber don't come out often anymore. This movie is a perfect kids movie and I bet it wasn't easy making a not horrid voice for Paulie unlike Woody the woodpecker with that goody psycho laugh See more Cudalbu R @RT01146858 01/11/2025 This movie is perfect. It finished all it had to say and has a proper ending. See more David S @David429 06/22/2024 This movie is awesome I love this movie, Paulie is such a good movie they did a great job mixing real parrots with animatronics and computer animation(if any) you can barely tell what is what since they did such a good job making it look so real you would actually believe that the real bird was saying all that, but we all know he did not. This is a movie I hope the whole family will enjoy I did. It's a heartwarming movie about the bond between pet and owner and the bond between friends(in this case it's bird and human). The acting, story, special effects, directing and music is great in this movie. If you have not seen this movie then I recommend you do. See more Read all reviews
Paulie

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Cast & Crew

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John Roberts

Director

Gena Rowlands

Ivy

Tony Shalhoub

Misha Vilyenkov

Cheech Marin

Ignacio

Bruce Davison

Dr. Reingold

Jay Mohr

Benny

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Paulie

Paulie (1998) Paulie (1998) Paulie (1998) View more photos

Movie Info

Synopsis A parrot at an animal research lab tells his life story to a janitor (Tony Shalhoub) who tries to help him escape.
Director
John Roberts
Producer
Mark Gordon, Gary Levinsohn, Allison Lyon Segan
Screenwriter
Laurie Craig
Distributor
DreamWorks SKG, United International Pictures
Production Co
DreamWorks SKG, Mutual Film Company
Rating
PG
Genre
Kids & Family, Adventure, Comedy, Drama
Original Language
English
Release Date (Theaters)
Apr 17, 1998, Wide
Release Date (Streaming)
Aug 10, 2016
Box Office (Gross USA)
$27.0M
Runtime
1h 31m
Sound Mix
SDDS, Dolby Digital, DTS, Surround
Aspect Ratio
35mm
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