Dolores Claiborne was accused of killing her abusive husband twenty years ago, but the court's findings were inconclusive and she was allowed to walk free. Now she has been accused of killing her employer, Vera Donovan, and this time there is a witness who can place her at the scene of the crime. Things look bad for Dolores when her daughter Selena, a successful Manhattan magazine writer, returns to cover the story.
"Sometimes, an accident can be an unhappy woman's best friend."
Top Billed Cast
Kathy Bates
Dolores Claiborne
Jennifer Jason Leigh
Selena St. George
Judy Parfitt
Vera Donovan
Christopher Plummer
John Mackey
David Strathairn
Joe St. George
Eric Bogosian
Peter
John C. Reilly
Const. Frank Stamshaw
Ellen Muth
Young Selena
Detailed Critic & Audience Reviews
M MoHAVerified TMDB Critic
2015-04-18
Welcome to Maine; where alcoholism, smoking, and all sorts of behavior the aforementioned are trying to cover up creep up on you like bad filling of gravy. At least, in Stephen King’s universe. True to his (excessive) words, a lot gets stirred up, not all of it gets answered, and characters get knee high in lots of details. Nothing wrong about that, except in this movie the details, and the melodrama that comes with them, tend to bog down what should be bonding of two women over the men that hurt them. What a depressingly masculine mess.
I love a good pulpy environment (hello film noir, ...
T talisencrwVerified TMDB Critic
2016-09-13
This one tends to get ignored when people consider the 'classic' Stephen King film adaptations (the first 20 years), but it's very subtle, nuanced, and is basically one of King's finest and more mature works. If it was even possible for Kathy Bates to out-do her Oscar-winning work in 'Misery', she still did so, and nailed it. I'm a huge fan of John C. Reilly, Eric Bogosian (why 'Talk Radio is my favourite Oliver Stone movie and 'Under Siege 2' my favourite Steven Seagal film), David Strathairn, Christopher Plummer and especially, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and the Tony Gilroy script serves them bea...
J John ChardVerified TMDB Critic
2020-02-25
Sometimes being a bitch is all a woman has to hold onto.
Dolores Claiborne is directed by Taylor Hackford and adapted to screenplay by Tony Gilroy from the novel of the same name written by Stephen King. It stars Kathy Bates, Jennifer Jason Leigh, David Strathairn, John C. Riley, Christopher Plummer and Judy Parfitt. Music is scored by Danny Elfman and cinematography by Gabriel Beristain.
Plot sees Leigh as Selena St. George, a big-city reporter who travels to her home town island in Maine when her mother is accused of murdering the elderly woman that she was caring for. Her estranged mo...
