Awakenings
The film tells the story of a doctor's extraordinary work in the Sixties with a group of catatonic patients he finds languishing in a Bronx hospital. Under his painstaking guidance, they begin responding to certain stimuli. He is then given permission to test a new drug on one of his patients.
18 July 1967, Alameda County, California, USA
15 August 1929, New York City, New York, USA
20 September 1929, Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA
22 October 1941, London, England, UK
14 September 1940, Jerusalem, Palestine [now Israel]
26 March 1962, Jamaica, Queens, New York City, New York, USA
22 January 1945, Peoria, Illinois, USA
1959, Coral Gables, Florida, USA
21 May 1933, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
4 June 1926, Kiel, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany
10 October 1959, Madison, Wisconsin, USA
10 January 1977, New York City, New York, USA
13 December 1907, Fredriksted, St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands
19 March 1948, San Francisco, California, USA
14 July 1946, Bronx, New York, USA
3 May 1950, New York City, New York, USA
May 23, 2004
Solid medical drama. Williams is terrific in a straight role.August 14, 2003
Utter goo.May 20, 2003
Moving and well-acted.November 02, 2004
I remember this film, which I saw 13 years ago, as a squishy article redeemed by two strong performances; I am not inclined to go back for a second opinion.December 22, 2010
Nonfunny Robin Williams role in moving story.March 10, 2005
Tour-de-force performances and one memorable storylineJuly 05, 2007
A beautifully moving, life-affirming true story.August 17, 2014
a curiously-underloved film... Awakenings will get a re-evaluation in the wake of Williams' passing, and that's great. It's just a tragedy it took a tragedy to precipitate it.June 05, 2004
Moving and over-sentimental - but Marshall's best film.January 15, 2012
Maybe life affirming, but hardly life-changing.February 01, 2007
A potentially intriguing story, based on the actual experiences of Dr. Sacks, gets a characteristically middling, sentimental and uplifting from director Penny Marshall.August 15, 2014
Williams gives his best "straight" performance, shorn of all his marvelous manic vaudeville. The man he plays here is not a performer, which he was even in Dead Poets Society, but simply a man.