The Ninth Gate

1999 "Every book has a life of its own."
6.7| 2h13m| R| en| More Info
Released: 24 December 1999 Released
Producted By: Canal+
Country: Spain
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website:
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An all-expenses-paid international search for a rare copy of the book 'The Nine Gates of the Kingdom of Shadows' brings an unscrupulous book dealer deep into a world of murder, double-dealing and Satanic worship.

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Director

Roman Polanski

Production Companies

Canal+

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The Ninth Gate Audience Reviews

Karry Best movie of this year hands down!
Sarita Rafferty There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.
Janis One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.
Scarlet The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.
Smoreni Zmaj I was not thrilled, but I like this type of stories and I love Johnny Depp, so this movie was quite enjoyable for me.7/10
Brian T. Whitlock (GOWBTW) This movie deserve credit. It has great cast, a great plot, but questionable critiques. Johnny Depp plays rare book collector Dean Corso. Very articulate with his job. Very cutthroat as well. He gets the books cheap, and sells to the highest bidder. But a client name Boris Balkan(Frank Langella) gives him a opportunity he will never forget. He gets to check out and compare 3 books written by the Devil. One of them is exact and the others are forgeries. One is made by the author who committed suicide, and the widow(Lena Olin) tries to get it back from Corso. In New York, Corso gives the book to the owner of the rare bookstore. He would keep it save after he was killed. Corso goes to Spain where another man is drowned. But Corso isn't alone, he would encounter a mysterious woman(Emmanuelle Seigner) who seems to help him all the way. The movie was long, but it wasn't boring. Plenty of suspense. It was amazing when the widow got the book back and tried to do the ritual with the book, but is killed by Balkan and he scared off the Satan worshippers. The great parts of the scenes is when Balkan tried to make himself loyal to Satan, but when he sets himself ablaze, he got what he deserved, betrayed. The background of the castle on fire, makes a perfect setting for the sex scene between the Girl and Corso. Memorable to say the least. There are some good and bad points on this film. But to me, it was worth my while. 4 out of 5 stars
Cardinal Biggles I agree with the observation that there is a fugue-like nature to this script. The slow build up. The layers of the plot peeled away one by one as the characters also become fleshed out and the puzzles solved. I rather like that style of thriller.But I was distracted from an otherwise considered film by the constant product placement by the cigarette industry. Every few minutes the plot stops while somebody gets a fag on. Totally irrelevant to the plot! I can only assume that big tobacco have invested heavily in this production. Even the room sets looked smoke-filled. I kept panicking for the damage everyone was doing to their exceedingly rare and mega-expensive rare book collections! Ruined forever probably.It just wouldn't happen. All this amateur hour marketing totally spoiled this movie experience for me, and I had to dump it. So a crap rating in response to the cheap marketing tricks. Its not the only movie to do this. In the late 90s the tobacco industry was fighting back the clean air lobby by trying to "normalise" smoking again. Fortunately the arrival of Vaping put a stop to this blatant hyping of a product form, except for the Bond films where it was done tongue in cheek as a characteristic of the genre. But yes, here it really did distract from the story line, and spoiled the smooth build up of this movie.
tfmiltz On so many levels, this movie is a dark comedy.Gee- Johnny Depp goes down wit da devil - HERSELF !hehCount the times Shell oil is in this movie.I just can't figure out if they're making some point that Shell oil, hell and Satan are all combined.Who knows, maybe the senior executives at Shell oil all belong to one of these bang-a-boo-boo- orgy key party swingers post marital crisis scenes.'Have you seen her SECRETARY?' great line- you'll remember that one. hehAnd what's with the grapefruits?I STILL argue this movie has a strangely suspicious side theme of Shell oil in here.It was Shell oil that destroyed the Amazon, I supposed that's close enough to evil.Nothing beats Johnny Depp though doin' down wit da devil... Could have been one helluva embedded Trojan ad I suppose.'Yes, the devil does prefer use of a condom' ? Something tells me dat devil had some plans up her sleeve to give birth to someone.Probably a sequel.Then again post Depp's divorce, I think he'd probably had it with the ninth gate of hell.LOVES me some Depp's'z's - great movie - watch for the Shell oil scenes... REAL strange... it's as if this is the work of Kubrick.