Rating: 
Summary: Learn from me!
Review: De Niro and Willaims had been friends for years and despite Williams's efforts to get the Charles Grodin part in "Midnight run", this would be their first time working together. De Niro plays Leonard, a man who has been catatonic for almost thirty years as the result of a childhood neurological illness. Williams plays doctor Sayer, who contrary to other doctors' opinion believes that Leonard and other patients are not necessarily vegetables, although they appear to be in a vegetative state. Through painstaking experiments with a new drug he manages to free them from their catatonic state. For some patients the transformation is permanent, but for others like Leonard, it is a frustatingly brief awakening. "Learn from me!" - he says hauntingly and poignantly to Sayer, as he is about to lapse back into somnolence. This is probably the most heartbreaking moment of the movie! The awakening is so tantalisingly brief that it's like a revelation or falling in love! It's when you watch these people who are totally immobilized that you realise how lucky you are. There are so many things in life that we take for granted: you're so depressed when you think about your tax return but you forget that there are people in this world who have to struggle every day to accomplish some simple gestures that appear so obvious to you, like getting up in the morning and comb your hair. If you lose some of your faculties, you really appreciate them better when you haven't got them anymore. And when you get them back, you feel so lucky. But when you lose them again you realise how precious some "trivial" things can be! I wasn't surprised to see Robin Williams giving an absolutely magnificient performance in this movie, cause I had seen him before playing this kind of character (remember "Dead poets society" or "The fisher king"?). But I was absolutely mesmerized by De Niro's performance: he has played so many monsters throughout his illustrious career, like Travis Bickle, Al Capone, Max Caddy or Rupert Pumpkin, but here he is now, showing a genuine warmth that people had never seen on screen before. Once again the man proved that if you give him a great script and when his powers of concentration are fully engaged he is simply unbeatable!
Rating:
Summary: DeNiro Beats Out Williams
Review: DeNiro is one of the finest actors in the world today. Robin Williams couldn't act his way out of a melodrama. Put these two together and see how DeNiro outclasses Williams completely. DeNiro is superb as the patient. Williams is lousy, as usual, as the doctor. Williams was irksome as Mork and continues to be irksome in his succeeding roles. He needs to visit an acting coach who can convince him to give up acting for the good of the country. DeNiro justs needs to be in every picture that comes out. With him in pictures the other actors have someone who can challenge them to reach their finest moments as actors. Williams, sadly, didn't rise to meet the challenge and continues to nauseate in every picture he puts out. I gave this movie five stars because of DeNiro. Williams gets zero stars just because he exists and is always reminding people of it.
Rating:
Summary: brilliant
Review: does it even need to be said? a brilliant movie, a brilliant book. i've just seen it for the fourth time, and it is still as poignant, as stunning, as tragic, as beautiful, and as amazing as it was the first.
Rating:
Summary: EXTRAORDINARY!!!!!!!!!!!!
Review: Extraordinary,great,interesting movie about people.Robin Williams is wonderfull and sweet,and De Niro is simply perfect as a patient who is awake after 35 years.Every human have to see it!
Rating: 
Summary: Groan.
Review: Hollywood toying with our emotions yet again. Here's a clue for Hollywood - these types of films work when the manipulation is subtle.
Rating:
Summary: Miracle in New York--a Miracle from Hollywood
Review: I don't know how this wonderful movie ever got made. It's not a feel good movie. It's got Robert DeNiro but he's not playing a tough guy. It's got Robin Williams but he's not being funny. But I'm glad that whoever pushed for it did so. And I'm glad Hollywood relented. AWAKENINGS is a quietly powerful movie of enormous depth and passion. Anyone who has seen the movie has been affected by it. Based on Oliver Sack's book, AWAKENINGS recounts the story of a miracle that occurred in a New York hospital during the mid-1960s. Bucking the system and believing in his theory, Williams' character brings back a dozen patients who appear catatonic--DeNiro being one of them. Through massive applications of the drug L-Dopa, the patients revive and take sheer joy out of just simple tasks. Although the sad ending has been given away by others, I feel the film remains a positive story. It is about human endurance and also about the joys we some times take for granted.
Rating:
Summary: Wow
Review: I don't see how you can see this movie and NOT give it five stars. It absolutely wonderful. Wonderful performances by everybody in a heartbreaking, touching script. One of the few movies I've actually cried while watching (just thinking about it stirs tears, too). Although rated PG-13, there's hardly any swearing, no sex or nudity, and not much violence. It's just the subject matter. I would recommend it to everyone.
Rating:
Summary: An excellent surprise
Review: I expected this film to be way too feel-goodish and cheesy for me. To be honest, I can't stand movies like that. I rented "Awakenings" solely because of Robert De Niro, and I was really surprised. While "life is beautiful" is obviously a theme throughout the movie, it's not being shoved down your throat. Even if it were, De Niro's acting would more than make up for it. I've seen almost all of his movies, and his role here is definitely one of his best (he got screwed out of an Oscar). Beware, though - the ending is kind of depressing.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent acting all around
Review: I read Oliver Sacks's remarkable book before seeing the movie, and was expecting the latter to depict some miraculous no-holds-barred cure; so I was pleasantly surprised by the treatment of the subject (no pun intended). Robin Williams is terrific and all the supporting cast is wonderful. I loved actually seeing how the encephalitis lethargica patients acted. The only reason this film doesn't get five stars from me is because of a couple of scenes that came across like a retread of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest; otherwise, the characters pull the story off beautifully.
Rating:
Summary: Facing the Incurable Disease
Review: I was in high school when i first saw this film while unwinding myself one evening from a school work. It was in a free tv channel in our local area that when i first saw this moving flick. Then years have passed, I bought this film straight from the video shop near in our place...from then, it became one of my favorite films for all-time. 'Awakenings' is a story of hope, survival, and triumph of human spirit amidst of uncertainties in the fields of science and health. Two of the most notable and brilliant actors in their own right (and at the same time, included in my lists of favorite actors)...Robin Williams and Robert de Niro surfaces their award-winning performances in this film. Dr. Sayer magnificently played by Robin Williams which I truly commend him for being a versatile actor...not just a comedian but an actor whose different portrayals in his different movies gave an astounding performances with better execution. We saw Robin Williams played also as a doctor in 'Patch Adams' which is more humorous and spirited act but not in 'Awakenings' which branded more on a serious tone and in a sense 'geek' doctor. Nevertheless, he fairly overcome his pathetic character to become extreme but turning to a mild one. In Robert De niro's character as Leonard Lowe, who was contracted with a forgotten illness of 1920's did a great performance. It is likely believable for De Niro's part to be in this character as a patient of this illness. I was moved by his credible act for this movie. Penny Marshall should also be credited for a wonderful and moving performances of her actors and of course her unique directing gave way the very heart of this film. The film was dealing with an incurable disease of the 1920s which existed until the 1960's with no medicines that are able to cure them but Dr.Sayer tried to dare himself by experimenting with drugs that can cure basically Parkinson's disease and which is so uncertain also if it cures the disease that Leonard and others has. But lo, everybody 'awakened' from their long sleep. Leonard and the others experienced a short 'awakenings' in their life that particular summer but not for long...the disease came back and no matter how the drugs (that cured them before) prevent this, it is useless. Although the film deals with this disease there is something more incurable disease that revolves around the story or much more, it is the worse disease that humanity have ever contracted...the disease of indifference... Sayer was right in saying 'We are faced with incurable disease...that is indifference'...The film doesn't focus only on that particular disease but the the disease of indifference also. What makes life more simpler and happier that one cannot find in the facts of science and medicine? That is love and compassion...that makes life so simpler and yet so fulfilling. The joys of life that one can attain and live fully is given by the people we loved dearly and loved us and through this love one can cure the disease of indifference. 'Awakenings' speaks about this... I definitely recommend this to everyone...of all ages. So that you can find cure by giving your total and unconditioned love for your family and friends as well as others...
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