Rating: 
Summary: Dull
Review: it was only Average at the time of it's release.Michael J Fox was Pretty good in this film but the film goes no where.forgettable on a whole.
Rating:
Summary: Tedious
Review: Man! They call people in the nineties self-absorbed! This movie felt so repetitive (how many times do we need to see the main character bolt for a bathroom stall to get high?) and forced. I ended up leaving it on as background noise while doing better things with my time than continue watching. The only thing powerful about this movie was how powerfully self-important and tedious it was!
Rating:
Summary: Tedious
Review: Man! They call people today self-absorbed! This movie felt so repetitive (how many times do we need to see the main character bolt for a bathroom stall to get high?) and forced. I ended up leaving it on as background noise while doing better things with my time than continue watching. The only thing powerful about this movie was how powerfully self-important and tedious it was!
Rating: 
Summary: Love the book, Movie is okay
Review: Movie duplicates almost every scene from the book masterfully. Unfortunately, Michael J Fox as the coke snorting, party, magazine editor lead character is horrible. Fox looks all of 21 in the film and in everyone scene you expect him to say to " Ive got to get Back to the Future".
Rating:
Summary: Not terrible; worth it for Fox
Review: Over the space of three years, the reviled triumvirate of hot young (no longer young, these days) '80s New York novelists - Tama Janowitz ("Slaves of New York"), Bret Easton Ellis ("Less Than Zero"), and Jay McInerney ("Bright Lights, Big City") - watched Hollywood turn their books into tepid movies. This adaptation is probably the best of the three, due to a strong lead performance by Michael J. Fox as protagonist Jamie Conway and a lively supporting cast. The movie has an exciting title sequence, featuring a great-looking female bartender with a shaved head, but swiftly loses energy from there. The book was a vague celebration of the nouveau sex-and-drugs scene, with an undercurrent of yearning for simplicity and wholesomeness; the movie, made smack dab in the middle of the Just Say No era, fails to establish what would lure people like Jamie, who now seems to get high solely to blot out the pain of his mother's death and being dumped by Phoebe Cates. (At times the movie is like an '80s remix of "Looking for Mr. Goodbar.") The coke-snorting, promiscuous Jamie was a stretch for the amiable Fox (remember, at that point he was best known as Alex P. Keaton and Marty McFly; the following year he would make "Casualties of War" and discover that moviegoers preferred him in comedy). He gives the film whatever core of feeling it has. But the coldness of the images (Gordon Willis shot this as if he were still working on "The Godfather") numbs us to his plight. We don't know whether to take Jamie's flailings as desperate comedy or as drama, and McInerney's own script is no help. The novel, written in ironic second-person present tense, like a "Choose Your Own Adventure" book for jaded teens (it begins, "You are not the kind of person who would be at a place like this at this time of the morning"), didn't exactly cry out for film adaptation in the first place. The movie is inoffensive but pointless. Two stars, upgraded to three for Fox and the cool '80s soundtrack featuring Donald Fagen, Bryan Ferry, Prince, New Order, Depeche Mode, and others. BOTTOM LINE: For $10, Fox fans can't go too far wrong.
Rating:
Summary: Not terrible; worth it for Fox
Review: Over the space of three years, the reviled triumvirate of hot young (no longer young, these days) '80s New York novelists - Tama Janowitz ("Slaves of New York"), Bret Easton Ellis ("Less Than Zero"), and Jay McInerney ("Bright Lights, Big City") - watched Hollywood turn their books into tepid movies. This adaptation is probably the best of the three, due to a strong lead performance by Michael J. Fox as protagonist Jamie Conway and a lively supporting cast. The movie has an exciting title sequence, featuring a great-looking female bartender with a shaved head, but swiftly loses energy from there. The book was a vague celebration of the nouveau sex-and-drugs scene, with an undercurrent of yearning for simplicity and wholesomeness; the movie, made smack dab in the middle of the Just Say No era, fails to establish what would lure people like Jamie, who now seems to get high solely to blot out the pain of his mother's death and being dumped by Phoebe Cates. (At times the movie is like an '80s remix of "Looking for Mr. Goodbar.") The coke-snorting, promiscuous Jamie was a stretch for the amiable Fox (remember, at that point he was best known as Alex P. Keaton and Marty McFly; the following year he would make "Casualties of War" and discover that moviegoers preferred him in comedy). He gives the film whatever core of feeling it has. But the coldness of the images (Gordon Willis shot this as if he were still working on "The Godfather") numbs us to his plight. We don't know whether to take Jamie's flailings as desperate comedy or as drama, and McInerney's own script is no help. The novel, written in ironic second-person present tense, like a "Choose Your Own Adventure" book for jaded teens (it begins, "You are not the kind of person who would be at a place like this at this time of the morning"), didn't exactly cry out for film adaptation in the first place. The movie is inoffensive but pointless. Two stars, upgraded to three for Fox and the cool '80s soundtrack featuring Donald Fagen, Bryan Ferry, Prince, New Order, Depeche Mode, and others. BOTTOM LINE: For $10, Fox fans can't go too far wrong.
Rating: 
Summary: This movie will keep you sober
Review: The first time I saw "Bright Lights, Big City" was when I was pretty young and knew nothing about drugs. I also only saw Michael J. Fox in comedies like "Back to the Future" and I was absolutely shocked to see him in this type of role. My innocent childhood hero looked like a horrible person in this movie--because he portrayed a horrible person. After watching this film, I vowed to never touch a drug in my life and I keep that vow. Jamie Conway (Fox's character) is a cocaine snorting, selfish, scary individual with serious problems who finally hits rock bottom. It took me years before I was able to accept Fox in other roles after being literally taken in by his performance. As far as entertainment value, this film keeps you interested but it isn't for casually viewing because you'll be feeling the power of it long after you watch and that state of mind stays with you. Did I love the movie? No. Did it do a good job scaring me off the night scene and from experimenting with drugs. Yes. Show it in any health class.
Rating: 
Summary: Leave the past behind / Great drama film
Review: This is one of my favorite 80's films set in NYC night culture. Based on Jay McInery's classic novel. This movie I call the Less Than Zero of the east coast. Break out character for Michael J Fox. The story MJ Fox plays Jamie Conway a cocaine addicted journalist for a NY magazine who can't let go of the past. His character really struggles with letting go and adversity. Phoebe Cates plays his model wife who leaves him. He just recently lost his mother. The flashbacks really show how the past haunts him. He is struggling with cocaine addiction going out partying at NYC nightclubs. His life is spinning out of control. You can't help but feel sorry for his character. A film about one man's high expectations on himself without letting go of the past. Great soundtrack and NYC setting. Essential to collection, a great 80's NYC culture film.
Rating:
Summary: very dissapointing!
Review: This movie was so dissapointing. fox did a good job but phoebe cates was only in it for 5 minutes if that! and so was dianne wiest! although the scene between wiest and Fox while she is dying is heartbreaking. this movie really goes nowhere but at least the soundtrack is great.
Rating: 
Summary: Consistent
Review: This movie was very consistent with the book which, if you liked the book, which made this a good movie. Having read the book before seeing the moving gave me a bit more insight into the story. But even without reading the book first, viewers may watch in disbelief, wondering how long will it take for Michael J. Fox's character to kill himself or change his ways. Suffering through this drives home the ending of the film, and makes this the moving story that it is! A well done film with a strong cast! The soundtrack isn't bad either...
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