Dangerous Minds

Dangerous Minds was released on August 11, 1995, in the United States.[4] It was an immediate box office success, grossing a total of $179,519,401 worldwide.[1]

Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 29%, with an average rating of 4.66/10, based on 41 reviews from critics. The website's "Critics Consensus" for the film reads, "Rife with stereotypes that undermine its good intentions, Dangerous Minds is too blind to see that the ones it hurts are the audience."[5] On Metacritic, the film holds a score of 47 out of 100 sampled from 18 reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[6]

Janet Maslin in The New York Times[7] wrote: "There aren't many things that would look better on paper than on Michelle Pfeiffer, but the role of LouAnne Johnson is one of them… False and condescending films in this genre are nothing new, but Dangerous Minds steamrollers its way over some real talent. Ms. Pfeiffer is a vastly better actress than this one-dimensional character allows her to be… Never mind the complaints that could be made about LouAnne's teaching methods: she rewards students with bribes, flirts patronizingly and inflicts cruel and unusual punishment while analyzing the subtext of 'Mr. Tambourine Man'… The kids turn out to be angels, straight from central casting… Performances are as lifelike as the material allows, but Ronald Bass's screenplay doesn't trade heavily in surprises."

Kenneth Turan in the Los Angeles Times[8] wrote: "While films are admired for making fantasy real, some manage a reverse, unwanted kind of alchemy, turning involving reality into meaningless piffle. It is that kind of regrettable transformation that Dangerous Minds achieves… none of it, with the exception of Pfeiffer's performance, seems even vaguely real. This is especially true of the film's excessively melodramatic climactic events, a bogus tragedy that does not occur in the book and has contrived written all over it… Given how few the opportunities are for women to carry a motion picture, and with the chance to be a positive role model thrown into the bargain, it's not surprising to find Pfeiffer starring in Dangerous Minds, and she is as believable as the film allows her to be. But if this trivialization of involving subject matter is the best a star of her considerable abilities can latch onto, today's actresses have it worse than we've imagined."

Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times[9] wrote: "We have seen this basic story before, in Stand and Deliver, Lean On Me, Teachers, Dead Poets Society, and so on. This version is less than compelling… Pfeiffer, who is a good actress, does with this material what she can… The real Miss Johnson used not Dylan but the lyrics of rap songs to get the class interested in poetry… What has happened in the book-to-movie transition of LouAnne Johnson's book is revealing. The movie pretends to show poor black kids being bribed into literacy by Dylan and candy bars, but actually it is the crossover white audience that is being bribed with mind-candy in the form of safe words by the two Dylans. What are the chances this movie could have been made with Michelle Pfeiffer hooking the kids on the lyrics of Ice Cube or Snoop Doggy Dogg?"

Terrence Rafferty in The New Yorker[10] wrote: "Thanks to Pfeiffer’s inventive acting, John N. Smith’s movie does a fairly entertaining job of capturing the unscrupulous, guerrilla-like cunning of a good teacher in a bad school. But the cut-to-the-enlightenment dramaturgy of Ronald Bass’s screenplay feels desperate and false. And in the final scenes the movie gets as sticky as To Sir With Love. It canonizes the heroine needlessly: Pfeiffer looks plenty good without a halo."

Peter Travers in Rolling Stone[11] wrote: "The young and mostly unknown cast is outstanding. And Pfeiffer gives a funny, scrappy performance that makes you feel a committed teacher's fire to make a difference. The film also benefits from the sly touch of Elaine May, who collaborated with Ronald Bass (Rain Man) on this screen adaptation of Johnson's 1992 memoir, My Posse Don't Do Homework… Maybe producers Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer (Bad Boys, Crimson Tide) don't know how to let a strong female character carry the ball. Dangerous Minds often unspools like a hokey update of Sidney Poitier's To Sir With Love. Still, in a summer when most women are forced to play dumb and strip to thrill or kill, Pfeiffer does herself and her endangered species proud."

Kevin McManus in The Washington Post[12] wrote: "Unhappily, Dangerous Minds, which tells the story of such a [charismatic] teacher, merits only a C. And if it weren't for Michelle Pfeiffer, we'd surely be looking at a more dismal grade… writer Ronald Bass sprinkles the script with saccharine lines that sound plain dumb coming from high schoolers. "But you can't leave us," one kid whines as Pfeiffer gets set to quit. "You're our Tambourine Man!"... Pfeiffer and the students (played by talented unknowns) make sections of the movie quite watchable. When their wisecracks fly back and forth in class, it sounds right. When sequences depict school corridors and city streets, it looks right. If only the filmmakers had used some subtlety in telling the story, they could have done right by the real LouAnne Johnson."

Edward Guthmann in the San Francisco Chronicle[13] wrote: "It's contrived, it's hokey, but in Dangerous Minds, a Michelle Pfeiffer vehicle, it works surprisingly well… She's playing with a bag of clichés, but she's so plucky and likable, you overlook the hokum."

Time Out[14] wrote: "Actually it's quite a respectable piece of work, with an impressive tough-love performance from Pfeiffer, but Ronald Bass's hackneyed screenplay is all carrot and no stick."

The soundtrack and its lead single "Gangsta's Paradise" enjoyed major success, and received nominations for the Grammy Award for Record of the Year and the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Soundtrack Album. Coolio won the Grammy Award for Best Rap Solo Performance for his vocals.[15]

At the MTV Movie Awards 1996, Dangerous Minds was nominated in four categories: Best Movie, Best Female Performance (Michelle Pfeiffer), Most Desirable Female (Michelle Pfeiffer) and Best Movie Song (Coolio).[15]

The music video for "Gangsta's Paradise", featuring Michelle Pfeiffer, won the MTV Music Video Award for Best Rap Video and the MTV Music Video Award for Best Video from a Film.[15]

Michelle Pfeiffer won the Blockbuster Entertainment Award for Favorite Actress - Drama.[15]

The film is recognized by American Film Institute in these lists:

• 2004: AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs:
  • "Gangsta's Paradise" – Nominated[16]