Scarface (1983 film) to leave the antihero floating face down in a literal bloodbath." The review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes offers a contemporary interpretation of the film's reception, providing an 81% approval rating from 68 critics – an average rating of 7.4/10 – with the following consensus: "Director Brian De Palma and star Al Pacino take it to the limit in this stylized, ultra-violent and eminently quotable gangster epic that walks a thin white line between moral drama and celebratory excess." Metacritic gives it an average score of 65/100. "Scarface" was released theatrically in North America on December 9, 1983. The film earned
Brian De Palma a leading member of the New Hollywood generation of film directors, a distinct pedigree who either emerged from film schools or are overtly cine-literate. His contemporaries include Martin Scorsese, Paul Schrader, John Milius, George Lucas, Francis Ford Coppola, Steven Spielberg, John Carpenter, and Ridley Scott. His artistry in directing and use of cinematography and suspense in several of his films has often been compared to the work of Alfred Hitchcock. Psychologists have been intrigued by De Palma's fascination with pathology, by the aberrant behavior aroused in characters who find themselves manipulated by others. De Palma has encouraged and fostered the