Showgirls

''Showgirls'' is a 1995 erotic drama film directed by Paul Verhoeven, written by Joe Eszterhas, starring Elizabeth Berkley, Kyle MacLachlan, Gina Gershon, Glenn Plummer, Robert Davi, Alan Rachins, and Gina Ravera. The film focuses on an ambitious young woman hitching a ride to Las Vegas to pursue her dreams of being a professional dancer and showgirl.

Produced on a then-sizable budget of around $45 million, significant controversy and hype surrounding the amounts of sex and nudity in the film preceded its theatrical release. In the United States, it was rated NC-17 for "nudity and erotic sexuality throughout, some graphic language, and sexual violence." ''Showgirls'' was the first (and to date only) NC-17 film to be given a wide release in mainstream theaters. Distributor Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) dispatched several hundred staffers to theaters across North America playing ''Showgirls'' to ensure that patrons would not sneak into the theater from other films, and to make sure filmgoers were over the age of 17. Audience restriction due to the NC-17 rating, coupled with poor reviews, resulted in the film becoming a box-office bomb, grossing just $37.8 million against a budget of $45 million.

Despite a negative theatrical and critical consensus, ''Showgirls'' enjoyed success on the home video/VHS market, generating more than $100 million from rentals alone, allowing the film to make a profit. Since its video release, ''Showgirls'' has gone on to become one of MGM's top twenty all-time bestsellers. For its home video release, Verhoeven prepared an R-rated edition for rental outlets that could not (or would not) carry NC-17 films. The R-rated edit runs about 3 minutes shorter, omitting some footage deemed to be more graphic. This version was later also available on television networks, such as HBO and In Demand ( Pay Per View).

''Showgirls'' was universally panned upon its cinematic release, and is still consistently ranked as one of the worst films of all time. In the 21st century, it has come to be regarded as a cult film, with a dedicated fanbase; ''Showgirls'' has also been subject to critical re-evaluation, with some notable directors and critics considering it a serious satire worthy of praise.

Plot

Young drifter Nomi Malone hitchhikes to Las Vegas, where she aspires to make it as a showgirl. After being robbed by a man who picked her up, Nomi meets Molly Abrams, a young professional in the Las Vegas entertainment industry; Molly ultimately takes Nomi in as a roommate. To make ends meet, Nomi begins poledancing and stripping at Cheetah's Gentleman's Club, run by Al Torres. Molly invites Nomi to visit her at work, backstage at the Stardust Resort and Casino, where she is a seamstress and costume designer for ''Goddess'', the Stardust's traditional Vegas-style, topless dance revue. While there, Nomi meets Cristal Connors, the lead female of the ''Goddess'' cast. While making smalltalk, Nomi mentions to Cristal that she dances at Cheetah's; upon hearing this, Cristal derisively tells Nomi that what she does is akin to "prostitution". Upset, Nomi refuses to go to work at Cheetah's that night; she and Molly go dancing at the Crave Club. Nomi then starts a fight with James Smith, a bouncer at Crave, and is subsequently arrested. Later, she pays James little mind when he bails her out of jail.

Cristal and her boyfriend, Zack Carey (the entertainment director at the Stardust Casino), visit Cheetah's to see what Nomi does, with the two requesting a lap dance from her. Although the bisexual Cristal is attracted to her, the lap dance request is based more on a desire to humiliate Nomi, by insinuating that she truly does engage in a form of prostitution. Reluctantly, after Cristal offers her $500, Nomi performs the requested lap dance. James, the bouncer at Crave, and who happens to be at Cheetah's that night, gets a peek at Nomi's lap dance; the next day, he visits Nomi's trailer, suggesting, yet again, that what she is doing is no different than prostitution. James choreographs a new dance routine for Nomi, but then wants to have sex with her in-exchange; when Nomi refuses, James gives the role to Pennya former co-worker of Nomi's.

Later, Cristal arranges for Nomi to audition for the chorus line of ''Goddess''. Tony Moss, the show's director, humiliates Nomi, asking her to rub ice cubes on her nipples to harden them for the topless audition. Furious, Nomi abruptly leaves the audition after scattering ice everywhere, in a fit. Despite her audition, Nomi gets the job and subsequently quits Cheetah's. Cristal then further humiliates Nomi, suggesting that she should make a 'goodwill appearance' at a boat 'trade show', which turns out to be a thinly-disguised prostitution/sex trafficking set-up. The chance to be Cristal's understudy comes up after she hurts herself. Undeterred, Nomi sets out for revenge against Cristal by claiming her role in ''Goddess''. She seduces Cristal's boyfriend, Zack, who then secures an audition for Nomi to be Cristal's understudy. Nomi wins the role, but when Cristal threatens legal action against the Stardust, the offer is rescinded. After Cristal taunts her even more, Nomi snaps, and pushes Cristal down a flight of stairs, causing her to break her hip. Only after the injury is Cristal officially replaced by Nomi as the show's lead. Despite having finally secured the fame she sought, Nomi is disillusioned. She further alienates her roommate and friend Molly, who realizes Nomi caused the hip injury.

Molly later relents, attending Nomi's opening-night celebration at a lavish hotel, where she meets her idol, musician Andrew Carver. Carver lures her to a room, where he brutally beats her before he and his two security-guard friends proceed to gang-rape her to the point of hospitalization. Nomi finds out and immediately wants to call the police. Zack explains that the Stardust will bribe Molly with hush money to protect Carver (one of their star performers), before then explaining about Nomi's 'sordid' past: Zack discovered that "Nomi" was born Polly Ann Costello in San Francisco, from which she ran-away at age 15 to work as a prostitute after her parents' murder–suicide in 1989. After escaping from a foster home in nearby Oakland, California, the following year, Polly changed her name several times. She was also, Zack says, arrested several times, in several states, for various crimes ranging from drug possession and exchanging sex for money to assault with a deadly weapon. Zack blackmails Polly (Nomi), vowing to conceal her past as long as she agrees to not report the rape and assault.

Unable to obtain justice for Molly without exposing her own dubious past, Nomi decides to take matters into her own hands. After brutally attacking Carver alone in his hotel room, Nomi then makes two hospital visits: the first being to inform a semi-conscious, but recovering, Molly that Carver's actions did not go unpunished, and the second, to Cristal, apologizing for pushing her down the stairs and injuring her. As Cristal was not pressing charges against Nomi, and her lawyers had secured her a large cash settlement, she forgives Nomi. Cristal admits that she attempted a similar stunt, years earlier; they exchange a reconciliatory, slightly romantic kiss. Nomi leaves Las Vegas and hitches a ride to Los Angeles, ironically with the same man who previously robbed her on her way to Vegas; she subsequently holds him at knifepoint demanding the return of her suitcase.

Cast

Production

Writing

Joe Eszterhas came up with the idea for ''Showgirls'' while on vacation at his home in Maui, Hawaii. During lunch in Beverly Hills, Paul Verhoeven told Eszterhas that he had always loved "big MGM musicals", and wanted to make one; Eszterhas suggested the setting of Las Vegas. Based on the idea he scribbled on a napkin, Eszterhas was advanced $2 million to write the script and picked up an additional $1.7 million when the studio produced it into a film. This, along with the scripts for both Verhoeven's previous film ''Basic Instinct'' (1992) and '' Sliver'' (1993, also an erotic thriller starring Sharon Stone), made Eszterhas the highest-paid screenwriter in Hollywood history. Because of conflicts with the MPAA over the rating of ''Basic Instinct'', which he made cuts to in order to secure an R rating, Verhoeven planned for ''Showgirls'' to be rated NC-17. Verhoeven deferred 70% of his $6 million director's fee depending on if the film turned a profit.

At the time the script deal was announced, Eszterhas was quoted as saying the story for the film "begins in the world of erotic dancers, lap dancers, table dancers, strippers and sleaze. It moves into the world of big hotel showgirls, billboards and glamor. It examines the sleaze and glamor and asks the audience at the end to make its own moral conclusions."

Eszterhas completed the script in the later half of 1993. He later said, "I wrote ''Showgirls'' at the single most turbulent moment of my life," referring to the dissolution of his first marriage. "The stuff I've done since then has more warmth, more humor, is more upbeat."

Eszterhas and Verhoeven interviewed over 200 Las Vegas strippers and incorporated parts of their stories into the screenplay to show the amount of exploitation of strippers in Vegas.

Prince was reported to be writing songs for the film.

Casting

Before Elizabeth Berkley was cast as Nomi Malone, a long list of actresses were considered for the role, including Pamela Anderson, Drew Barrymore, Angelina Jolie, Vanessa Marcil, Jenny McCarthy, Denise Richards, Jennifer Lopez, and Charlize Theron. On the role of Nomi, Verhoeven said, "One of the main concerns, next to acting, was the dancing and nudity – both of those elements being extreme. The actress would have to be able to dance. And she also had to be willing to show full-frontal throughout the film. These elements, especially the nudity, are extremely difficult for American actresses to accept. And Elizabeth Berkley was the only actress that combined all three."

Madonna and Sharon Stone were considered for the part of Cristal Connors before Gina Gershon was cast.

Kyle MacLachlan said Dylan McDermott was the first choice for the character of Zack Carey, but he declined and MacLachlan was then cast. MacLachlan recalled: "That was a decision that was sort of a tough one to make, but I was enchanted with Paul Verhoeven. Particularly ''RoboCop'', which I loved ... It was Verhoeven and Eszterhas, and it seemed like it was going to be kind of dark and edgy and disturbing and real."

Filming

Verhoeven asked Dave Stewart of the Eurythmics to not only compose the film's score, but to also write the music for the big Stardust hotel shows. "The idea was to make the same loud, sleazy, bad music that you hear in those Vegas shows, because that's how it actually is," said Verhoeven.

Gina Ravera said the filming of the rape scene was traumatic. "When you do a scene like that, your body doesn't know it's not real," Ravera said of the sequence, which took over nine hours to film.

Music

The soundtrack of the film featured songs specially composed for the film, including an early version of David Bowie's "I'm Afraid of Americans", and a song of Siouxsie and the Banshees' "New Skin" recorded near Prague in June 1995. It also includes songs by Killing Joke and Scylla (a then-new band featuring Curve's singer Toni Halliday). The Young Gods' song "Kissing the Sun" only appeared on the American edition of the soundtrack and did not feature on the European and Japanese releases. The soundtrack album was released on September 26, 1995.

Marketing

The NC-17 rating limited the film's marketing opportunities in traditional outlets: of the major American broadcast television networks, ABC, CBS, and Fox did not air ads for the film before 10:00 p.m., and many NBC stations did not advertise it at all. As a consequence, MGM/UA largely relied on the controversy over the rating itself to generate audience hype, and mounted a promotional blitz that capitalized on the film's potentially lurid subject matter. Ads bore the tagline "leave your inhibitions at the door." The promotion included billboards in Times Square and Venice Beach, an interactive adults-only website, and circulation of a "sneak preview" videotape at rental stores, which featured eight minutes of explicit footage not shown in theatrical trailers. The studio said they distributed 300,000 preview tapes, though it was not carried in Blockbuster stores, as the preview was also rated NC-17.

Emphasizing the film's sexual content, MGM/UA targeted young men as a key audience, placing ads for the film in the sports sections of newspapers. Eszterhas objected to this tactic, and took out a full-page advertisement in '' Variety'' where he insisted the film was a morality tale. The ad said, "The movie shows that dancers in Vegas are often victimized, humiliated, used, verbally and physically raped by the men who are at the power centers of that world." Eszterhas, who believed the film's message to be about the moral costs of the pursuit of stardom, urged teens under the age of 17 to sneak into the theater by using fake IDs, prompting censure from MPAA president Jack Valenti.

The film's stark poster was adapted from a photograph by Tono Stano. The photo had originally been featured on the cover of the 1994 book ''The Body: Photographs of the Human Form''.

Release

Box office

The film was released to 1,388 theaters in North America on September 22, 1995. Two theater chains in the South, Texas' Cinemark and Georgia's Carmike, declined to screen the film. On its opening weekend, the film made $8,112,627 and opened in the number 2 spot behind '' Seven''. In the second week, it slipped to the fifth spot and grosses fell 60%. Its total domestic take was $20,350,754, less than half of its $45 million budget.

While the film's theatrical run was underwhelming and did not recoup its budget, it went on to gross over $100 million in the home-video and rentals markets, and as of 2014, the film is still one of MGM's highest-selling movies.

To date, ''Showgirls'' is the second highest-grossing NC-17 production (after ''Last Tango in Paris''), earning $20,350,754 at the North American box office.

Home media

''Showgirls'' performed much better on VHS, DVD, and Blu-ray, becoming one of MGM's top 20 best-sellers, grossing over $100 million in the US home media market alone. Though initially reluctant to edit the film for video release, Verhoeven had agreed to recut ''Showgirls'' as an R-rated version, which allowed MGM to recoup its budget through video sales and rentals. On January 2, 1996, ''Showgirls'' was released on VHS in two versions: A director's R-rated version for rental outlets (including Blockbuster and Hollywood Video), and an NC-17-rated version. The NC-17 version was also released on LaserDisc that year.

''Showgirls'' was released on DVD for the first time on April 25, 2000. In 2004, MGM released the "V.I.P. Edition" on DVD in a special boxed set containing two shot glasses, movie cards with drinking games on the back, a deck of playing cards, and a nude poster of Berkley with a pair of suction-cup pasties so viewers can play "pin the pasties on the showgirl". In 2007, MGM re-released the V.I.P. Edition DVD without the physical extras, as the "Fully Exposed Edition".

On June 15, 2010, MGM released a 15th Anniversary "Sinsational Edition" in a two-disc dual-format Blu-ray/DVD edition.

In 2016, ''Showgirls'' was restored in 4K from the original negative. The image restoration was carried out by the Technicolor laboratory and the sound restoration by the L.E. Diapason laboratory, under the supervision of Paul Verhoeven and Pathé. The restored version was released on Blu-ray following a theatrical run.

The film was released in Germany on Ultra HD Blu-ray by Capelight Pictures in 2020, based on Pathé's restoration, which was noted for having high noise reduction. It was released on Ultra HD Blu-ray in the United States by Vinegar Syndrome in 2023, which received a stronger review for picture quality by ''High-Def Digest''. Vinegar Syndrome launched a disc replacement program shortly after discovering sync issues in the film's 5.1 audio track.

Reception

Critical reception

The film was universally panned on its initial release. Critics bemoaned the film's lack of eroticism and described the film's heavy degree of nudity as exploitative and demeaning to women. In the ''Los Angeles Times'', Kenneth Turan wrote the film "has somehow managed to make extensive nudity exquisitely boring" and "descends into incoherent tedium." He added, "Though the filmmakers' incessant talk about vision, artistry and honest self-expression lead one to expect a sexually explicit biopic about the Dalai Lama, what is in fact provided is depressing and disappointing as well as dehumanizing."

Richard Corliss of ''Time'' wrote, "Eszterhas must be great at pitching stories, because the screenwriting craft eludes him. A mild gag here--the mispronouncing of Gianni Versace's name--is tortured into an endless motif. Nomi has a clouded past, but that doesn't explain why she is such a gratingly annoying creature." Owen Gleiberman of ''Entertainment Weekly'' wrote, "The exploitative heart of ''Showgirls'' is that Eszterhas and Verhoeven effectively dissolve the line between the way men in the strip world treat women and the way the movie treats them. Most of the male characters are misogynistic louts, and even the few sympathetic ones are borderline ridiculous."

The character of Nomi was widely panned as unsympathetic and "irritating". Rita Kempley of ''The Washington Post'' wrote, "Like the bimbo she plays, Berkley's minimal acting talent limits her choice of roles. That makes the filmmakers little better than the club owners who prostitute their employees. They're selling women's bodies, and 'Showgirls' is an overcoat movie for men who don't want to be seen going into a porno theater."

In a review that awarded the film 2 stars out of 4, Roger Ebert lambasted the film's over-the-top nudity and "juvenile" script, maintaining that the movie "contains no true eroticism". However, he wrote "the production values are first-rate, and the lead performance by newcomer Elizabeth Berkley has a fierce energy that's always interesting." He also found some of the plot lines concerning the backstabbing between the dancers entertaining, saying, "It's trash, yes, but not boring". In a 1998 review, he stated the film received "some bad reviews, but it wasn't completely terrible".

In her review in ''The New York Times'', Janet Maslin wrote, "the strain of trying to make America's dirtiest big-studio movie has led Mr. Verhoeven and Mr. Ezsterhas to create an instant camp classic". Writing for the ''San Francisco Chronicle'', Edward Guthmann noted, "From all the bad press that 'Showgirls' has gotten, you'd think the nation's critics had never witnessed high-gloss trash before. Granted, Paul Verhoeven's tale of a Las Vegas lap dancer is one of Hollywood's all-time stinkers, but it does come from a long and healthy tradition – the trashy, backstage show-biz epic", referring to films like '' The Oscar'' and '' Valley of the Dolls.''

Stanley Kauffmann was one of the few critics to give a positive review in ''The New Republic''. He commented, "What matters much more than the story or the Spicy Stuff is the dancing, the show-biz dancing. It's electric. Exciting." Kauffman praised Berkley's performance and commented, "Besides her dancing sizzle, she does what she can with the mechanically viperous character she was given to play. Sarah Bernhardt couldn't have done much more with this robotic part, and couldn't have done the dancing." He also complimented Ravera and Gershon. He concluded the film shows "that: (a) under the glitz, Las Vegas is a tacky, tricky place; and (b) Las Vegas is a microcosm of American values at their shabbiest. If you don't think you can survive the shock of these insights, be warned." In ''The New Yorker'', Anthony Lane said, "Berkley's acting début is a joy, if you can call it acting: she jumps up and down a lot to indicate excitement. Watching this picture is like surfing the soaps for a couple of hours. There's no use being offended, so you might as well have a good laugh."

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 24% based on 80 reviews, with an average rating of 3.7/10. The website's critics consensus reads, "Vile, contemptible, garish, and misogynistic – and that might just be exactly ''Showgirls'' point." Metacritic assigned the film a weighted average score of 20 out of 100, based on 19 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "C" on an A+ to F scale.

Cast and crew

MacLachlan recalled seeing the film for the first time at the premiere:

I was absolutely gobsmacked. I said, "This is horrible. Horrible!" And it's a very slow, sinking feeling when you're watching the movie, and the first scene comes out, and you're like, "Oh, that's a really bad scene." But you say, "Well, that's okay, the next one'll be better." And you somehow try to convince yourself that it's going to get better… and it just gets worse. And I was like, "Wow. That was crazy." I mean, I really didn't see that coming. So at that point, I distanced myself from the movie. Now, of course, it has a whole other life as a sort of inadvertent… satire. No, "satire" isn't the right word. But it's inadvertently funny. So it's found its place. It provides entertainment, though not in the way I think it was originally intended. It was just… maybe the wrong material with the wrong director and the wrong cast.

Due to ''Showgirls'' poor reception, ''Striptease'', a 1996 film about nude dancers starring Demi Moore, was distanced from ''Showgirls'' in advertisements. Elizabeth Berkley was dropped by her agent Mike Menchel following the film's release. Other agents refused to take her telephone calls. In 2013, she also said the film's critical reception made her stop dancing.

In 1997, Eszterhas said:

Clearly we made mistakes. Clearly it was one of the biggest failures of our time. It failed commercially, critically, it failed on videotape, it failed internationally. ... In retrospect, part of it was that Paul and I were coming off of ''Basic'', which defied the critics and was a huge success. Maybe there was a certain hubris involved: "We can do what we want to do, go as far out there as we want." That rape scene was a god-awful mistake. In retrospect, a terrible mistake. And musically it was eminently forgettable. And in casting mistakes were made.

In a 2025 '' Far Out'' article, Verhoeven lamented ''Showgirls'' impact on Berkley's career, stating: "It made my life more difficult, but not to the degree it did Elizabeth's. Hollywood turned their backs on her." Regarding her performance, he stated: "If somebody has to be blamed, it should be me because I thought that it was interesting to portray somebody like that. I asked Elizabeth to do all that. To be abrupt and to act in that way, but people have been attacking her about for that 'sic''">sic.html" ;"title="'sic">'sic''ever since. I had hoped the end of the movie would explain why she acted that way, when it’s revealed she has convictions linked with drugs. But that too turned out to be a big mistake." In the same article, writer Jacob Simmons reflected on the backlash by stating that "Berkley's performance might not have been perfect, but attacks on her appearance were completely unwarranted.

Awards

The film was the winner of a then-record seven 1995 Golden Raspberry Awards (from a record 13 nominations, a record that still stands) including Worst Picture, Worst Actress (Elizabeth Berkley), Worst Director (Paul Verhoeven), Worst Screenplay (Joe Eszterhas), Worst New Star (Elizabeth Berkley), Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Screen Couple">Worst Screen Couple ("any combination of two people (or two body parts)") and Worst Original Song ("Walk Into the Wind" originally written by David A. Stewart and Terry Hall (singer)">Terry Hall in 1992, covered in the film by main antagonist Andrew Carver). Verhoeven appeared in person at the Razzies ceremony to accept his award for Worst Director.

''Showgirls'' would later win an eighth Razzie Award for Worst Picture of the Last Decade in 2000