The greatest movie ever made..!

One of my all time favorites.

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

As a movie enthusiast for several decades, I've seen thousands of movies. I thought this was one of the very, very best. It's the first time I've given an IMDb rating of 10. The writing was great and the 3 principals gave very strong performances. In fact, I started to search to see if Lauren Holly was at least given a 1998 Best Actress nomination. However, I stumbled across the movie's having been pulled from distribution before 250,000 had seen it. So the selection committee would have never have even considered it. What a shame – I was stunned! I went here to IMDb to see what was the disconnect between my experience and most everyone else's. I saw that 1,378 reviewers gave an average 5.7 (out of 10) rating. The last time I really liked a movie the average was 8.5. I looked at the written reviews and saw a lot of people who really liked it. One suggested that if one was looking for a blockbuster or escapist fare one wouldn't like it. Maybe the writing was too good, too true to life? However, several Burns' slice of life films had been blockbuster hits so that couldn't be the whole story. Maybe, people got so into the film that out of the 3 plausible endings 2 out of 3 were deeply disappointed by the 1 selected. However, I contend, the 95% of the movie that went before the ending had the value of showing people struggling with difficult emotional decisions that were somewhat beyond their control as they were intertwined with other humans struggling with their own difficult emotional decisions – so the audience could just select whatever virtual ending one wanted and be moved by the heart of the movie. There's no objective right choice, just choose what's right for you and realize there's no guarantees in life. So my first few sentences notwithstanding, don't go in with high expectations – the statistics seem to be against it. If you only see a few films, then go with the super popular films. However, if you've "seen them all" and are casting about for something above mediocrity and you like slice of life, it's worth the gamble. I read the negatives and disagreed and they gave no insight into objective flaws – they just describe why they personally didn't like seeing that particular slice of life, etc. It's a GREAT film, but you might just not like it.

I too would like to know where to find the list of songs and artists for this movies sound track. There is one song in particular i am fond of. I recently saw the movie and this song was playing shortly but the song really helped to set the mode for the particular seen chosen for it. Over all the other songs played in this movie were good as well. I enjoyed the movie greatly and will continue to watch over and over again. The characters chosen for the film fit script to a 'T' and could have been depicted any more exact to the their roles. I hope everyone gets a chance to veiw this movie. Since i have seen this moving i have opened my horizons to the others films these actors have benn chosen to play in.

i wish their were more ed burns out their. its ashame u have to be a big shot to get a good story to the public, because i know their are tons of people who can write but are not Hollywood big shots so people will never enjoy it. No Looking back is an actual story that I and so many others can relate to. I know movies are meant to entertain and this movie does that while also relating to many viewers lives. I do not know if this was a great movie or just so much a step up from all the junk being made today. bottom line, burns tells a great story and does a great job acting as well. burns plays a regular joe and gets away with it perfectly, which is rare for your basic overly good looking Hollywood actor. The song choice and cinematography was great and all the actors seemed realistic in their roles. BonJovi looked like he could use an acting class or 2 but if hes gona act that's the kinda role he should play. i hope ed burns and anyone else continue to make these movies where no one is blowing up buildings or killing aliens. Movies today are a joke, it is all rich people getting stupid people to come see their movies to make box office $. keep it up ed burns.

I watched this movie just recently (had video-recorded it from the TV). Very solid performances of all the actors and I was pleasantly surprised by Jon Bon Jovi. In my view, Edward Burns has given us better performances than this one, although no complaints. Blythe Danner, even though her role is short, is intense and completely into it as always. The setting, a small coastal town, was great and perfectly reflected the mood of the entire movie. As to the soundtrack: superb! But where can I get a hold of it?! The recording I have did not show the credits all the way to the end and I would especially like to know which female singer performs at least two of the songs. Springsteen is, of course, recognizable.