Critics Scoreboard
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Average Critic Score:
70
(19 sources)
70
(19 sources)
-
100
Entertainment Weekly
A comedy of the ridiculous in which the ridiculous turns unexpectedly sublime. Read Full Review » -
100
Chicago Tribune
One of those rare films that communicates the exquisite joy of the moviemaking process. [7 October 1994, Friday, p.B] Read Full Review » -
100
USA Today
Half-factual, half-fanciful and all funny, this labor of love is also unexpectedly touching. [28 September 1994, Life, p.5D] Read Full Review » -
90
Film.com
In his finest, funniest, most poignant film to date, Tim Burton plays cinematic alchemist, turning drive-in schlock into movie gold. Read Full Review » -
88
Chicago Sun-Times
What Burton has made is a film which celebrates Wood more than it mocks him, and which celebrates, too, the zany spirit of 1950s exploitation films - in which a great title, a has-been star and a lurid ad campaign were enough to get bookings for some of the oddest films ever made. Read Full Review » -
80
Washington Post
Making a movie about the life of Ed Wood certainly qualifies as an impossible dream, but Burton has pulled it off with wit, imagination and something amazingly close to grace. Read Full Review » -
80
Los Angeles Times
Turns out to be a thoroughly entertaining if eccentric piece of business, wacky and amusing in a cheerfully preposterous way. [28 September 1994, Calendar, p.F-1] Read Full Review » -
78
Austin Chronicle
The strangest biographical film ever made is also one of the most charming, melancholy and quirkily humorous films of the year. Read Full Review » -
75
San Francisco Chronicle
Burton has trouble sustaining the briskness of the first half. But the brilliance of many individual scenes, and the extraordinary performance by Landau, are more than enough to justify this goofy, tender ode to eccentricity. [7 October 1994, Daily Notebook, p.C1] Read Full Review » -
70
The New York Times
If Ed Wood has a major failing, it's the lack of momentum. Wood's career had nowhere to go, and to some extent the film has the same problem. [23 September 1994, p.C34] Read Full Review » -
70
Variety
Always engaging to watch and often dazzling in its imagination and technique, picture is also a bit distended, and lacking in weight at its center. Read Full Review » -
70
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70
Film.com
What we remember are the visions of genius and the total turkeys. Rarely do you get both in the same movie, but director Tim Burton pulls it off in this oddly affectionate bio-pic of Ed Wood. Read Full Review » -
63
ReelViews
The most interesting personality in Ed Wood is not the title character, but Bela Lugosi. So covered up with makeup that he's barely recognizable, Martin Landau gives a deeply-felt performance -- a eerie and stunning recreation of a man haunted by lost fame. Read Full Review » -
60
Chicago Reader
If, like the filmmakers, you're willing to settle for a myth that flatters your sensibilities and shortchanges the past, you're likely to find some agreeable kicks here. Read Full Review » -
60
Washington Post
Burton has evoked the surface of Ed Wood's life, but in a story about a man who loves angora and frilly panties, he has barely unbuttoned Wood's uniform. Read Full Review » -
50
Baltimore Sun
Fails to go into the one realm that would make it worthwhile, which is Ed Wood's brain. Read Full Review » -
38
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
A cinematic homage as flawed as its subject. Flawed, yet with a peculiar fascination of its own -- what we have is a genuine artist paying sincere tribute to an unapologetic mediocrity, and stooping awkwardly to the task. Read Full Review » -
20
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