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:
90
(34 sources)
90
(34 sources)
-
100
TNT RoughCut
Spectacular, wrenching masterpiece that unflinchingly documents the random horror, the grisly spectacle and the ugliness of war. Read Full Review » -
100
San Francisco Examiner
The effect is riveting and frightening. You feel you are under siege with the combatants. Read Full Review » -
100
Variety
A searingly visceral combat picture, Steven Spielberg’s third World War II drama is arguably second to none as a vivid, realistic and bloody portrait of armed conflict. Read Full Review » -
100
New York Daily News
Steven Spielberg's best war film -- and one of the two or three best movies the director has made. Read Full Review » -
100
Washington Post
Searing, heartbreaking, so intense it turns your body into a single tube of clenched muscle, this is simply the greatest war movie ever made, and one of the great American movies. Read Full Review » -
100
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100
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100
Mr. Showbiz
No Hollywood film within recent memory has achieved such richness and originality of texture, such a compelling amalgam of passionate human drama and awesome technique. Read Full Review » -
100
Portland Oregonian
One of the best films ever made in this country, filled with our proudest national virtues, cognizant of our deeply rooted human weaknesses and frighteningly able to evoke emotions. Read Full Review » -
100
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100
Time
A war film that, entirely aware of its genre's conventions, transcends them as it transcends the simplistic moralities that inform its predecessors, to take the high, morally haunting ground. Read Full Review » -
100
The New York Times
Steven Spielberg's soberly magnificent new war film, the second such pinnacle in a career of magical versatility, has been made in the same spirit of urgent communication. It is the ultimate devastating letter home. Read Full Review » -
100
Film.com
In striving to duplicate reality, Spielberg has gone reality one better -- he's playing war, but it's a game no one would ever willingly join in. Read Full Review » -
100
Dallas Observer
He (Spielberg) commemorates the soldiers in that vast Normandy cemetery in the most absolute and honorable way possible. Read Full Review » -
100
The Onion (A.V. Club)
An excellent movie, as effective in battle scenes as it is in that of soldiers ruminating on an Edith Piaf song. Read Full Review » -
100
Entertainment Weekly
A movie of staggering virtuosity and raw lyric power, a masterpiece of terror, chaos, blood, and courage. Read Full Review » -
100
New York Post
A film of such cyclonic visual and emotional power, of such dazzling virtuosity and shattering humanity, that it is difficult to endure, yet alone describe. Savagely beautiful and savagely true, Saving Private Ryan is an excruciating masterpiece. Read Full Review » -
100
ReelViews
For those who are willing to brave the movie's shocking and unforgettable images, Saving Private Ryan offers a singular motion picture experience. Read Full Review » -
100
Chicago Sun-Times
This film embodies ideas. After the immediate experience begins to fade, the implications remain and grow. Read Full Review » -
90
Slate
What Steven Spielberg has accomplished in Saving Private Ryan is to make violence terrible again. Read Full Review » -
90
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90
Film.com
Feels like the first truly honest attempt to deal with the horrors of combat - and the terrible responsibility shared by all survivors. Read Full Review » -
89
Austin Chronicle
A bitter, bloody masterpiece with adrenalized emotions and hyper-realized images, this is perhaps as close to battle as any sane human being should ever hope to tread. Read Full Review » -
80
TV Guide
The movie's greatest strength lies in phenomenal performances that reach from the leads right down to the smallest supporting roles. Read Full Review » -
80
LA Weekly
If Steven Spielberg's emotional intelligence matched his visual genius, his honorably flawed new film might qualify for one of the greatest-ever American WWII movies. Read Full Review » -
80
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80
Film.com
An exceptionally intense movie whose sheer filmmaking power ultimately transcends all its (many) limitations. Read Full Review » -
80
Washington Post
Its relatively minor imperfections seem more glaring when compared to the near flawlessness of the film's lyrical, scorching start. Read Full Review » -
80
Los Angeles Times
A startling reminder of exactly how spectacular a director Spielberg can be when he allows himself to be challenged by a subject (in this case World War II) that pushes against his limits. Read Full Review » -
80
Salon.com
Using the overpowering techniques of modern film, Steven Spielberg has cut through the glory-tinged gauze that shrouds World War II to reveal its brutal reality, creating a phenomenology of violence unsurpassed in the history of cinema. Read Full Review » -
80
The New Republic
Steven Spielberg's new film begins as a monumental epic; then it diminishes; and, by its finish, is baffling. [August 24, 1998] Read Full Review » -
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
A horror movie based on history, offering some of the most spectacularly brutal, viscerally intense battle scenes ever brought to a Hollywood movie. Read Full Review » -
75
Christian Science Monitor
The story raises hard moral questions relating to the relative value of human lives and the overwhelming debt that may be felt by those who benefit when others sacrifice. But the movie falls short of excellence because it doesn't so much explore these issues as finesse them in an action-filled climax. Read Full Review » -
50
Chicago Reader
Nothing that suggests an independent vision, unless you count seeing more limbs blown off than usual. Read Full Review »
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