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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
67
$9.99
75
24 City
66
Adoration
74
Afghan Star
48
Alien Trespass
56
American Violet
82
Anvil! The Story of Anvil
57
Away We Go
81
Beaches of Agnes, The
62
Big Man Japan
28
Big Shot-Caller, The
78
Boys: The Sherman Brothers' Story, The
55
Brothers Bloom, The
82
Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country
xx
Call of the Wild
63
Cheri
62
Cherry Blossoms
63
Dead Snow
65
Departures
18
Downloading Nancy
58
Easy Virtue
70
End of the Line, The
77
Every Little Step
64
Examined Life
80
Food, Inc.
38
Gigantic
56
Girl from Monaco, The
67
Girlfriend Experience, The
87
Gomorrah
89
Goodbye Solo
63
Great Buck Howard, The
79
Harvard Beats Yale 29-29
xx
Home
82
Hunger
91
Hurt Locker, The
16
I Hate Valentine's Day
81
Il Divo
54
Is Anybody There?
71
Jerichow
58
Julia
74
Lemon Tree
36
Life is Hot in Cracktown
40
Limits of Control, The
42
Little Ashes
64
Lymelife
50
Management
57
Merry Gentleman, The
66
Moon
35
New York
62
Not Forgotten
xx
Offshore
78
O'Horten
64
Outrage
40
Paris 36
54
Pontypool
71
Pressure Cooker
52
Quiet Chaos
83
Revanche
67
Rudo y Cursi
86
Seraphine
65
Sex Positive
70
Shall We Kiss?
77
Sin Nombre
59
Sleep Dealer
74
Song of Sparrows, The
54
Stoning of Soraya M., The
82
Sugar
84
Summer Hours
61
Sunshine Cleaning
28
Surveillance
42
Tennessee
63
Tetro
64
Throw Down Your Heart
80
Tokyo Sonata
63
Tokyo!
70
Tony Manero
74
Treeless Mountain
88
Tulpan
74
Two Lovers
83
Tyson
83
U2 3D
60
Under Our Skin
69
Unmistaken Child
69
Valentino: The Last Emperor
22
What Goes Up
45
Whatever Works
57
Youssou Ndour: I Bring What I Love
91
Hurt Locker, The
89
Goodbye Solo
88
Tulpan
87
Gomorrah
86
Seraphine
84
Summer Hours
83
U2 3D
83
Revanche
83
Tyson
82
Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country
82
Sugar
82
Hunger
82
Anvil! The Story of Anvil
81
Il Divo
81
Beaches of Agnes, The
80
Food, Inc.
80
Tokyo Sonata
79
Harvard Beats Yale 29-29
78
Boys: The Sherman Brothers' Story, The
78
O'Horten
77
Every Little Step
77
Sin Nombre
75
24 City
74
Treeless Mountain
74
Afghan Star
74
Two Lovers
74
Song of Sparrows, The
74
Lemon Tree
71
Pressure Cooker
71
Jerichow
70
Shall We Kiss?
70
Tony Manero
70
End of the Line, The
69
Valentino: The Last Emperor
69
Unmistaken Child
67
$9.99
67
Rudo y Cursi
67
Girlfriend Experience, The
66
Adoration
66
Moon
65
Sex Positive
65
Departures
64
Outrage
64
Examined Life
64
Throw Down Your Heart
64
Lymelife
63
Tokyo!
63
Cheri
63
Dead Snow
63
Tetro
63
Great Buck Howard, The
62
Cherry Blossoms
62
Big Man Japan
62
Not Forgotten
61
Sunshine Cleaning
60
Under Our Skin
59
Sleep Dealer
58
Julia
58
Easy Virtue
57
Away We Go
57
Merry Gentleman, The
57
Youssou Ndour: I Bring What I Love
56
Girl from Monaco, The
56
American Violet
55
Brothers Bloom, The
54
Is Anybody There?
54
Pontypool
54
Stoning of Soraya M., The
52
Quiet Chaos
50
Management
48
Alien Trespass
45
Whatever Works
42
Little Ashes
42
Tennessee
40
Limits of Control, The
40
Paris 36
38
Gigantic
36
Life is Hot in Cracktown
35
New York
28
Big Shot-Caller, The
28
Surveillance
22
What Goes Up
18
Downloading Nancy
16
I Hate Valentine's Day
xx
Call of the Wild
xx
Home
xx
Offshore
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
|
Cinderella Man
Universal Pictures
FILM:
MPAA RATING: PG-13 for intense boxing violence and some language
Starring
Russell Crowe,
Renée Zellweger,
Connor Price,
Craig Bierko,
Paddy Considine,
Paul Giamatti,
and
Bruce McGill
In the middle of the Great Depression, when an America in the grips of a devastating economic downturn was nearly brought to its knees, there came along a most unlikely hero who had crowds cheering on their feet as he proved just how hard a man would fight to win a second chance for his family and himself. That common-man hero was James J. Braddock, a.k.a. the "Cinderella Man"-who was to become one of the most surprising and inspirational sports legends in history. (Universal Pictures)
| GENRE(S): |
Drama
|
Romance
|
| WRITTEN BY: |
Cliff Hollingsworth (also story)
Akiva Goldsman
|
| DIRECTED BY: |
Ron Howard
|
| RELEASE DATE: |
DVD: December 6, 2005
Video: December 6, 2005
Theatrical: June 3, 2005
|
| RUNNING TIME: |
144 minutes, Color |
| ORIGIN: |
USA |
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...
100
The Hollywood Reporter
Michael Rechtshaffen
Ron Howard and Russell Crowe bring the Braddock story to vivid life in a superbly acted, beautifully shot, highly engaging drama that ranks as one of Howard's best efforts.
100
Variety
Robert Koehler
An exquisite ode to a working-class hero, Cinderella Man takes the almost impossibly perfect elements of the saga of underdog boxer James J. Braddock and fills it with emotional gravitas, wrenching danger and a panoramic sense of American life during the Great Depression.
100
Dallas Observer
Robert Wilonsky
At last, his (Howard's) first great (and filling) movie--inspirational, yes, but far from hokey; moving, absolutely, but never saccharine; and gripping, despite its being a fixed fight.
100
Philadelphia Inquirer
Carrie Rickey
Cinderella Man is not a movie about boxing, but about this boxer who personified the heart and hope of 1935.
100
Christian Science Monitor
David Sterritt
In sum, the classical Ron Howard and his splendid cast have made a spellbinding movie that joins "Million Dollar Baby," as well as "Raging Bull," the first two "Rocky" pictures, and "Fat City" as one of boxing cinema's all-time heavyweight champs.
100
USA Today
Mike Clark
A premier boxing movie and a forceful Depression remembrance for the socially conscious, Cinderella Man also ices it for stargazers that Russell Crowe is the dominant screen actor working today.
100
San Francisco Chronicle
Mick LaSalle
An unflinching and historically rich rendering of an amazing story. He has made what is easily the best American film so far this year.
91
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
William Arnold
It's an eye-filling, sumptuously detailed historical epic that grandly re-creates the bloody gladiatorial spectacles and smoke-filled, spit-flying, claustrophobically crowded arenas of its bygone era.
88
Boston Globe
Ty Burr
A broad, foursquare piece of populist filmmaking that happens to be tremendously moving.
88
Chicago Sun-Times
Roger Ebert
Jim Braddock is almost transparent in the simple goodness of his character; that must have made him almost impossible to play. Russell Crowe makes him fascinating, and it takes a moment of two of thought to appreciate how difficult that must have been.
88
Miami Herald
Rene Rodriguez
Smashing, supremely engrossing picture.
88
Rolling Stone
Peter Travers
It's the classic American tale of the family man triumphant, and Howard makes sure that it hits you right in the heart.
83
Entertainment Weekly
Lisa Schwarzbaum
How exceptional a film actor is Russell Crowe? So exceptional that in Cinderella Man, he makes a good boxing movie feel at times like a great, big picture.
83
Portland Oregonian
Shawn Levy
It's a crowd-pleasing, artful and convincing movie that just misses being great but nevertheless gratifies.
80
Film Threat
Pete Vonder Haar
Giamatti has his hands full trying to keep us from thinking about Burgess Meredith.
80
Wall Street Journal
Joe Morgenstern
Ron Howard's Depression-era movie also works from the inside out, building a classic underdog drama from depth of character, rich texture, vivid detail and stirring performances.
80
Newsweek
David Ansen
As a history lesson (Depression 101), Cinderella Man feels a bit secondhand. As a true-grit tale of redemption, however, it lands one solid body punch after another.
80
The New Yorker
Anthony Lane
It runs roughly two and a half hours, and the intensity spikes with every fight; without Russell Crowe and Paul Giamatti, however, it would be flat on the canvas. They make it seem a better and more bristling film than it actually is.
80
Time
Richard Schickel
The film is most significantly about puzzled people trying to comprehend the cosmic reversal of fortune that was the Depression. They don't have much more than raw courage and simple virtues to rely on. Unlike most period pieces, Cinderella Man encourages us to fondly recall not songs or clothes but values we have largely mislaid.
80
Empire
Ian Freer
Delivers old-fashioned, "Shawshank Redemption"-style entertainment.
70
Washington Post
Stephen Hunter
With all that going for it, one must ask, why didn't they just tell it completely straight? In other words, why did they feel so compelled to create an utterly bogus Max Baer for the virtuous Jim to fight in the movie's admittedly compelling climactic, championship bout?
70
Village Voice
Ed Halter
Despite the tale's dusty pedigree, Ron Howard spins a ticket-worthy two-plus hours of movie-movie entertainment.
70
The Onion (A.V. Club)
Scott Tobias
Lacking a more specific sense of time and place, Cinderella Man leans heavily on the technically proficient Crowe to slip into Braddock's skin, but he can only do so much with a character who's ready to be mounted in bronze over Central Park.
70
Los Angeles Times
Kenneth Turan
Cinderella Man's key emotional moments feel as if they've been predigested for an audience that can't be trusted to feel things for itself but needs to be firmly albeit lovingly pointed in the appropriate direction.
70
The New York Times
Manohla Dargis
Lightly stained a nicotine brown and topped by two male actors who could steal a movie from a basket of mewling kittens and an army of rosy-cheeked orphans, the film is as calculating and glossy a hard-luck tale as any cooked up on the old M-G-M lot.
70
Washington Post
Desson Thomson
What keeps "Cinderella" from complete hokiness is Crowe's utterly believable performance.
70
Slate
David Edelstein
Howard manipulates audiences without guile, jerking tears, piling on catastrophes, smoothing out dissonances, making bad characters badder and good ones gooder--and clearly believing that this is wholesome. At what he does, he's peerless. I wish I had more respect for what he does--and for myself the next morning for surrendering.
70
The New Republic
Stanley Kauffmann
Crowe is, in his unique way, astonishing. Even at his biggest moments he seems both convincing and somewhat reticent.
63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
Rick Groen
With the notable exception of Martin Scorsese's opus, most boxing flicks suffer form a certain amount of raw-boned sentimentality, the sort of easy melodrama that pits naive underdogs against corrupt overlords, or age against youth, or purity against prejudice. Even the recent "Million Dollar Baby" succumbed in the final act. But this one, where "Rocky" meets "The Waltons," has us reeling under its saccharine weight.
63
ReelViews
James Berardinelli
Overlong and unevenly paced, Cinderella Man hits stretches (especially between bouts) when it threatens to lose its audience.
63
Charlotte Observer
Lawrence Toppman
The performances do shine out through this dramatic miasma.
60
Chicago Reader
Jonathan Rosenbaum
Ron Howard, an exemplar of honorable mediocrity, reunites with actor Russell Crowe and screenwriter Akiva Goldsman of "A Beautiful Mind" for this epic treatment of a seven-year stretch (1928-'35) in the career of New Jersey boxer James J. Braddock.
50
TV Guide
Ken Fox
Viewers who remember Max Baer may, however, take issue with the way the film treats this charismatic fighter. In 1933, Baer became an important symbol of Jewish strength when he faced off against Hitler's favored fighter, Max Schmeling, and while reducing Baer to a bloodthirsty villain makes it easier to root for Braddock, it's an unfair bit of character assassination.
50
New York Daily News
Jami Bernard
Without Crowe and Paul Giamatti, this movie would have little in its corner.
50
Chicago Tribune
Robert K. Elder
Ultimately, it's Paul Giamatti ("Sideways"), playing Braddock's manager Joe Gould, who shines. In another actor's hands, Gould would be a secondary character lost in Crowe's shadow, but Giamatti outshines his co-stars at times with his everyman looks and delivery.
50
LA Weekly
Ella Taylor
The movie is calamitously miscast.
40
Austin Chronicle
Marjorie Baumgarten
He's a saint in the flesh, but not one who inspires great drama.
38
Baltimore Sun
Michael Sragow
There's no irony within the film, but there's a whopping irony surrounding it. Just as Star Wars has finally ended, Rocky seems to be starting all over again.
38
New York Post
Lou Lumenick
Ron Howard's bio-pic is an Oscar-baiting fairy tale that manipulates the audience at every turn of the clich.
30
Salon.com
Stephanie Zacharek
Cinderella Man is ostensibly the kind of old-fashioned drama that sends audiences home with a satisfied glow. But like so many of Howard's movies, there's something canned and phony about it -- it left me feeling cooked and dehydrated, as if I'd fallen asleep on a tanning bed.
 The average user rating for this movie is 7.8 (out of 10) based on 177 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
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