Million Dollar Baby

The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt

Under Eastwood's painstakingly stripped-down direction -- his filmmaking has become the cinematic equivalent of Hemingway's spare though precise prose -- the story emerges as that rarest of birds, an uplifting tragedy.

Variety Todd McCarthy

Staying at the top of his game when most of his contemporaries have long since hung up their gloves, Clint Eastwood delivers another knockout punch with Million Dollar Baby.

Newsweek David Ansen

Eastwood takes the audience to raw, profoundly moving places. If you fear strong emotions, this is not for you. But if you want to see Hollywood filmmaking at its most potent, Eastwood has delivered the real deal.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

Achieves a mellowness and melancholy that recalls the jazzy dissonance of director (and here, composer) Eastwood's best work: "The Outlaw Josey Wales," "Bird," "Unforgiven" and "Mystic River."

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

Perhaps the director's most touching, most elegiac work yet, Million Dollar Baby is a film that does both the expected and the unexpected, that has the nerve and the will to be as pitiless as it is sentimental.

The New York Times Dana Stevens

With its careful, unassuming naturalism, its visual thrift and its emotional directness, Million Dollar Baby feels at once contemporary and classical, a work of utter mastery that at the same time has nothing in particular to prove.

The New Yorker David Denby

Has a beautifully modulated sadness that's almost musical. Eastwood once made a movie about Charlie Parker ("Bird"), but this picture has the smoothly melancholic tones of Coleman Hawkins at his greatest.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

A spare, exquisitely realized masterpiece about faith, redemption and boxing that beautifully illustrates his longtime philosophy that "less is more."

USA Today Mike Clark

As good as "Unforgiven." Or, to put it another way, as good as any movie Eastwood has ever directed.

Premiere Glenn Kenny

A remarkably appealing success story full of heart and humor and poignancy, with Swank as winning as she’s ever been.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

A masterpiece, pure and simple, deep and true...The best film of the year.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

It's an ideal match, and Eastwood deserves accolades as both director and star of this powerfully made picture.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

Haggis's dialogue is worthy of Hemingway, and the three leads border on perfection.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

Ages well in memory because it gradually seems to mean more. Its meaning can't be summed up in a sentence, but it has to do with a view of life as inexpressibly sad and yet always right.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

It's an emotionally gripping, daringly genre-twisting, consummately crafted piece of filmmaking.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

More than "Unforgiven," more than "Mystic River," it is Clint Eastwood's autumnal masterpiece.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

One of the many pleasures of this beautifully composed, measured movie is how it reminds you of the power of pure storytelling -- an art that's too often overlooked in contemporary films in the rush for sensation and excitement.

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

This heartbreaking film, with its rich performances and simple eloquence, lays claim to greatness.

Austin Chronicle Steve Davis

Unlike other filmmakers in the autumn or winter of their careers, Eastwood doesn't seem content to rest on his laurels and give his audiences the tried and the true. For that reason, among many others, he and Million Dollar Baby are true champions.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

Reveals the drama and degredation so powerfully that it ranks among the all-time heavyweights of sports movies.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

A truly powerful, masterful work.

Film Threat Rick Kisonak

Eastwood tells the story at a pace well under the Hollywood speed limit, tosses in details so beguiling they seem about to sprout into motion pictures of their own and bathes his subjects in shadows as lovely as those in any Rembrandt.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

A movie of tough excitement and surprise, even grace.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

So wonderfully antiquated, so blissfully free of postmodern cleverness.

Washington Post Ann Hornaday

The heart of Million Dollar Baby lies in the core relationships among Frankie, Maggie and Scrap, friendships so pure, so genuine, so authentic that it takes actors of Eastwood's, Swank's and Freeman's caliber to sell them in this otherwise cynical world.

Dallas Observer Bill Gallo

Baby may not be quite as compelling as Mystic River or Unforgiven, but there's something so stirring, and disquieting, too, in his quest that we cannot help but pay close attention to him. In the middle of his long career's third act, he's still searching for the secrets in things with striking resolve. You certainly can't ask more than that of any 75-year-old ex-gunslinger.

New York Daily News Jami Bernard

Million Dollar Baby is a knockout. It is Clint Eastwood's baby in every respect — a movie that approaches the level of great boxing films, like "Raging Bull," by using sport as a metaphor for human nature.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

It is a rich and challenging motion picture that both affirms life and emphasizes its fragility. Eastwood touches our hearts and energizes our minds without resorting to overt manipulation.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

The knockout punch comes from Eastwood. His stripped-down performance -- as powerful as anything he's ever done -- has a rugged, haunting beauty. The same goes for the movie.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

Though conventional in many respects, it feels like no other boxing film ever made, due largely to Eastwood's unmistakable presence on both sides of the camera.

Village Voice Michael Atkinson

All the same, Eastwood's point of view has been seasoned enough to locate poignancy and respect for his protagonists where you least expect -- saying it's an old man's movie is a serious compliment.

Empire Colin Kennedy

To steal from Ali, this one floats like a butterfly and stings like a bee.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey

With his trademark spare, unfussy direction and jumping into the story approach, Eastwood subtly establishes the themes of faith, loss and love and then he raises the drama to a different level.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

It is thoughtful, unfashionable, measured, mostly honest, sometimes clumsy or remote, often exciting, occasionally moving and eventually surprising. It's correct.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

Eastwood's slow-building story of loss and deliverance is a fine, understated piece of storytelling that earns every emotional body blow it lands.

The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann

If we can watch this picture at all, it is because this universally admired person (Eastwood) is in it.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

In a boxing soap-opera way, Eastwood is trying to do for himself as a performer what Sergio Leone did for him in a spaghetti-western way: douse his rough-hewn banality with reflected emotional coloration.

Slate David Edelstein

It's impressive, in the sense that a sucker-punch impresses itself on your skull.

Salon.com Charles Taylor

A compendium of every cliché from every bad boxing melodrama ever made, Million Dollar Baby tries to transcend its cornball overfamiliarity with the qualities that have long characterized Eastwood's direction -- it's solemn, inflated and dull.