Advanced Search >
Help Me Search

Movies

Weekend Box Office
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores
Best / Worst of the Decade

Wide Releases
Now In Theaters

sort by namesort by score

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Limited Releases
Now In Theaters

sort by namesort by score

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Walk the Line

EMAILPRINTTwentieth Century Fox Film Corporation

Walk the Line reviews
72
7.7 User Score:

Generally favorable reviews

Based on 39 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

Based on 146 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >

Movie Info

Genre(s): Drama  |  Musical

Written by: Gill Dennis
James Mangold

Directed by: James Mangold

Release Date:
Theatrical: November 18, 2005
DVD: February 28, 2006

Running Time: 136 minutes, Color

Origin: USA

Summary

RATING: PG-13 for some language, thematic material and depiction of drug dependency

Starring Joaquin Phoenix, Reese Witherspoon, Ginnifer Goodwin, Robert Patrick, Dallas Roberts, Dan John Miller, Larry Bagby, and Shelby Lynne

The story of the young Johnny Cash and his incendiary love affair with June Carter Cash come to life in Walk the Line. (20th Century Fox)

What The Critics Said

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

New York Post Lou Lumenick

Walk the Line superbly combines music and two of the year's most riveting performances to tell one of the screen's great love stories.

Read Full Review >
100

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

What Phoenix and Witherspoon accomplish in this movie is transcendent. They act with every bone and inch of flesh and facial plane, and each tone and waver of their voice.

Read Full Review >
90

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

Breaks through the conventions of its biopic form with a pair of brilliant performances and a whole lot more.

88

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

It's a celebration of the good times and bad times shared by a man and woman who found each other in the middle of some historic craziness, and it rocks.

Read Full Review >
88

USA Today Mike Clark

A Johnny Cash biopic equally packed with music and frustrated love, Walk the Line goes from compelling to enthralling.

Read Full Review >
88

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

The film sends you home moved and in a tuneful mood.

Read Full Review >
88

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Witherspoon has nailed it before, notably in "Election," but her portrayal of June is astounding in its vitality and richness.

Read Full Review >
88

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

What adds boundless energy to Walk the Line is the performance by Reese Witherspoon as June Carter Cash.

Read Full Review >
83

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

A big, juicy, enjoyable wide-canvas biography with a handful of indelible moments.

Read Full Review >
83

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

The movie is entertaining, reasonably true to the facts of its subject's life and full of music.

Read Full Review >
80

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

As the star-crossed couple, Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon contribute all their own vocals, and their soapier scenes together reminded me of no less than the 1954 "A Star Is Born."

Read Full Review >
80

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

I suspect many Cash fans will think it's too conventional. But I think its conventionality is part of its power.

Read Full Review >
80

Slate David Edelstein

In spite of its standard biopic gaps and simplifications, Walk the Line gets the big things right.

Read Full Review >
80

Empire Colin Kennedy

Witherspoon's June is a pistol - a sugar-rush of screwball energy and cornball Southern sass that's meticulously earthed with grace notes of sadness.

Read Full Review >
78

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

Mangold, Phoenix, and Witherspoon, all excellent in their roles.

Read Full Review >
75

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

Cash was a true anomaly: a poseur who was also the genuine article. A better movie would have made that contradiction its core.

Read Full Review >
75

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

It doesn't matter much that Phoenix and Witherspoon sound more like Phoenix and Witherspoon than Cash and Carter. The chemistry is there. The actors walk their own line, successfully.

Read Full Review >
75

ReelViews James Berardinelli

This movie has a driving plotline that "Ray" lacked - a love story. To me, that's what elevates this film.

Read Full Review >
75

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

A passionate, chronicle of an extraordinary artist, and a love story that can't be beat.

Read Full Review >
75

Premiere Glenn Kenny

Thanks to the movie's very clear respect for Cash and his music, and thanks mostly to the two superb, heartfelt performances by Reese Witherspoon as Carter and Joaquin Phoenix as Cash, Walk the Line eventually earned my sympathy.

Read Full Review >
75

Portland Oregonian M. E. Russell

It's frustrating that a movie about a man so deathly serious about music has largely boiled his life down to addiction and adultery.

Read Full Review >
75

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

What Walk the Line does well, it does really well. Mangold was ­wisely gen­erous with the amount of musical performance he included in the film, and the later scenes - showing Cash and Carter as partners - are so well shot and edited, they defy you to sit still.

Read Full Review >
75

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

Conventional to the core but gets a blast of pure, hard-driving energy from Joaquin Phoenix's and Reese Witherspoon's vividly realized performances.

Read Full Review >
75

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

Cash made some untamed, exhilarating sounds in its formative days. Walk the Line is strongest when it shows him in love with either his music or his muse.

Read Full Review >
75

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

The best moments in Walk the Line are the plentiful musical sequences, from Cash's initial foray into the Sun Records studio in Memphis, to his nights performing in high school auditoriums alongside the likes of Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis, to his landmark concert at Folsom Prison in 1968, where his dangerous, edgy persona was cemented.

Read Full Review >
70

Variety Todd McCarthy

Walk the Line is a strongly acted, musically vibrant, conventionally satisfying biopic of country/rock/blues legend Johnny Cash and his second wife, June Carter.

Read Full Review >
70

LA Weekly Ella Taylor

An engaging biopic that would totally lack surprise were it not for Reese Witherspoon, and a healthy touch of ambivalence about the populist myth that bound The Man in Black to his adoring public.

Read Full Review >
70

Los Angeles Times Carina Chocano

The movie is less an uncharted journey than a 2 p.m. bus tour of a music industry legend. But like an expert guide, Mangold shepherds the story with enough grace, energy and skill to make it worthwhile.

Read Full Review >
70

The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt

The decision to approach Johnny's life as a love story causes Mangold to neglect the development of Johnny's music.

Read Full Review >
63

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey

The problem is that the movie plays down almost everything that made Cash great: the train rumble of a voice, the direct, poetic truth of his best lyrics, the invention of his outlaw image and his constant creativity.

Read Full Review >
60

Film Threat Pete Vonder Haar

Cash is a legend, and deserving of a more thoughtful portrayal than what we’re offered here.

Read Full Review >
60

Newsweek David Ansen

This Man in Black is, frankly, a bit of a wuss. As a love story, Walk the Line can seduce. As a biopic, it treads awfully familiar Overcoming Adversity turf.

Read Full Review >
60

Washington Post Ann Hornaday

Unfortunately, for all its good music and admirable vocal impersonations, Walk the Line slides -- very, very slowly -- downhill.

Read Full Review >
60

New York Magazine Ken Tucker

There are too many musical performances in this movie, even for a country fan such as myself, to keep the city slickers engaged. This bespeaks great faith in the charisma of the stars, who merit it. They also, however, deserved a better script.

Read Full Review >
60

The New Yorker David Denby

I couldn't imagine anyone better suited to play the role. But this movie is a lot less interesting than it might be. Though it's not bad--in fact, it's rather sweet--it's too simple a portrait of a very complicated and calculating entertainer.

Read Full Review >
50

Dallas Observer Robert Wilonsky

For all the affection Mangold feels for Cash and Carter, the movie feels oddly dispassionate.

Read Full Review >
50

Village Voice J. Hoberman

In no way obsessive, Walk the Line is more sincerely--which is to say, more boringly--sincere. It doesn't leave you with much to think about, except maybe the empty vibrato of effective ventriloquism.

Read Full Review >
50

The Onion (A.V. Club) Noel Murray

Ends up being another one of those life-of-an-entertainer films that reduces an artist to his most embarrassing moments.

Read Full Review >
50

The New York Times Dana Stevens

There is no way a feature-length movie could do justice to such bounty, and Walk the Line settles for the minimum.

Read Full Review >

What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this movie is 7.7 (out of 10) based on 146 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Robert L. gave it a4:
The story was familiar and simplistic, but heart affecting. Reese does an excellent job of acting and reasonably good singing, but Joaquin's one note acting and thin, off key singing ruined the story for me. I wish they would have used the original artist recordings to give true honor to the music instead of the karaoke subsitute we got.

Christian W. gave it a5:
Disappointing. Seemed to gloss over Johnny's dark side, drug use, arrest etc. Various scenes such as when Johnny or June are inspired to write a certain song were painfully contrived. Cash fans, I would say give it a miss and check out some of the good docos on his life instead.

Preston J gave it a5:
I'm sorry but as a film and the story that they told... I was not impressed. Yes Reese Witherspoon is a very talented actress, but Phoenix is bland and only shows rare glimmers of depth in this movie. As far as story telling goes I feel it was very rushed and basic. Rock star has traumatic childhood, Rock Star Becomes Famous, Rock Star Does Drugs, Girl rehabilitates Rock Star, Rock Star Gets Girl... every rock star movie follows said story.... blah.

[Anonymous] gave it a10:
Although I'm not American, Johnny Cash is for me a really great man, as he is a great musician. The movie shows him on his wrong and right sides, and is very affecting (don't know if this his the right word to tell how much i was touched) Moreover, the performance of Phoenix and Whiterspoon is really impressive.

Jared B. gave it a10:
Wow! What a great movie! Everything, from the cast to the script, was incredible. Joaquin Phoenix was amazing as the late, great Johnny Cash. And I can certainly see why Reese Witherspoon won the Oscar. She is so talented and, speaking from a male point of view, hot. Anyway, this was the best biopic of a country star's life since "Coal Miner's daughter."

John R. gave it a10:
I must have seen this movie about a million times already, and it just seems to be getting better and better every time I see it. The issues that Johnny Cash went through and the tours he was on were portrayed well. Reese Witherspoon was fantastic in the flick, she's got the pipes in her family. Awesome job by the entire crew and a great movie to have in the collection of DVDs at home.

Mike S. gave it a2:
I was surpirsed at how bad this movie was. Maybe my expectations were too high.

Read more user comments >

Popular on CBS sites: College Signing Day | Olympics | Lost | iPhone | Cell Phones | Video Game Reviews | Free Music

About CBS Interactive | Jobs | Advertise

© 2010 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved. | Privacy Policy (UPDATED) | Terms of Use