Beloved Image
Metascore

Mixed or average reviews - based on 24 Critics What's this?

User Score

Generally favorable reviews- based on 5 Ratings

  • Starring: Danny Glover, Oprah Winfrey
  • Summary: Based on Toni Morrison's acclaimed novel, this is the story of a runaway slave struggling to carve out a simple existence with her children in rural Ohio.
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 11 out of 24
  2. Negative: 2 out of 24
  1. Doesn't sanitize its tale of African American loss and survival -- the way Steven Spielberg's “The Color Purple'' did -- but delves deeply, heartbreakingly into an American tragedy.
  2. 75
    What is surprising -- remarkable even -- is that Beloved arrives onscreen with a minimum of dull virtue, gagging uplift and slick Hollywood gloss.
  3. Reviewed by: Sandra Contreras
    60
    They've taken material with the power to insinuate itself directly into the realm of the imagination, and made it strangely inert and lifeless.
  4. 30
    When the movie isn't hitting us over the head, it's spooning out the material to us like broth to an invalid, drop by flavorless drop. The excruciating pace mirrors the sluggishness of Morrison's sonorous prose.

See all 24 Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 2 out of 2
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 2
  3. Negative: 0 out of 2
  1. kinnithj
    10
    This is one of the most gripping and interesting films I've ever seen. its just so deep with its many metaphors and it really makes the viewer think. I watched the film then immediately bought the book and read it two times back-to-back. It is just that interesting! Expand
  2. A harrowing drama-ghost story which serves as a metaphor for the ugliness of past sins still haunting the present. Truly disturbing film-making, full of grief and anguish that everyone tries to hide under the surface, but it all comes out in the end. Thandie Newton gave one of the best performances ever filmed, and the rest of the cast is nearly as riveting. This is a difficult film in a sense, but also very poetic and ultimately joyous. I highly recommend it. Expand