Frost/Nixon
Metascore
80 out of 100

Generally favorable reviews - based on 38 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 35 out of 38
  2. Mixed: 3 out of 38
  3. Negative: 0 out of 38
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  1. Chicago Sun-Times
    Reviewed by: Roger Ebert
    100
    Frank Langella and Michael Sheen do not attempt to mimic their characters, but to embody them.
  2. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Mick LaSalle
    100
    Morgan finds the right elements of action and character through which to make history leap off the page.
  3. TV Guide
    Reviewed by: Perry Seibert
    100
    The craftsmanship, acting, and history lesson all make it among the most satisfying films of Ron Howard's career.
  4. USA Today
    Reviewed by: Claudia Puig
    100
    It's hard to imagine how a film built around one-on-one interviews could be entertaining, but Frost/Nixon could not be more enthralling.
  5. Premiere
    Reviewed by: Staff (Not credited)
    100
    A totally mesmerizing battle of the wills between the occasionally charming yet wily Nixon and the increasingly desperate Frost.
  6. Charlotte Observer
    Reviewed by: Lawrence Toppman
    100
    Langella has always been a cerebral actor, one who never gives away all he's thinking. What comes through in this portrayal is how smart Nixon was, whether he's cunningly probing Frost's weaknesses or pitching himself to TV viewers as an avuncular, misunderstood Cold Warrior.
  7. Entertainment Weekly
    Reviewed by: Lisa Schwarzbaum
    91
    Surges with an energy and visual verve that improve the play and enhance the themes of dramatist Peter Morgan's script.
  8. The A.V. Club
    Reviewed by: Nathan Rabin
    91
    In a masterful performance, Langella highlights Nixon's oily charm and guile.
  9. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Kenneth Turan
    90
    The result is involving, engrossing cinema -- more thrilling, in fact, than Howard's "The Da Vinci Code" -- filmmaking of a type rarely seen anymore and sorely missed.
  10. Wall Street Journal
    Reviewed by: Joe Morgenstern
    90
    What Ron Howard gets, to a degree that's astonishing in a two-hour film, is the density and complexity, as well as the generous entertainment quotient, of Peter Morgan's screenplay.
  11. Rolling Stone
    Reviewed by: Peter Travers
    88
    Director Ron Howard has turned Peter Morgan's stage success into a grabber of a movie laced with tension, stinging wit and potent human drama.
  12. New York Post
    Reviewed by: Lou Lumenick
    88
    Sheen, who is also reprising his stage role and appeared as Tony Blair in the Morgan-written "The Queen," is highly effective as Frost - though the stakes for Frost are nowhere near as interesting as those for Nixon.
  13. ReelViews
    Reviewed by: James Berardinelli
    88
    Howard and Morgan have transformed this story into something more than an embellished re-telling of recent history. They have shaped a tragedy that is almost Shakespearean in force.
  14. Baltimore Sun
    Reviewed by: Michael Sragow
    88
    Ron Howard has made his best movie with Frost/Nixon, an electric political drama with a skin-prickling immediacy.
  15. Portland Oregonian
    Reviewed by: Shawn Levy
    83
    The result is a totally absorbing and entertaining film, one of the best historical dramas from Hollywood in many years.
  16. Seattle Post-Intelligencer
    Reviewed by: William Arnold
    83
    Throughout, it's clouded -- for me at least -- by a nagging sense that it's straining too hard to build the media clash into more of an historic event than it was.
  17. NPR
    Reviewed by: Bob Mondello
    80
    A case is being made here that it wasn't really Frost who did Nixon in: It was Nixon's old nemesis, the TV camera.
  18. Empire
    Reviewed by: Ian Nathan
    80
    Stirring stuff that works thrillingly as drama, and should make Sheen a star, even if it compromises on historical insight.
  19. Salon.com
    Reviewed by: Stephanie Zacharek
    80
    Howard has made a picture for grown-ups, a well-constructed entertainment that neither talks down to its audience nor congratulates it just for showing up.
  20. Village Voice
    Reviewed by: J. Hoberman
    80
    Frost/Nixon's main attraction is neither its topicality nor its historical value, but Langella's re-creation of his Tony-winning performance.
  21. Newsweek
    Reviewed by: David Ansen
    80
    Frost/Nixon works even better on screen. Director Ron Howard and Morgan, adapting his own play, have both opened up the tale and, with the power of close-ups, made this duel of wits even more intimate and suspenseful.
  22. Washington Post
    Reviewed by: Philip Kennicott
    80
    Neither the title nor the subject matter prepares you for the pure fun of Frost/Nixon.
  23. The New Yorker
    Reviewed by: David Denby
    80
    Offers considerable insight into the Nixon mystery, without solving it; the movie is fully absorbing and even, when Nixon falls into a drunken, resentful rage, exciting, but I can't escape the feeling that it carries about it an aura of momentousness that isn't warranted by the events.
  24. Austin Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Marjorie Baumgarten
    78
    Ultimately, Frost/Nixon may be stuck in time – but, oh, what a time it was.
  25. Chicago Tribune
    Reviewed by: Michael Phillips
    75
    Frost/Nixon is wholly absorbing.
  26. Philadelphia Inquirer
    Reviewed by: Steven Rea
    75
    Frost/Nixon is not the epic gladiatorial face-off, the ricocheting verbal shoot-out that writer Morgan and filmmaker Howard imagined.
  27. The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
    Reviewed by: Rick Groen
    75
    Shakespeare would have delighted in the chapter, especially in the antagonist, but not at the expense of the longer and darker and still-unfinished book.
  28. Christian Science Monitor
    Reviewed by: Peter Rainer
    75
    Never entirely escapes its theatrical origins, and, by framing the story so pugilistically, the filmmakers don't bring out the full richness in this material.
  29. The Hollywood Reporter
    Reviewed by: Kirk Honeycutt
    70
    Less a political movie than a boxing film without the gloves.
  30. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: Manohla Dargis
    70
    Stories of lost crowns lend themselves to drama, but not necessarily audience-pleasing entertainments, which may explain why Frost/Nixon registers as such a soothing, agreeably amusing experience, more palliative than purgative.
  31. Slate
    Reviewed by: Dana Stevens
    70
    Morgan's compact, satisfying drama presents presidential interviewing as a gladiatorial event.
  32. Time
    Reviewed by: Richard Corliss
    70
    For closeup conflict and emotional kick, the Frost/Nixon movie tops the play. But neither can match the tension and weird poignancy of the original interviews -- reality TV of the highest, queasiest order.
  33. Variety
    Reviewed by: Todd McCarthy
    70
    Frank Langella's meticulous performance will generate the sort of attention that will attract serious filmgoers.
  34. Chicago Reader
    Reviewed by: J.R. Jones
    70
    Ron Howard directed, with outstanding support from Kevin Bacon as Jack Brennan, Nixon's fierce chief of staff.
  35. Boston Globe
    Reviewed by: Ty Burr
    63
    Despite a moving, canny incarnation of the man by Frank Langella, despite a slickly entertaining coffee-table production as only Ron Howard knows how, the movie feels cooked up.
  36. Film Threat
    Reviewed by: Scott Mendelson
    60
    Fails to add anything of substance to the history that it portrays.
  37. Miami Herald
    Reviewed by: Rene Rodriguez
    50
    Despite the great care and research that went into the movie, Frost/Nixon pales in comparison to Oliver Stone's "Nixon" when it comes to humanizing the infamous leader.
  38. New York Magazine (Vulture)
    Reviewed by: David Edelstein
    50
    Unsatisfying even if, like me, you're a lifelong aficionado of Nixon-bashing.

User Reviews

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User Score
7.7 out of 10

Generally favorable reviews- based on 109 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 38 out of 44
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 44
  3. Negative: 5 out of 44
  1. imthenoob
    6
    The film was incredibly boring through out until the very end (the final 20-30 mins or so), Which is really disapointing. However, those final 20-30 mins are very powerful and sort of make up for the rest.… Full Review »
  2. FullMetalWesker
    9
    This review contains spoilers, click full review link to view. I have to admit, going in to watching this film, I was expecting this to be an above average movie about a semi-interesting event (Interesting mainly because of the time period) Going out however, I'd say this is now one of my favourite films of 2008, and, like another one of my favourite films of the same year, it's mostly down to the acting of the films 'main antagonist' in this case, Frank Lagella's superb performance as Richard Nixon. In almost every scene the man appears in (and there are a lot of them) my eyes were almost entirely focused on him. However, that said, his wasn't the only good performance; both Michael Sheen (as David Frost) and Kevin Bacon (as Jack Breenan, Nixon's minder) delivered good performances, and are some of the best I'd seen from them (though admittedly I haven't seen much from either actor)
    Now, I know this film has a few inaccuracies with the real events, particularly the midnight phone scene between the title characters which apparently never happened. Some say things like this diminish the film, but to me, a movies first and most important function, is to entertain, and I think scenes like that add to the film, and I would actually say that the aforementioned scene was probably one of my favourites of the entire film,.
    Anyway, I think I'd better stop now, I might end up like Nixon during the first interview and go on for hours if I don't xD But in short, I think it's a very good film, and one I recommend to almost anyone who's somewhat interested in either the topic, or just want to watch a drama that doesn't involve heinous amounts of gunfights and/or explosions.    … Full Review »
  3. A_Northerner
    8
    Absorbing historical drama based on the series of interviews between British chat show host David Frost and disgraced former US President Richard Nixon in 1977.

    The film is based on the play of the same name and Michael Sheen (Frost) and Frank Langella (Nixon) reprise their characters from the stage version. This continuity gives both actors confidence in their portrayals and both give terrific performances, in particular Langella, who earned an Oscar nod for his initially snarling and defiant and later personal and sombre portrayal of Nixon.

    Frost/Nixon deals with the preparation for the interviews by both camps, an unfavoured Frost and team and an over-confident Nixon. The interviews are likened to a boxing match, with both participants retiring to their respective corners in between sparring sessions, and Nixon's chief of staff Jack Brennan (Kevin Bacon) temporarily 'throwing in the towel' on Nixon's behalf before Frost delivers the knock-out blow. In dealing with the most significant scandal in American politics, director Ron Howard has an engrossing subject matter to work with and he does a decent job behind the camera mixing in faux-documentary retrospective interviews with some of the bit part players with clever shots of the interviews from behind the camera.    … Full Review »
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