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Oswald's Ghost
Metascore
62 out of 100

Generally favorable reviews - based on 13 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 5 out of 13
  2. Mixed: 8 out of 13
  3. Negative: 0 out of 13
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  1. Entertainment Weekly
    Reviewed by: Owen Gleiberman
    100
    In Oswald's Ghost, his vast chronicle of the JFK assassination and its cultural aftermath, Stone uses little-seen footage to assemble the events of Nov. 22, 1963, with a fascinating present-tense density.
  2. New York Daily News
    Reviewed by: Jack Mathews
    75
    Though we had just heard the name Lee Harvey Oswald, I believed he had done it alone. I still do, even more so after watching Robert Stone's meticulously researched, seemingly unbiased summary of the killing and the major conspiracy theories.
  3. TV Guide
    Reviewed by: Ken Fox
    75
    Veteran conspiracy buffs probably won't find much of Stone's material particularly new, but Stone's film does serve as a neat summary for the rest of us while offering a number of intriguing insights into how conspiracy theories work and what they say about specific cultural and political climates.
  4. Variety
    Reviewed by: Joe Leydon
    70
    Oswald's Ghost impresses as a concise, intelligent and rigorously well-researched piece of work.
  5. The A.V. Club
    Reviewed by: Noel Murray
    67
    Late in the film, Stone interviews Norman Mailer, a one-time conspiracy-believer who eventually wrote a book that tried to get inside Oswald's head, explaining how Oswald's story is America's story. In less than a minute, Mailer describes the documentary Stone should've made.
  6. Salon.com
    Reviewed by: Andrew O'Hehir
    60
    Lee Harvey Oswald's guilt or innocence or accomplices are not the point of the film; Stone is more interested in the fact that much about the Kennedy murder is now so shrouded in myth and mystification as to be permanently unknowable, and that that fact alone has gnawed away at the self-confidence of middle-class white America ever since.
  7. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: Matt Zoller Seitz
    60
    The documentary Oswald's Ghost initially plays as yet another primer on the assassination of John F. Kennedy and the vilification of Lee Harvey Oswald.
  8. The Hollywood Reporter
    Reviewed by: Frank Scheck
    50
    Never really decides whether it wants to concentrate on providing information or sociological analysis, with the result that it fails to fully satisfy on either level.
  9. New York Post
    Reviewed by: V.A. Musetto
    50
    As a history lesson, Oswald's Ghost is valuable, but don't go expecting any new revelations.
  10. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Leba Hertz
    50
    While trying to establish whether a conspiracy took place, the film attempts to solve the enigma that was Lee Harvey Oswald.
  11. Village Voice
    Reviewed by: Michael Fox
    50
    Riveting yet ultimately unsatisfying documentary.
  12. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Kevin Thomas
    50
    Stone covers territory all too familiar to most Americans old enough to remember the JFK assassination.
  13. Film Threat
    Reviewed by: Phil Hall
    40
    The only obvious question that Oswald's Ghost raises is: how come Mort Sahl wasn't in the movie? (If you don't get that joke, you need to brush up on your Kennedy conspiracy lessons.)
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