Metascore
85 out of 100

Universal acclaim - based on 30 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 26 out of 30
  2. Negative: 1 out of 30
  1. [Soderbergh] plays with time and narrative to reveal character, mood and longing in ways you just don't find in a mainstream crime picture.
  2. 100
    This isn't a profound film, or even an important one, but then it isn't trying to be. It's so diverting and so full of small satisfying pleasures, you don't realize how good it is until it's over.
  3. 100
    Engaging and consummately entertaining.
  4. The film's sleek moodiness and visual sophistication are so effective that there's even a scene here that makes Detroit look like the most romantic city in the world.
  5. Reviewed by: David Ansen
    100
    Lucky for us there are no ordinary circumstances in this smart, tasty adaptation of the Elmore Leonard novel and it gets quirkier, funnier and sexier as it goes.
  6. Reviewed by: Emanuel Levy
    100
    Reveals Soderbergh in peak form, as he endows Leonard's postmodern yarn with a meticulously detailed mise en scene that helps each member of his terrific ensemble soar.
  7. 100
    In some ways Soderbergh does a much better job than Tarantino. He handles the time shifts more adroitly, always keeping us on track; he goes easy on the violence, and when he does unleash it, it's short, fast and ugly.
  8. Reviewed by: Michael Sgragow
    100
    The audience responds to Out of Sight the way Jack and Karen do to each other. Instantly we like the way it looks, moves, and sounds. Ultimately we like how it makes us feel.
  9. One other element helps Out of Sight tremendously: the editing. [3 Aug 1998]
  10. 90
    Works both as a great romance and a great, unconventional crime thriller. But step back from such distinctions, and it just looks like a great movie.
  11. Reviewed by: David Edelstein
    90
    Soderbergh contrives the perfect voice for Leonard's prose--laid-back and grooving when it needs to be, but also taut, with the eerie foreboding of violence about to erupt.
  12. Reviewed by: Richard Schickel
    90
    What makes this movie work is the kind of cool that made Get Shorty go so nicely: an understanding that life's little adventures rarely come in neat three-act packages, the way most movies now do, and the unruffled presentation of outrageously twisted dialogue, characters and situations as if they were the most natural things in the world.
  13. Jack is just one of a dozen enormously appealing personalities in Out of Sight.
  14. 88
    The first film to build on the enormously influential "Pulp Fiction" instead of simply mimicking it. It has the games with time, the low-life dialogue, the absurd violent situations, but it also has its own texture.
  15. It's a nice mix, an elegantly smoky and dangerous cocktail -- just like the old noirs, but in a more modern, shinier glass. And since the basic brew is Elmore Leonard's, it tickles as it goes down. [26 June 1998]
  16. Reviewed by: Dave Kehr
    88
    When boy meets girl in Steven Soderbergh's jaunty, sexy Out of Sight, it happens with a bang.
  17. 88
    Everything in Out of Sight is smart -- the dialogue, the characters, and the storyline.
  18. Undoubtedly, [the lead actors] both benefit hugely from the sharpness of Leonard's stock-in-trade dialogue: Put smart words in any actor's yap, and their performance will rise accordingly.
  19. Lopez, for all her Latina-siren voluptuousness, has always projected a contained coolness, and this is the first movie in which it fully works for her.
  20. 80
    What makes "Out of Sight" a grown-up treat is that the mixture of lust and longing is as flawlessly proportioned as the ingredients in a perfect cocktail.
  21. Reviewed by: Tom Keogh
    80
    Soderbergh appreciates the value of having fun with a so-so script, turning its cliches into fresh experiences and infusing energy into the margins of a predictable story.
  22. Reviewed by: John Hartl
    80
    Quite a spicy brew.
  23. 78
    Hardly a serious caper film, Out of Sight instead takes a lighter approach, effortlessly offering up as many unexpected chuckles as it does bullets.
  24. Reviewed by: Andy Seiler
    75
    The low-key approach probably gets closer to the soul of Leonard, but it lacks zip. As a result, Out of Sight sometimes runs out of gas.
  25. 70
    Steven Soderbergh's direction conjures an understated '70s vibe, striking an apparently effortless balance between grit and glamour.
  26. Reviewed by: Ron Wells
    70
    Clooney has finally made a GOOD movie.
  27. Much of the action seems more like warmed-over Quentin Tarantino than first-rate Steven Soderbergh.
  28. Reviewed by: Barbara Shulgasser
    50
    Out of Sight needed the energetic and stylish hand of "Get Shorty" director Barry Sonnenfeld. Instead, a sad-sackish Soderbergh ( "sex, lies and videotape") comes at this material looking as if his mind was on something else, something much, much more depressing.
  29. Reviewed by: Sean Means
    50
    Soderbergh and [screenwriter] Frank like these sidekicks so much that they overwhelm the leads - a fairly easy task, since Lopez has all the police presence of a Revlon ad, while Clooney again tries to skate by on his good looks and smirking charm.
  30. Out of Sight engaged me less and less, until by the end I no longer cared which of the characters lived or died. Not even the engaging Jennifer Lopez, George Clooney, Albert Brooks, Don Cheadle, and Ving Rhames or the talented secondary cast can survive the abbreviations and last-minute shoehorning their characters receive.