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Ulee's Gold
Metascore
77 out of 100

Generally favorable reviews - based on 23 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 19 out of 23
  2. Mixed: 4 out of 23
  3. Negative: 0 out of 23
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  1. Entertainment Weekly
    Reviewed by: Owen Gleiberman
    100
    Ulee's Gold is a story of redemption, and Nunez doesn't make redemption look any easier than it is.
  2. Rolling Stone
    Reviewed by: Peter Travers
    90
    Nunez finds a striking lyricism in simple lives that inspires an uncommonly fine cast and ranks him as a world-class filmmaker.
  3. The A.V. Club
    Reviewed by: Keith Phipps
    90
    Though it occasionally wears its metaphors on its sleeve, Ulee's Gold should, if there's any justice, find the same thoughtful-drama-hungry audience that made "Sling Blade" a hit.
  4. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Kenneth Turan
    90
    Ulee's Gold stands out for its sureness, its quiet emotional force and writer-director Victor Nunez's ability to find and nurture the mystery and power in the events of an ordinary life.
  5. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: Elvis Mitchell
    90
    Beautiful and heartfelt, an oasis of humanity in a season of furious hyperbole.
  6. Austin Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Russell Smith
    89
    Fonda brings all of his childhood frustration and angst to the screen in one of the year's most unexpectedly brilliant acting performances.
  7. Chicago Sun-Times
    Reviewed by: Roger Ebert
    88
    Nunez has a gift for finding the essence, the soul, of his actors.
  8. USA Today
    Reviewed by: Mike Clark
    88
    An emotionally honest low-ebber that builds to a satisfying wrap-up.
  9. ReelViews
    Reviewed by: James Berardinelli
    88
    The highest compliment I can offer Ulee's Gold is that it plays more like real life than a movie.
  10. L.A. Weekly
    Reviewed by: Ernest Hardy
    80
    Nunez is a master at rendering emotionally complex, ordinary folk into the kind of unassuming heroes that don't much appear in American films anymore.
  11. Newsweek
    Reviewed by: David Ansen
    80
    Ulee's Gold possesses an attribute that's increasingly rare in American filmmaking, independent or Hollywood: call it soul.
  12. Washington Post
    Reviewed by: Desson Thomson
    80
    The film becomes a modest delight.
  13. Chicago Reader
    Reviewed by: Jonathan Rosenbaum
    80
    Leisurely pacing of this kind is likely to register as a form of respect for the viewer's intelligence and observation.
  14. San Francisco Examiner
    Reviewed by: Walter Addiego
    75
    Nunez's style is quiet, simple and deliberate, but the film never drags.
  15. The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
    Reviewed by: Liam Lacey
    75
    Peter Fonda's the bee's knees in the performance of his career.
  16. Film.com
    Reviewed by: Tom Keogh
    70
    A very pleasant experience in watching life unfold in its own direction and time.
    All this critic's reviews
  17. Slate
    Reviewed by: David Edelstein
    70
    Nunez's movies go places, but with no acceleration.
  18. Variety
    Reviewed by: Todd McCarthy
    70
    Nunez achieves a rare, and rarely earned, emotional depth that rewards the moderate demands he makes on contemporary viewers' short attention spans.
  19. The New Republic
    Reviewed by: Stanley Kauffmann
    70
    Still, flaws and all, we have to be grateful to Nunez for persisting in his independence.
  20. TV Guide
    Reviewed by: Ken Fox
    60
    The power of an otherwise carefully crafted film is undone by risky and not altogether successful casting.
  21. New Times (L.A.)
    Reviewed by: Michael Sragow
    60
    Nunez's direction is as self-consciously homey as a floral welcome mat.
  22. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Mick LaSalle
    50
    Worthy but dull.
  23. Time
    Reviewed by: Richard Schickel
    50
    Nunez's film neither floats like a butterfly nor stings like a bee. It just drones on.
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