Almost Famous

Film.com Tom Keogh

A wondrous honesty.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

If you haven't already sold your soul to rock & roll, Almost Famous should seal the deal.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

See it and it'll stay with you as your own memories do: funny, poignant, bittersweet and irreplaceable.

Time Richard Corliss

So Almost Famous is almost fabulous. Oh, all right. The movie's so clever and endearing, you can forget the almost.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

It's not only the most gentle and effortlessly funny movie so far this year, it's a film with a style and sensibility that wonderfully harkens back to Hollywood's golden age of sophisticated comedy, and in particular to the masterpieces of Crowe's filmmaking idol, Billy Wilder.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

An unqualified triumph, the year's best movie so far.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

A rich, marvelous movie -- the kind that enchants on so many different levels, it leaves you feeling giddy.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

A great movie -- and the best movie ever about the '70s rock era.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

I loved this movie madly, and so will many of you.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Oh, what a lovely film. I was almost hugging myself while I watched it.

Film.com Robert Horton

You'll treasure this movie.

The New York Times Dana Stevens

What Mr. Crowe has done is nonetheless remarkable. He has made a movie about sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll that you would be happy to take your mother to see.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

Crowe, staying close to his memories, has gotten it, for perhaps the first time, onto the screen.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

One lucky guy, on a roll with rock.

TNT RoughCut J. Rentilly

Crowe has never been better.

Dallas Observer Robert Wilonsky

The first relevant film about rock and roll and the music industry, the first film that lets you in on the secret.

TNT RoughCut Andy Klein

Fugit and Hudson, despite getting fifth and third billing, are really the stars here; and they give the movie a genuine center of gravity.

TNT RoughCut Andy Klein

Casting is perfect all down the line.

TV Guide Stephen Miller

Sharply observed, bittersweet and suffused with the kind of detail that only someone who lived through the era could summon up, Crowe's script is funny, heartfelt and very cool.

TNT RoughCut Susannah Breslin

A must-see.

LA Weekly Manohla Dargis

Crowe has made a hugely entertaining, nearly pitch-perfect film about rock & roll.

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

It takes the rock movie into regions it has never been before.

Slate David Edelstein

Crowe's world is an open ecosystem --transcendentally open. This movie is his boombox held aloft.

Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten

Crowe has created a genuine love song for all those who've ever felt their lives to have been saved by rock & roll.

Boston Globe Jay Carr

Hollywood filmmaking at its best, brimming over with feeling, texture, spirit, and several kinds of keenness that transmute experience into big pop myth.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

Crowe gave Kate Hudson one pointer while making Almost Famous: Her character simply had to light up every room as soon as she walked into it.

USA Today Mike Clark

A movie that is easily likable.

Mr. Showbiz Cody Clark

Crowe's script is a thing of wonder, and he again proves himself to be an outstanding director of actors.

San Francisco Examiner Wesley Morris

More often than not the film casts an infectious, evocative spell.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

Like rock 'n' roll itself, the movie's really all about girls. Even when -- no, especially when -- it's pretending not to be.

Village Voice J. Hoberman

Panoramic yet cozy, enthusiastically glib.

Variety Todd McCarthy

More gentle and modestly insightful than it is exhilarating or revelatory.

Newsweek David Ansen

Though acid is dropped, groupies are bartered like poker chips and rock-star egos flare like fireworks, what comes through is the relative innocence of that era.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

This has much of the warmth and feeling for adolescence that Crowe displayed in his first feature ("Say Anything"), though the slick showboating of "Jerry Maguire" isn't entirely absent either.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

This is wonderful stuff, as far as it goes.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

Fugit gives a starmaking performance as the teenage reporter, and Crudup and Lee are excellent as the band's lead guitarist and singer, respectively.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

Crowe is so good on mood and milieu that when Elton John's bubblegum ballad "Tiny Dancer" swells on the soundtrack, in this context it sounds like a hymn.

Baltimore Sun Ann Hornaday

Has the sentiment and sweetness of a good coming-of-age movie but lacks the drive and pulse that makes for a great rock and roll movie.

San Francisco Chronicle Edward Guthmann

A sweet but curiously unfulfilling story.