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Year One
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
Dreamgirls
EMAILPRINTParamount Pictures / DreamWorks SKG

Generally favorable reviews
Based on 37 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 198 votes
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Movie Info
Genre(s): Drama | Musical
Written by:
Bill Condon
Tom Eyen (book)
Directed by: Bill Condon
Release Date:
Theatrical: December 15, 2006
DVD: May 1, 2007
Running Time: 130 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: PG-13 for language, some sexuality and drug content
Starring Jamie Foxx, Beyoncé Knowles, Eddie Murphy, Danny Glover, Anika Noni Rose, Keith Robinson, Jennifer Hudson, and Sharon Leal
Twenty-five years after bringing Broadway audiences to their feet, the Tony Award-winning musical sensation Dreamgirls comes to the big screen. Set in the turbulent early 1960s to mid-70s, Dreamgirls follows the rise of a trio of women (Hudson, Knowles and Rose) who have formed a promising girl group called The Dreamettes. (Paramount Pictures)
Also On Metacritic
FILM: Gods and Monsters Kinsey
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database View The Trailer Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Newsweek David Ansen
The movie belongs to Hudson as the proud, self-destructive Effie. When she's center stage, Dreamgirls transports you to movie musical heaven.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Jack Mathews
Hudson, taking over the role of Effie played on stage by Jennifer Holliday, is in charge of Dreamgirls from her opening scene, blowing away Grammy-winner Beyoncé Knowles, Oscar-winner Jamie Foxx and anyone else who gets in her way.
Read Full Review >The New Yorker David Denby
The sigh you will hear across the country in the next few weeks is the sound of a gratified audience: a great movie musical has been made at last.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey
Dreamgirls is one of the best movie musicals in memory.
Read Full Review >Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow
The ovation that Hudson wins from the movie's audience is one of those miraculous moments when a performer's artistry breaks through the screen and makes you feel part of a live audience. I haven't experienced anything like it since Barbra Streisand sang "My Man" at the end of her astonishing debut in Funny Girl.
Read Full Review >Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold
Though it seems long and its pace occasionally lags, it certainly struck me as a well-mounted, gloriously eye-filling and often exhilarating entertainment that brings back some of the delicious excitement of the great movie musicals.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader Albert Williams
Elegant, unabashedly theatrical, and packed with lush concert scenes and period-perfect costumes.
Read Full Review >Slate Dana Stevens
For all its flaws, Dreamgirls is what this holiday season needs. It's a big, fat, luscious movie in which no one is tortured, murdered, or mutilated (honestly, how many recent films can you say that about?).
Read Full Review >Variety David Rooney
Finally. After "The Phantom of the Opera," "Rent" and "The Producers" botched the transfer from stage to screen, Dreamgirls gets it right. Bill Condon's adaptation of the 1981 show about a Motown trio's climb to crossover stardom pulls off the fundamental double-act those three musical pics all missed: It stays true to the source material while standing on its own as a fully reimagined movie.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan
Dreamgirls is the entire musical package, a triumph of old school on-screen glamour, and we wouldn't want it any other way.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Steve Davis
Even when it feels packaged like a holiday entertainment that aims to please, watching Dreamgirls is like being on cloud nine.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey
Bill Condon's screen adaptation of the 1981 Broadway sensation is, if possible, as dazzling and energizing as its source.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Maitland McDonagh
Murphy is a revelation as James, and what American Idol castoff Hudson lacks in technical acting craft she makes up for in raw energy and a voice that could melt the rhinestones off a beauty queen. To complain that Beyonce pales by comparison is to fault her for nailing the essence of the infinitely malleable Deena.
Read Full Review >ReelViews James Berardinelli
Dreamgirls is good and at times it touches greatness.
Read Full Review >Premiere Stephen Saito
The reason to see Dreamgirls is what hasn't been advertised - a film that in spite of its shiny veneer actually hits all the high notes through its underlying rawness.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
Dreamgirls is the rare movie musical with real rapture in it.
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy
The film is like a lot like Effie: It occasionally vexes or disappoints, but -- I am telling you -- it dazzles.
Read Full Review >Empire Angie Errigo
Ardent, accomplished, overwhelmingly emotional, with something to say and a dream cast saying it in song. Bravo.
Read Full Review >The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt
If there is a disappointment, it is this: The anticipation may have exceeded the realization. It's a damn good commercial movie, but it is not the film that will revive the musical or win over the world.
Read Full Review >Village Voice Scott Foundas
Condon grasps what has eluded most of his contemporaries: Anyone can give us the old razzle-dazzle, but what makes a movie musical soar is nothing more or less than the quiet exhilaration of two individuals on the screen, enraptured by song.
Read Full Review >Time Richard Corliss/Richard Schickel
It's great to see a movie musical with a smart sense of the genre. All Dreamgirls lacks is the amazing energy and passion of the original.
Read Full Review >New York Post Lou Lumenick
Dreamgirls may be good enough to win the Oscar for Best Picture - great costumes, sets and choreography help - but despite stellar work by erstwhile "American Idol" contestant Hudson and Murphy, it's far from a great picture.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle
Indeed, without Hudson's magic, without that extra feeling that comes from seeing the launch of something extraordinary, Dreamgirls might have been a break-even affair. The film has strong roles, good actors and a compelling story that takes place over the course of 10 or 15 years. But it has, with only a couple of exceptions, a pedestrian score that sounds like generic show-music schlock and lyrics that are not distinctive.
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez
This glitzy, infectious and unusually heartfelt musical doesn't always hang together as a satisfying narrative -- too many characters compete for too little screen time -- but its pleasures are numerous enough to override its flaws.
Read Full Review >USA Today Claudia Puig
Jennifer Hudson is the heart and soul of Dreamgirls. When she's on the screen, the movie shines. When she's not, the whole endeavor suffers.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips
Dreamgirls is performed, shot, edited and packaged like a coming-attractions trailer for itself. Ordinarily that would be enough to sink a film straight off, unless you're a fan of "Moulin Rouge." But this one's a good time.
Read Full Review >Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer
Without Hudson, Dreamgirls would be a whole lot less exciting. Knowles, the ostensible star, is rather bland, and Foxx, surprisingly, seems miscast. Murphy is wonderful, but that should be no surprise.
Read Full Review >Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman
The film soars in the right places, especially when powerful newcomer Jennifer Hudson sings, and the charismatic supporting cast keeps it chugging forward.
Read Full Review >Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
She's (Jennifer Hudson) the best part of the show by far, but the writer-director Bill Condon, who wrote the screenplay for "Chicago" four years ago, has done the original "Dreamgirls" proud without solving its dramatic problems.
The New York Times A.O. Scott
The problem with “Dreamgirls” -- and it is not a small one -- lies in those songs, which are not just musically and lyrically pedestrian, but historically and idiomatically disastrous.
Read Full Review >New York Magazine David Edelstein
I know I'm going to bring down the room by saying I think it's just okay. Well, Jennifer Hudson is more than okay.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Wesley Morris
It's taken Dreamgirls 25 years and several false starts to get to the screen, so it's a shame to see what a rush job it feels like.
Read Full Review >Film Threat Pete Vonder Haar
Dreamgirls is a better musical than "Chicago" or "Rent," but then, that isn't really saying much.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Ann Hornaday
Even with Hudson's triumphant arrival and an overall fizzy mood of singing, dancing, pop nostalgia and camp, Dreamgirls is an uneven crowd pleaser.
Read Full Review >Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek
There's so little love to be found in Dreamgirls. It's a product that promises magic, and yet gives us nothing to live on.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Nathan Rabin
It's the ultimate pop-culture sacrilege: a movie about soul music that has no soul.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 7.2 (out of 10) based on 198 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
myself and I gave it a2:
The worst biopic I've ever seen. Actually, I only liked the costumes. They said it tries to tell the Supremes' story!!!! I don't think so. The music is NOT motown sound at all, it's Beyonce's sound instead; and there are too many stupid songs which are good and with good voices. But it is not motown, and people who really like 60's and soul music know that. Was it really so expensive to pay Motown for royalties?
Dee R. gave it a10:
Loved it, loved it, loved it. trying to find dress or pattern for dress Jennifer wore when performing "I am Changing". Where?
Elizabeth M. gave it a10:
My favorite movie it made me cry but it was worth it and is the best.
Tony B. gave it a7:
An only mediocre stage musical has been turned into a considerably better film.
Redlight gave it an8:
I really loved it, even though it has sugarcoated what actually happened in real life and has an uber-happy ending that didn't occur in real life. In real life, Florence Ballard (who Effie White (Jennifer Hudson) represents) spent her last years living in poverty before she died of coronary thrombosis. also before the supremes achieved mega stardom, she was raped at knifepoint by a friend of her brother's. Tragic. Apparently, Diana Ross (who Deena Jones (Beyonce) obviously represents) offered her help financially but I don't know if there's anything concrete to suggest that being true.
William W. gave it a4:
The music and acting were good but the plot, script writing was terrible. I feel like I just wasted two hours of my life.
PnArdy PnArdy gave it a10:
Amazing, excellent movie musical with Beyonce, Eddie Murphy, Jamie Foxx and ex-american idol Jennifer Hudson. Strong and deeply touching performance, cool soundtrack. The movie definetely should have got an oscar (Jennifer Hudson got only the best supporting actress).
