Field of Dreams

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

This is the kind of movie Frank Capra might have directed, and James Stewart might have starred in - a movie about dreams.

Empire Staff (Not Credited)

What it's really about is taking a second chance to make good on old regrets and dead hopes. Never mind the baseball, this is one for the heart, made beautifully.

The New York Times Caryn James

A work so smartly written, so beautifully filmed, so perfectly acted, that it does the almost impossible trick of turning sentimentality into true emotion.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

Despite a few wrong turns early on, the movie gathers graceful momentum and heads straight to the warm heart of the book - that fond spot located just on the safe side of sentimentality, a feel- good place that doesn't leave any feel-stupid fallout.

Chicago Tribune Dave Kehr

As shrewd and accomplished as the movie is, there's still something uncomfortably manipulative about it... It doesn't explore its primal theme as much as it exploits it, tapping into the automatic, nearly universal power of guilt and regret. [21 Apr 1989, Friday, p.A]

USA Today Mike Clark

Imagine: a pseudo-intellectual baseball fantasy loaded up, like a spitter, with seductive sentiment. You can distrust the mix, but still like the movie - and I do. [21 Apr 1989, Life, p.D1]

Los Angeles Times Michael Wilmington

But there's something missing, something tentative and uncertain. In order to pull off a magic trick, you often have to distract the audience with smooth patter, clever detail or indirection. And this movie tries to play it so pure and unabashed that we can see right up its sleeves. [21 Apr 1989, Calendar, p.6-1]

TV Guide Staff (Non Credited)

Ultimately, the film relies too heavily on consensual acceptance of baseball iconography as some kind of symbolic shorthand for all kinds of American values. These days, most of us prefer the NBA.

Washington Post Rita Kempley

Everything from time travel to melodrama figures in this whimsically daft story, a romanticization that tries your patience even as your tear ducts well.

Film Threat Brad Laidman

If you're in the right mood this movie will bring a tear to your eye. If you're not you're probably already watching "Reservoir Dogs".

Variety Staff (Not Credited)

In spite of a script hobbled with cloying aphorisms and shameless sentimentality, Field of Dreams sustains a dreamy mood in which the idea of baseball is distilled to its purest essence.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

The movie may steal a base here and there, but there are no homers.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

Well-made treacle.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

The picture almost overwhelms you with sheer niceness. Unfortunately, this effect doesn't last; eventually the movie goes too far and overdoses on its own saccharine. [2 May 1989, Arts, p.11]

San Francisco Chronicle Peter Stack

This movie reverie has an almost laughable '80s tone - a yuppified style and even language - that practically buries Costner. [21 Apr 1989, Daily Datebook, p.E1]

The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann

The tenuous conclusion is that all this metaphysical hugger-mugger was divinely ordered to reconcile Costner and his father. All those dead players were summoned from that Great Locker Room in the Sky in a painfully false move. [9 May 1989, p.26]

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

To be honest, I started hearing things, too. Just when Jones was delivering an inexcusably sappy speech about baseball being "a symbol of all that was once good in America," I heard the words "If he keeps talking, I'm walking."