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Gangs of New York

Generally favorable reviews
Based on 39 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 119 votes
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Movie Info
Genre(s): Drama
Written by:
Jay Cocks (also story)
Steven Zaillian
Kenneth Lonergan
Directed by: Martin Scorsese
Release Date:
Theatrical: December 20, 2002
DVD: July 1, 2003
Running Time: 168 minutes, Color
Origin: USA / Germany / Italy / UK / Netherlands
Summary
RATING: R for intense strong violence, sexuality/nudity and language
Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Daniel Day-Lewis, Cameron Diaz, Jim Broadbent, John C. Reilly, Henry Thomas, Brendan Gleeson, and Liam Neeson
Set in New York City between 1840 and 1863, this is the story of a young man named Amsterdam (DiCaprio) who seeks vengeance against Bill "The Butcher" Poole (Day-Lewis), the man who killed his father as a result of warfare between the powerful Manhattan gangs.
Also On Metacritic
FILM: Bringing Out the Dead Cape Fear Casino Goodfellas Kundun My Voyage to Italy Raging Bull Taxi Driver The Age of Innocence The Aviator The Departed The Last Temptation of Christ The Last Waltz
TV: No Direction Home: Bob Dylan
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...
Rolling Stone Peter Travers
Gangs of New York is something better than perfect: It's thrillingly alive.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington
A magnificent throwback to an almost vanished era of epic filmmaking by great filmmakers in thrall to their own passions, rather than to the studio bookkeepers.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum
Everything is vast and hugely ambitious in Martin Scorsese's magisterial, scrambled historical epic.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias
A grand achievement in history and anthropology, supporting its ambition and scope with a sumptuous re-creation of the period and an immediacy that allows a forgotten past to barrel into the present.
Read Full Review >Time Richard Corliss
This daring, perhaps confusing declaration of irrelevance suggests that the epic is a form a director like Scorsese must subvert even as he invokes it. But it doesn't erase the sordid splendor of Scorsese's congested, conflicted, entrancing achievement.
Read Full Review >Variety Todd McCarthy
Bears all the earmarks of a magnum opus for Martin Scorsese: Fascinating and fresh material about his beloved New York City, an epic reach, an equally epic gestation period, a dynamic criminal element, combustible socio-political-religious elements, outstanding actors and sophisticated allusions to cinema history that inform and enrich the experience.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Michael O'Sullivan
Scorsese creates a film so resonant that it is both a work of great art and an anthropological document.
Read Full Review >The New York Times A.O. Scott
This is historical filmmaking without the balm of right-thinking ideology, either liberal or conservative. Gangs of New York is nearly a great movie. I suspect that, over time, it will make up the distance.
Read Full Review >Slate David Edelstein
It's a magnificent achievement—holes, tatters, crudities, screw-ups, and all.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Ty Burr
Scorsese and his team of Grade A talents are working on an operatic scale here, and like many operas, this is long, overwrought, sprawling, and more than frequently brilliant. It also hits just enough discordant notes to keep it from greatness.
Read Full Review >Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman
Each major character is complex, none more so than Bill. He's almost Shakespearean in scope.
Read Full Review >USA Today Mike Clark
If Martin Scorsese's staggeringly ambitious one-of-a-kind finally has too many flaws to be great, it has as much greatness in it as any movie this year.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
Rips up the postcards of American history and reassembles them into a violent, blood-soaked story of our bare-knuckled past.
Read Full Review >Film Threat Rich Cline
This is a spacious, robust movie that grabs hold of us and doesn't let go for nearly three hours.
Read Full Review >Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
Throbs with an ambition that sends it soaring, then brings it down.
New York Post Jonathan Foreman
Though never dull and often visually beautiful, this work of operatic sweep doesn't fulfill its own ambitions.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Jami Bernard
The movie turns choppy in the final third, but it is a monumental achievement nonetheless.
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy
There is greatness in Martin Scorsese's Gangs of New York: titanic acting, violent poetry, moviemaking on a grand scale, a real air of daring. And there is flab in it as well, and confusion.
Read Full Review >ReelViews James Berardinelli
Doesn't come close to masterpiece status. There are some great individual scenes and a tremendous performance by Daniel Day-Lewis, but the connecting material is mediocre, leading to the occasional twinge of dissatisfaction.
Read Full Review >Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt
The movie is strong in sound and fury, weak in nuance and insight.
Read Full Review >Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold
All of Scorsese's movies deliver a mixed message, but this one is downright schizophrenic.
Read Full Review >New York Magazine Peter Rainer
Stunning, and it has the added bonus of being about an era that is virtually new to movies. As a dramatic achievement, however, it is not quite so amazing.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen
While the initial sequence is glorious, the last is a shambles.
Read Full Review >Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow
Unfortunately, it lacks emotional lift or folkloric fervor.
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez
Gangs of New York is many things, but a masterpiece is not one of them. It is primarily, and somewhat surprisingly, a poky western, with a vengeful orphan.
Read Full Review >Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek
"Gunsmoke" meets "Planet of the Apes" in Martin Scorsese's overlarge, overcooked epic of 19th century Manhattan. You should see it anyway.
Read Full Review >Village Voice J. Hoberman
Cost well over $100 million, and the money is up there for the gawking. Illuminated by the orange flames of hell, the vast New York City set looks great. The least engaging aspect of the movie is its script -- which passed through the hands of three separate writers and perhaps even producer Harvey Weinstein.
Read Full Review >LA Weekly John Powers
Scorsese and his writers have saddled their dream with a corny plot apparently lifted from some old 1930s Warner Bros. film starring Jimmy Cagney and Pat O'Brien.
Read Full Review >The New Yorker David Denby
The movie is strange and muddled -- a disorganized epic -- but Day-Lewis, disporting himself with royal assurance, does what he can to hold it together. [23 & 30 December 2002, p. 166]
The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann
The flaw that separates Scorsese's film into its components is its lack of a crystallized theme.
Read Full Review >Dallas Observer Bill Gallo
The problem here lies not in the abundance of blood--we've seen that before--but in the film's pounding insistence, which prevails for all two hours and 40 minutes, that we also absorb a rather thin and unreliable history lesson.
Read Full Review >Newsweek David Ansen
Gangs is a dream project Scorsese has wanted to make for 30 years. You have to honor its mad ambition. But sadly, it feels like a dream too long deferred.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Maitland McDonagh
Epic, meticulously researched and ultimately disappointing, Martin Scorsese's bloody valentine to the birth of his beloved city is less than the sum of its parts.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Stephen Hunter
Under its scope and reach and passion, Gangs of New York is pretty ordinary stuff.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea
An elaborately worked-over opus that's as tarted-up and artificial as Scorsese's '70s classic Mean Streets was gritty and real, Gangs of New York feels like a movie musical without the songs.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum
Starts off with a lot of promise and excitement but winds up 165 minutes later feeling empty and affectless.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan
Scorsese and his team have created a heavy-footed golem of a motion picture, hard to ignore as it throws its weight around but fatally lacking in anything resembling soul.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 6.7 (out of 10) based on 119 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Trevor H. gave it a4:
A pretty bad movie from a pretty good director. the only reason it has a four is because Daniel day lewis' performance is fantastic but the movie lacks any sort of purpose. some better editing could have cut out half this movie and at least then it wouldn't have been such a build up to nothing. "the blood stays on the blade"? lame. and what was the deal with that opening music? absolutely terrible.
Seth F. gave it a7:
I felt it was a solid film, up until the end. I felt there were two films going on, and by the time there was the epic battle between Day Lewis and DiCaprio, I felt let down. But Scorsese proves he doesn't have to have the present day to make an effective film. I loved watching it!
Kevin M gave it a3:
Just about everything that can go wrong with a film goes wrong here. No unifying theme or idea, poor writing and characterization with equally poor acting, terrible use of music (who the hell chose that song to play during the opening fight?), and a trite use of the twin towers at the very end. Never at any point in this movie are we offered a single reason to care about it or any of the characters and it seems never once did they ask "why are we even making this film?" It's a purposeless and overrated flop from a very good director.
Conor S. gave it a9:
This is one of Scorsese's finest accomplishments. Though Leo fails to really step it up and deliver, he does fine and hands the spotlight to the far superior (in this film) Daniel Day Lewis, who is fascinating to watch and at the same time chilling. Though he plays the villain, I found myself rooting for him after the first half of the film.
Blake J. gave it an8:
A painfully gruesome and honest portrayal of racism. Daniel Day-Lewis falls into his role so well half the time you will wonder if he is coming for you.
Joseph gave it a10:
Excellent movie. Amazing acting. Original and chaotically beautiful. Gritty and intriguing. You should give this movie a chance unless the only action you enjoy is the standard "action flick."
Eon gave it a5:
As much as I like Scorcese, this movie is boring and pointless.
