JFK

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Stone and his editors, Joe Hutshing and Pietro Scalia, have somehow triumphed over the tumult of material here and made it work - made it grip and disturb us.

San Francisco Chronicle Peter Stack

Director Oliver Stone has fashioned in JFK a riveting, dramatic and disturbing look at one of the great whodunits of history. [20 Dec 1991]

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

[Stone's] filmmaking is so supple and alive, his obsession with the visual aspect of history so electrifying, that JFK practically roots itself in your imagination.

Washington Post Rita Kempley

JFK is Stone's best and most emotional film since "Platoon."

Time Richard Corliss

Through his art and passion, Stone makes JFK plausible, and turns his thesis of a coup d'etat into fodder for renewed debate.

TV Guide Staff (Not Credited)

Director and co-screenwriter Oliver Stone pulls off an amazing filmmaking feat with JFK, transforming the dry minutiae of every John F. Kennedy assassination conspiracy theory of the past three decades into riveting screen material.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

Controversy and all, JFK is one of the year's most powerful and provocative films.

Chicago Tribune Gene Siskel

Does JFK capture the truth? Possibly, in a poetic sense. Is it a compelling film? Most assuredly. [20 Dec 1991]

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

Disturbing, infuriating yet undeniably effective, less a motion picture than an impassioned. [20 Dec 1991]

Empire Torene Svitil

Truth or not, this is an exceptional piece of cinema, deeply provoking and audacious.

Variety Staff (Not Credited)

This massive, never-boring political thriller, which most closely resembles Costa-Gavras' Z in style and impact.

Washington Post Desson Howe

Stone creates a riveting marriage of fact and fiction, hypothesis and empirical proof in the edge-of-the-seat spirit of a conspiracy thriller.

Wall Street Journal Julie Salamon

It's powerful film making that at the very least accomplishes what Mr. Stone said he set out to do - to offer the world an alternate myth. [20 Dec 1991]

Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten

Stone makes it virtually impossible to leave the theatre convinced, beyond all shadow of doubt, of the lone gunman theory.

Boston Globe Jay Carr

It's riveting moviemaking and a boost for what's left of America's ailing collective life. [20 Dec 1991]

USA Today Mike Clark

JFK is provocative, a technical primer and an ensemble treat with unusually well- realized star cameos. [20 Dec 1991]

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

The movie is often tremendously exciting.

The New York Times Vincent Canby

The movie, which is simultaneously arrogant and timorous, has been unable to separate the important material from the merely colorful.

Baltimore Sun Stephen Hunter

JFK is entertaining, if only because the cast of characters in the New Orleans underground is so bizarre. [20 Dec 1991]

Portland Oregonian Ted Mahar

JFK drags but is undeniably fascinating. [20 Dec 1991]

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

It is preachy, didactic and heavy-handed as only an Oliver Stone movie can be. And yet ... and yet... despite all this, the film has an undeniable cumulative power. [20 Dec 1991]

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

A three-hour oration, rambling and familiar and repetitive, during which director Oliver Stone uses the assassination of John Kennedy as an elaborate pretext for delivering a dull sermon. [20 Dec 1991]

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

Stone's all-purpose conspiracy theory, built like a house of cards, rivals "Mississippi Burning" in its sheer crudeness and contempt for the audience.