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Year One
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
Music of the Heart

Mixed or average reviews
Based on 33 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 4 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Drama
Written by: Pamela Gray
Directed by: Wes Craven
Release Date:
Theatrical: October 29, 1999
DVD: April 25, 2000
Running Time: 124 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: PG for brief mild language and sensuality
Starring Meryl Streep, Aidan Quinn, Angela Bassett, and Cloris Leachman
Story of a Harlem schoolteacher's (Streep) struggle to teach violin to inner-city kids. They eventually perform at Carnegie Hall.
Also On Metacritic
FILM: Cursed Red Eye Scream Scream 2 Scream 3 Vampire in Brooklyn Wes Craven Presents: Dracula 2000 Wes Craven Presents: They
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...
Mr. Showbiz Kevin Maynard
The year's first sure-fire Oscar nominee has arrived with flying colors.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Jack Mathews
No actress of her generation inhabits characters as thoroughly and convincingly as she (Streep) does, and this performance carries the movie
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
This one basically just sticks to the real story, which has all the emotional wallop that's needed.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Jay Carr
Avoids the potentially suffocating pall of uplift hovering over its quite exhilarating story.
Read Full Review >USA Today Susan Wloszczyna
Yearning for an old-fashioned movie with a well-told, uplifting message? Music of the Heart is playing your song.
Read Full Review >Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold
A teary appreciation of the value of a good teacher, the joy of music and the payoffs of discipline and hard work.
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez
Streep is simply amazing to behold, an actress who invests every fiber of her being -- every gesture, every inflection, every strand of hair -- into her performance.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Janet Maslin
An affirmation of the power of music to provide beauty, pleasure and a sense of accomplishment.
Read Full Review >TNT RoughCut Sjohnna McCray
Bring two boxes of tissue and a girlfriend to lean on for this blowout tearjerker.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey
The choppy film is like a composition crowded with competing themes.
Read Full Review >Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach
Tear-inducing feel-gooder that only a curmudgeon could find fault with.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times John Anderson
A lot of heart and a lot of music. It just doesn't sing.
Read Full Review >Film.com Tom Keogh
Streep delivers another of her chameleon-like transformations in appearance, accent, and manner.
Read Full Review >Rolling Stone Peter Travers
If "Mr. Holland's Opus" made you puke, you'd better bring a bucket to this true-life weepie about the importance of teaching music in schools.
Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy
So sloppily and unabashedly sentimental that it can make you laugh and cry at the same time -- and often at the same things.
Read Full Review >Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt
The story's can-do attitude and moments of soaring music make it a must-see for moviegoers seeking positive visions on the screen.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader Lisa Alspector
Self-congratulatory feature, which artificially exalts the character--a classic saint with clay feet--by casting a grande dame and by reducing her motives to facile psychodrama
Read Full Review >Village Voice Jessica Winter
Solid raw material, but the execution is overcooked.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov
Full of nuanced performances (Streep in particular) and wonderfully enveloping music.
Read Full Review >Time Richard Schickel
What saves this movie from hopeless sentimentality is Meryl Streep's subtle performance.
Salon.com Mary Elizabeth Williams
Falls flat for its skittish reluctance to bear any resemblance to an actual Wes Craven film.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle
Feels more like an earnest commercial for music education than successful entertainment.
Read Full Review >Newsweek Andrea C. Basora
In the end, it's just another novice-teacher-takes-on-inner-city-kids-and-nobody's-life-will-ever-be-the-same film
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
A sentimental epic that forgets to include the sentiment
Read Full Review >Slate David Edelstein
The credits had just started and I was already looking for a barf bag.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Desson Thomson
Another sentimental mushfest disguised as a movie.
Read Full Review >New York Post Lou Lumenick
Watching Meryl Streep act can be an exhausting experience - and never more so than during Music of the Heart.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 8.0 (out of 10) based on 4 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Zoe W. gave it an 8:
I like this touching movie. The best cast, and wonderful music!!
Redvers K. gave it a 7:
Wes Craven? WES CRAVEN? Oh well, it's good anyway, but WES CRAVEN? I for one was waiting for Streep to be grusomely murdered. By Cloris Leachman.
Konrad R. gave it a 7:
If Wes Craven wanted to show audiences that he can do more than horror, he's succeeded. No doubt you've seen it all before, but not quite like this. Meryl Streep steals the scene with her usual uplifting performance, but this time she's on the violin too. In the end, the film accomplishes it's goal of sending a message about the accomplishments of hardwork, determination and dedication. I'm a musician, I should know the buzz you get after a successful performance, and it's the same buzz I get at the end of this film.
