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Ragtime

EMAILPRINTParamount Pictures

Ragtime reviews
57
N/A User Score:

Mixed or average reviews

Based on 8 critic reviews
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Based on 0 votes
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Movie Info

Genre(s): Art/Independent  |  Drama

Written by: Michael Weller and Heinrich von Kleist
Michael Kohlhaas (story)
E.L. Doctorow (novel)

Directed by: Milos Forman

Release Date:
Theatrical: November 20, 1981
DVD: November 16, 2004

Running Time: 155 minutes, Color

Origin: USA

Summary

RATING: PG

Starring James Cagney, Brad Dourif, Moses Gunn, Elizabeth McGovern, and Kenneth McMillan

Set in the early 1900s, an upper middle class family takes in a young African-American woman and her infant son. When the father of the child returns, everything changes.

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...

88

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Rgatime is a loving, beautifully mounted, graceful film that creates its characters with great clarity.

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88

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Jay Scott

Ragtime itself twinkles with delight - perhaps only an immigrant, and a recent one, could have made this film, which looks squarely at the social problems gnawing at North America but which finds, within them and without them, cause for hope. [20 Nov 1981]

80

Variety Staff (Not Credited)

The page-turning joys of E.L. Doctorow's bestselling Ragtime, which dizzily and entertainingly charted a kaleidoscopic vision of a turn-of-century America in the midst of intense social change, have been realized almost completely in Milos Forman's superbly crafted screen adaptation.

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75

TV Guide Staff (Not Credited)

Ambitious, but only sporadically engaging.

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60

The New York Times Vincent Canby

The movie is sorrowful, funny and beautiful. It is also, finally, very unsatisfactory.

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60

Time Richard Corliss

Forman and Weller have created an impressive but strangely lopsided movie.

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38

Boston Globe Michael Blowen

Except for the evocative sets and Randy Newman's upbeat musical score, Ragtime is better read than seen. [18 Dec 1981]

20

Chicago Reader Dave Kehr

What's left is a curiously disconnected illustration of American racism, which nevertheless fails to realize the power and irony inherent in its pop-Marxist analysis.

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What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this movie is 0.0 (out of 10) based on 0 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

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